Global temperatures hit new highs

Last year was the third warmest year globally, scientists confirmed, as a result of human activity driving a hotter climate.

Scientists around the world—including the UK Met Office, the University of East Anglia (UEA), and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS)—published their data for 2025, revealing that it was the third consecutive year with temperatures more than 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, CE Report quotes ATA.

Last year’s temperature was 1.41 degrees above the baseline of 19th-century temperatures, following record heat in 2024 and 2023, according to “HadCRUT5” data collected by the Met Office, UEA, and NCAS. Meanwhile, Europe’s “Copernicus ERA5” analysis measured temperatures at 1.47 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

The “HadCRUT5” dataset places the average temperature over the past three years at 1.47 degrees above the 1850–1900 baseline, while Copernicus monitoring found that, on average, temperatures exceeded 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Tim Osborn, professor and director of the Climate Research Unit at UEA, said that the previous two years had been further warmed by a natural climate variation in the Pacific Ocean, the “El Niño” phenomenon, which added around 0.1 degrees Celsius to global temperatures.

“This effect weakened in 2025, revealing a clearer picture of underlying human-driven warming,” he said.

“Sharp and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would slow and eventually halt further human-induced climate change worldwide,” he added.

“The long-term rise in global annual average temperatures is driven by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere caused by humans,” said climate scientist Colin Morice.

“Year-to-year temperature fluctuations are mainly caused by natural variations in the climate system,” he added.

Scientists confirmed that the main driver of global warming is human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels.

With analyses placing long-term temperatures 1.37 to 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, experts warned that the world is approaching the 1.5-degree limit agreed under the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to avoid the worst impacts of droughts, floods, extreme heat, wildfires, and ecosystem collapse.

Copernicus scientists also noted that the last 11 years have been the warmest ever recorded.

“The fact that the last 11 years have been the warmest ever provides further evidence of the unmistakable trend toward a hotter climate,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“The world is rapidly approaching the long-term temperature limit set by the Paris Agreement,” he said.

“Persistent warmth through 2025, without the warming influence of El Niño, underscores the urgency of halting planetary warming and its escalating climate impacts by rapidly reducing greenhouse gases across all sectors of society,” said Richard Allan, professor and climate scientist at the University of Reading.

“The impacts on ecosystems and human food and water systems are escalating quickly, and we risk a climate that, in my children’s lifetimes, will be almost as different from our natural climate as the last Ice Age, only hotter instead of colder,” said John Marsham, professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Leeds.

“This will be catastrophic for ecosystems, human health, and our food and water systems,” he said.

“At the recent UK National Climate and Nature Emergency Meeting, MPs heard that action by the UK could be beneficial even if other countries do not act—renewable energy reduces costs, creates jobs, and provides energy security,” Marsham added, emphasizing the need for urgent action.