By Carolyn Gramling / ScienceNews / January 13, 2026
The last three years were the hottest on record, a new analysis of global climate data finds. They also mark the first three-year period in which the global average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — a threshold associated with increased risks to biodiversity, human health and weather extremes.
“1.5 degrees C is not a cliff edge, but we know that every half a degree matters,” said climate scientist Samantha Burgess at a January 12 press event announcing the report. Burgess is the strategic climate lead for the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, or ECMWF, which released the report January 14.
Although 2025 was slightly cooler than the two previous years, averaging 1.47 degrees above preindustrial temperatures, Earth is warming faster than it was a decade ago. The planet is now on track to consistently exceed the 1.5-degree threshold by 2029.
The year 2024 remains Earth’s hottest on record, averaging 1.6 degrees above the preindustrial period, with 2023 still in second place. While the tropics in 2025 were somewhat cooler than in 2024, Antarctica saw its hottest year on record and the Arctic its second hottest. Sea ice at both poles was also at record lows.
The primary driver of these temperatures is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, dominated by the burning of fossil fuels, Burgess said.
Tropical air temperatures in 2023 and 2024 were boosted by a strong El Niño. But in 2025, the planet entered a neutral or weak La Niña phase of that climate oscillation pattern, generally bringing cooler temperatures. However, 2025 still ranked as the warmest La Niña on record, Burgess said.
“There were historically high sea surface temperatures throughout 2025, despite the absence of El Niño conditions,” she said.
Extreme weather events exacerbated by rising temperatures — including wildfires, heat waves and heavy rainfall — were widespread in 2025, according to analyses from the World Weather Attribution, a global consortium of climate scientists. More than half the globe saw an increase in days with heat stress, defined as experiencing temperatures of more than 40° C.
“Will 2026 be more exceptional? It’s too early to tell,” Burgess said. But the overall trend is clear, and there’s an 80 percent chance that at least one of the next five years will replace 2024 at the top, she said.
The last 11 years have been the world’s hottest on record. “My expectation is that next year will be 12 out of 12.”
Maybe it’s about time to trashbin the oilman president Wbush’s PR flak Frank Luntz and his incredibly stupid (but brilliant) invention and use of the term ‘climate change’ to describe worldwide destabilization of the atmosphere. The guy is still out there spewing his garbage, and brags about working for over 50 different corporations who, bluntly, are the bad guys in anything to do with fossil fuels because they literally LIED their way into being billionaires by silencing their OWN scientists and censoring the conclusions they came out with in the 1960s/70s. The wealthy knew better back then.
Why not go back and at least call it was then; GLOBAL WARMING? Or Atmospheric Destabilization? Or Climate Chaos? Or Climate Collapse? Because it would be bad for the economy. That’s always the reason to do nothing while the riches pile up in corporate bank accounts…
Anybody else notice that suddenly, quite suddenly as a matter of fact, every corporate-owned news program in the US and quite a few ‘mainstream corporate-funded (read: owned’ or at least self-censoring) scientists’ (like Michael Mann for instance) immediately jumped on that Republican bandwagon with the ‘oh we have plenty of time to change the trajectory of this’ if we use squiggly light bulbs and all drive electric cars (which spew incredible amounts of carbon into the atmosphere in the mining/refining/manufacturing.
For the record, I’ve had a La Nina Pattern in the Pacific every winter here since the Northwest Heat Dome of 2021. Unrelenting, but wait until another El Nino rolls in and watch the temps soar even worse than they already have. So I have no idea what she’s talking about there.
The information is out there. Has been for years and I post links now and then but we have enough on our plates at the moment without a planetary existential crisis to read about also, eh?
I remember when I had 72 species of birds singing, nesting on, or flying over this property-mainly because my neighbors had to do a survey count before their application for ‘forest stewardship’ on their 30 acres could be submitted. Their birds were my birds, too!
I remember when it actually snowed in winter, feet and feet with me out running my 13hp Arien’s 32″ wide rake snowthrower blowing piles out of the way to get in and out. And digging off 4 feet of pile-up on the roofs with a shovel…living in the mountains isn’t all bird-watching and snowsurfing!
I remember when my local snowboarding hill didn’t claim to have 13″ of base around the lodge near the end of January that mostly consists of machine-made icy particle ‘snow.’ And, as everybody knows, ski hills are notoriously well-known for expansively lying about how good it is…like corproate news talking heads are about what’s happening to the climate!
sealintheSelkirks
Please excuse this addition as I forgot to add this link from the English Government:
UK OFFICIAL
Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse
and national security
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696e0eae719d837d69afc7de/National_security_assessment_-_global_biodiversity_loss__ecosystem_collapse_and_national_security.pdf
And this is what happens in a more personal way; Where do YOU live and just exactly Where does your water come from?
And please, for the sake of sanity, don’t say ‘from the tap.’
The World is in Water Bankruptcy, UN Scientists Report — Here’s What That Means
Using more water than nature can replenish is having catastrophic results.
https://medium.com/the-new-climate/the-world-is-in-water-bankruptcy-un-scientists-report-heres-what-that-means-a39352519023
__
No wonder DJT has exited the US from the United Nations, eh?
sealintheSelkirks