The year 2025 was one of the three hottest ever recorded, according to the World Meteorological Organization, capping a run of extreme heat that has reshaped the global climate picture.
Data from eight major climate datasets show that the past three years are now the warmest on record. While rankings vary slightly, all confirm that global temperatures remain near historic highs, with 2024 still the hottest year ever measured.
Scientists also confirmed that the world has just experienced its longest sustained period above 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming compared with pre industrial levels. That threshold is seen as a critical point beyond which climate impacts become more severe and harder to reverse.
Experts stress that 1.5 degrees is not a single tipping point, but every fraction of warming matters. Higher temperatures increase the intensity of heatwaves, storms, floods and wildfires, many of which already caused deadly damage in 2025.
Governments pledged under the Paris Agreement to try to stay below 1.5 degrees, but emissions cuts have fallen short. Scientists now warn the target could be exceeded before 2030, forcing societies to confront how to manage the consequences of a hotter world rather than avoid them.