{"id":540259,"date":"2026-03-23T10:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/540259\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T10:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:17:07","slug":"earth-hit-record-heat-levels-in-2025-as-un-says-warming-will-last-thousands-of-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/540259\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth hit record heat levels in 2025 as UN says warming will last thousands of years"},"content":{"rendered":"

The amount of heat trapped by the Earth reached record levels in 2025, with the consequences of such warming feared to last for thousands of years, the UN<\/a> warned Monday.<\/p>\n

The 11 hottest years ever recorded were all between 2015 and 2025, the United Nations’ WMO weather and climate<\/a> agency confirmed in its flagship State of the Global Climate annual report.<\/p>\n

Last year was the second or third hottest year on record, at about 1.43 Celsius above the 1850-1900 average, the World Meteorological Organisation said.<\/p>\n

“The global climate is in a state of emergency<\/a>. Planet Earth is being pushed beyond its limits. Every key climate indicator is flashing red,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Humanity has just endured the 11 hottest years on record. When history repeats itself 11 times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to act.”<\/p>\n

For the first time, the WMO climate report includes the planet’s energy imbalance: the rate at which energy<\/a> enters and leaves the Earth system.<\/p>\n

Read moreFlights, petrol cars and cruise ships: Amsterdam bans fossil fuel ads<\/a><\/p>\n

Under a stable climate, incoming energy from the Sun is about the same as the amount of outgoing energy, the Geneva-based agency said.<\/p>\n

However the increase in concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases\u00a0\u2013 carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide\u00a0\u2013 “to their highest level in at least 800,000 years” has “upset this equilibrium”, the WMO said.<\/p>\n

“The Earth’s energy imbalance has increased since its observational record began in 1960, particularly in the past 20 years. It reached a new high in 2025.”<\/p>\n

Ocean heat record <\/p>\n

WMO chief Celeste Saulo said scientific advances had improved understanding of the energy imbalance and its implications for the climate.<\/p>\n

“Human activities are increasingly disrupting the natural equilibrium and we will live with these consequences for hundreds and thousands of years,” she said.<\/p>\n

More than 91 percent of the excess heat is stored in the ocean.<\/p>\n

“Ocean heat content reached a new record high in 2025 and its rate of warming more than doubled from 1960-2005 to 2005-2025,” the WMO said.<\/p>\n

Read moreThe race for Paris: Why France\u2019s capital has likely gone green for good<\/a><\/p>\n

Ocean warming has far-reaching consequences, such as degradation of marine ecosystems, biodiversity loss and reduction of the ocean carbon sink, the agency said.<\/p>\n

“It fuels tropical and subtropical storms and exacerbates ongoing sea-ice loss in the polar regions.”<\/p>\n

The Antarctic and Greenland<\/a> ice sheets have both lost considerable mass, and the annual average extent of Arctic<\/a> sea ice in 2025 was the lowest or second-lowest ever recorded in the satellite era.<\/p>\n

Last year, the global mean sea level was around 11 centimetres higher than when satellite altimetry records began in 1993.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ocean warming and sea level rise are projected to continue for centuries.<\/p>\n

‘Dire picture’ <\/p>\n

WMO scientific officer John Kennedy said global weather is still under the influence of La Nina, a naturally occurring climate phenomenon that cools surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean<\/a>. It brings changes in winds, pressure and rainfall patterns.<\/p>\n

Conditions oscillate between La Nina and its warming opposite El Nino, with neutral conditions in between.<\/p>\n

Read moreTrump revokes Obama-era climate finding on greenhouse gas risks<\/a><\/p>\n

The warmest year on record, 2024, was around 1.55C above the 1850-1900 average, and started in a strong El Nino.<\/p>\n

Forecasts indicate neutral conditions by the middle of 2026 with a possible El Nino developing before the end of the year, said Kennedy.<\/p>\n

If so, “then we’re likely to see maybe elevated temperatures again in 2027”, he told a press conference.<\/p>\n

The World Meteorological Organisation’s deputy chief, Ko Barrett, said the outlook was a “dire picture”.<\/p>\n

She said the WMO provided the evidence it sees, hoping that the information “will encourage people to take action”.<\/p>\n

But there was “no denying” that “these indicators are not moving in a direction that provides for a lot of hope”, she said.<\/p>\n

With war gripping the Middle East<\/a> and fuel prices soaring, Guterres said the world should heed the alarm call.<\/p>\n

“In this age of war, climate stress is also exposing another truth: our addiction to fossil fuels is destabilising both the climate and global security<\/a>,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Today’s report should come with a warning label: climate chaos is accelerating and delay is deadly,” he said.<\/p>\n

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The amount of heat trapped by the Earth reached record levels in 2025, with the consequences of such…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[26741,4253,192,12418,9458,79,19598],"class_list":["post-540259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-antonio-guterres","tag-climate-change","tag-environment","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-oceans","tag-science","tag-un"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540259","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=540259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}