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December 8, 2025<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 2025 Likely to Tie for Second-Hottest Year on Record<\/p>\n Europe\u2019s climate agency said 2025 is likely to be the second or third hottest on record<\/p>\n By Andrea Thompson edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n Amanda Monta\u00f1ez; Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service (data)<\/p>\n This year may be the second-hottest year on record, likely tying for silver with 2023. Europe\u2019s climate agency on Monday reported that 2025 is slightly less scorching than 2024\u2014which was the first year to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.<\/p>\n The European Union\u2019s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reported data up to November 2025 that show this year has been 1.48 degrees C above the average from 1850 to 1900. That\u2019s right around the target set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, under which countries pledged to limit warming to below 1.5 degrees C and \u201cwell below\u201d 2 degrees C. Despite 2024\u2019s record-setting temperatures and 2025\u2019s proximity to the 1.5-degrees-C threshold, scientists must take into account many years of data before they can say with certainty that the Paris Agreement\u2019s target has been breached.<\/p>\n Amanda Monta\u00f1ez; Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service (data)<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Still, trends are heading that way. \u201cThe three-year average for 2023\u20132025 is on track to exceed 1.5\u00b0C for the first time,\u201d Samantha Burgess, C3S\u2019s strategic lead for climate, said in a statement. \u201cThese milestones are not abstract\u2014they reflect the accelerating pace of climate change and the only way to mitigate future rising temperatures is to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n Record heat has become far more likely than record cold. Each of the world\u2019s 10 hottest years have occurred within the last decade. The new temperature report comes just weeks after this year\u2019s United Nations meeting to uphold the Paris Agreement ended with countries avoiding mention of fossil fuels, disappointing climate scientists and advocates who had hoped for stronger pledges to bring down planet-warming emissions.<\/p>\n That 2025 was so hot is particularly worrisome because this was a La Ni\u00f1a year. The opposite of an El Ni\u00f1o climate pattern, La Ni\u00f1a typically cools Pacific Ocean waters and leads to slightly colder global temperatures. But this year\u2019s La Ni\u00f1a was weak and short-lived. Indeed, La Ni\u00f1a years are becoming hotter than some past El Ni\u00f1o years. Thanks to El Ni\u00f1o, 2016 was the hottest year on record at the time, but compared with 2025, \u201c2016 is now looking decidedly cool,\u201d said Adam Scaife of the U.K.\u2019s Met Office in a news release issued by the agency last December.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" December 8, 2025 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm 2025 Likely to Tie for Second-Hottest Year on Record Europe\u2019s climate agency said 2025 is likely to be the second or third hottest on record By Andrea Thompson edited by Claire Cameron Amanda Monta\u00f1ez; Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service (data) This year may be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[1099,20366,12735,1569],"class_list":{"0":"post-36496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-record","9":"tag-secondhottest","10":"tag-tie","11":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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