2025 Registers as Third Hottest Year

Rabat – 2025 has ranked as the third hottest on record, confirming that extreme global heat has become a defining feature of the current decade, according to new data released on Wednesday by European and US climate research bodies.

Assessments from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and the independent organisation Berkeley Earth show that the last eleven years now form the warmest period ever recorded.

While 2024 remains the hottest year globally and 2023 follows closely, 2025 adds to mounting evidence that global temperatures continue to rise at a pace that exceeds earlier expectations.

Copernicus reported that average global temperatures across the past three years exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time.

Berkeley Earth described the sharp rise in temperatures since 2023 as unusual, raising concerns that global warming may now advance faster than previous projections suggested.

Climate experts argue that staying close to this limit could reduce the scale of extreme weather, sea level rise, and environmental disruption.

In October, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that breaching the 1.5-degree threshold had become inevitable, though swift reductions in greenhouse gas output could still shorten the duration of this overshoot.

Copernicus now estimates that this level could arrive before the end of the decade, more than ten years earlier than earlier forecasts indicated.

Political developments have added strain to global climate efforts. Last week, US President Donald Trump announced plans to withdraw the US from the UN climate framework.

The decision affects one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters and weakens international coordination.

Copernicus estimated that global temperatures in 2025 averaged 1.47 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, slightly below the 2023 figure and following the record 1.6 degrees recorded in 2024.

Berkeley Earth reported that roughly 770 million people lived through their warmest year on record. The organisation found no location worldwide that registered a record-cold annual average.

Polar regions reflected the broader warming pattern. Antarctica recorded its warmest year since measurements began, while the Arctic logged its second hottest year, according to Copernicus.

Separate analysis also showed that Central Asia, the Sahel, and northern Europe experienced record heat during 2025.

The research groups warned that 2026 will likely remain among the warmest years on record.

Berkeley Earth expects 2026 to resemble 2025 and possibly rank as the fourth warmest year since records began in 1850.

As each year resets climate records, scientists warn that time to curb global warming grows increasingly limited.