Last year\u2019s average global temperature was 15.08 degrees Celsius (59.14 degrees Fahrenheit), which is 1.44 degrees Celsius (2.59 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial time, the World Meteorological Organization calculated, averaging out the eight data sets. The temperature data used by most of the teams goes back to 1850.<\/p>\n
All of the last three years flirted close to the internationally agreed-upon limit of<\/a> 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since the mid 19th century. That goal for limiting temperature increases, established in Paris in 2015, is likely to be breached by the end of this decade, the scientists said.<\/p>\n When charted on a graph, 2023, 2024 and 2025 \u201cseemed to jump up,\u201d said NOAA climate monitoring chief Russ Vose. When averaged together, those three years shoot above the 1.5-degree mark, according to the European climate service Copernicus.<\/a><\/p>\n Rising global temperatures intensify heat waves and other extreme weather, endangering people and causing billions of dollars in damage. The weather monitoring teams warn that the 2025 temperature increase is a dangerous sign of worsening storms, heat, floods and fires.<\/p>\n Earth is warming at a faster rate<\/p>\n The last 11 years have been the hottest 11 years on record, the climate monitoring groups found.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last three years are indicative of an acceleration in the warming. They\u2019re not consistent with the linear trend that we\u2019ve been observing for the 50 years before that,\u201d said Robert Rohde, chief scientist at the Berkeley Earth monitoring group<\/a>.<\/p>\n While Rohde said nearly all of the warming is from human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases, the past three years\u2019 temperatures had a boost from a combination of less soot pollution<\/a> from ships that normally has a cooling effect, peak solar activity and perhaps a 2022 underwater volcano eruption<\/a>.<\/p>\n Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead of the Copernicus service, said the overwhelming culprit is clear: the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.<\/p>\n \u201cClimate change is happening. It\u2019s here. It\u2019s impacting everyone all around the world and it\u2019s our fault,\u201d Burgess told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n Three teams \u2014 including NOAA<\/a> and NASA \u2014 reported their data Wednesday, while the other teams released their information late Tuesday. Copernicus and Japan use a combination of satellite data and computer simulations, while the rest of the groups use ground and sea observations. The eight data sets were within less than a tenth of a degree apart.<\/p>\n Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini, who was not part of any of the teams, called what\u2019s happening \u201canother warning shot\u2019\u2019 of a shifting climate \u201cwhere record\/near-record global temperatures are the norm, not the exception.\u201d<\/p>\n Burgess noted numerous heat waves<\/a> in 2025 that broke local or national temperature records, also having significant affects on people\u2019s bodies.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we look at a warmer world, we know that extreme events become more frequent and more intense,\u201d Burgess said, mentioning 2025\u2019s Los Angeles wildfires.<\/a> \u201cWhen we have severe storms or a flooding events, the rain is more intense.\u201d<\/p>\n Berkeley Earth calculated that 770 million people \u2014 one out of every 12 people on the planet \u2014 experienced record annual heat, with 450 million of them in China. Other record hot spots included much of Australia, northern Africa, the Arabian peninsula and Antarctica, according to Copernicus. The continental United States<\/a> had its fourth warmest year on record, NOAA found.<\/p>\n One major natural factor in global temperatures is the El Nino\/La Nina oscillation \u2014 a cyclic warming or cooling of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather across much of the planet. Usually a warm El Nino spikes temperatures and its cool La Nina flip side depresses temperatures.<\/p>\n Last year there were two weak, cool La Ninas<\/a> so there was a \u201cbig part of the surface of the Earth that\u2019s a little cooler than it otherwise would be and that\u2019s probably gonna tuck a little temperature down just a little bit,\u201d NOAA\u2019s Vose said.<\/p>\n An even warmer future waits<\/p>\n Some forecasts have an El Nino developing this year, but it\u2019s still murky, meteorologists said. Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus\u2019 climate service, said that when the next El Nino materializes, which he expects within the next couple of years, it will likely drive another record annual temperature.<\/p>\n Several of the climate monitoring groups are predicting that 2026 will be about as hot as 2025.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, both Copernicus and Berkeley Earth calculated that 2029 is the likely date that the planet\u2019s long-term average will breach the 1.5 degree threshold.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a decade\u2019s time when we\u2019re in the 2030s … the number of extreme events around the world will increase. The cost associated with the damages and impacts of those extreme events will be worse,\u201d Burgess said. \u201cAnd we will look back to the mild climate of the mid 2020s with nostalgia.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Earth\u2019s average temperature last year hovered among one of the three hottest on record, while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,4253,451,196635,196636,718,196634,3,15850,452,453],"class_list":["post-409341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-climate-change","tag-headlines","tag-hot-climates","tag-hotter-temperatures","tag-nasa","tag-near-record-hot-year","tag-news","tag-scientists","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ZID4OJZHJBA7JORL4F5D5ZVAFA.jpg\")
FILE – A boy cools himself in a fountain on a hot day in Moscow, Russia, July 9, 2025.(Pavel Bednyakov | AP Photo\/Pavel Bednyakov, File)Higher temperatures endanger people<\/p>\n