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January 13, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 2025 Wasn\u2019t the Hottest Year on Record. Earth Is Still Barreling to the Climate Brink<\/p>\n Global warming surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius for the past three years, meaning Earth is currently on track to breach the Paris climate agreement by the end of the decade<\/p>\n By Andrea Thompson edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n Amanda Monta\u00f1ez; Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service (data)<\/p>\n First, the good news: 2025 was not the hottest year on record. Now the bad news: last year was the third hottest on record, just a hair behind 2023. More importantly, it caps three years when global temperatures have surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.<\/p>\n The data, released by the European Union\u2019s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) on Tuesday, suggest we stand on a climate precipice.<\/p>\n \u201cThese three years stand apart from those that came before,\u201d said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, in a press conference on Monday.<\/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 The past 11 years have been the 11 hottest on record, underscoring a global warming trend driven by rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. If this trajectory doesn\u2019t rapidly change, the world is on track to breach the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement, which enjoins countries to limit warming to below 1.5 degrees C and \u201cwell below\u201d two degrees C.<\/p>\n Amanda Monta\u00f1ez; Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service (data)<\/p>\n The global average temperature for 2025 was 1.47 degrees C above the average from 1850 to 1900, according to C3S. That\u2019s just 0.01 degree C cooler than 2023; 2024 retains the title of hottest year on record, at 1.6 degrees C above the preindustrial global average\u2014the first year to exceed 1.5 degrees C.<\/p>\n The Paris Agreement considers temperatures averages over many years. That\u2019s why hitting a three-year warming milestone\u2014and having the hottest years bunched over the past decade\u2014is crucial evidence to show we are nearing a breach, likely by the end of this decade. That\u2019s more than a decade sooner than was predicted when the agreement was first negotiated, C3S found.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world is rapidly approaching the long-term temperature limit set by the Paris agreement. We are bound to pass it; the choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences on societies and natural systems,\u201d said Carlo Buontempo, C3S\u2019s director, in a statement.<\/p>\n Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement has been made all the harder by the Trump administration, which has sought to curtail U.S. climate action at home and abroad. As his current term began one year ago, President Donald Trump moved to pull the U.S. out of the agreement\u2014an action he had taken in his first administration. And just a week ago Trump announced that he would go one step further, taking the U.S. out of the climate treaty under which the Paris accord was negotiated, as well as several other related agreements.<\/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":" January 13, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm 2025 Wasn\u2019t the Hottest Year on Record. Earth Is Still Barreling to the Climate Brink Global warming surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius for the past three years, meaning Earth is currently on track to breach the Paris climate agreement by the end of the decade<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[22113,4907,186,589,4570,1099,6843,1569],"class_list":{"0":"post-41569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-barreling","9":"tag-brink","10":"tag-climate","11":"tag-earth","12":"tag-hottest","13":"tag-record","14":"tag-wasnt","15":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41569","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=41569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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