Global warming is increasingly evident. 2025 was the third-hottest year on record, both globally and in Europe. The past three years \u2014 2024, 2023 and 2025, in that order \u2014 were the hottest ever recorded globally. <\/p>\n
Average global temperatures over this period were more than 1.5\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels (1850\u20131900). This is the first time a three-year period has exceeded the 1.5\u00b0C threshold<\/strong><\/a> according to Copernicus data.<\/p>\n So, by how much have temperatures increased in Europe? Which year was the hottest globally and in Europe? Why are the mid-2020s the hottest years on record?<\/p>\n How hot was it in 2025?<\/p>\n The global average temperature in 2025 was 14.97\u00b0C according to Copernicus. This is 0.59\u00b0C above the 1991\u20132020 average and 1.47\u00b0C above the 1850\u20131900 average. <\/p>\n 2024 was the hottest year with a 15.1\u00b0C average temperature, followed by 14.98\u00b0C in 2023.<\/p>\n That shows that 2025 is only 0.13\u00b0C below 2024, the warmest year on record.<\/p>\n World’s hottest years had two main drivers<\/strong><\/p>\n The Copernicus report emphasised that there are two main reasons why the years 2023 to 2025 were exceptionally warm. The first is the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, from continued emissions and reduced uptake of carbon dioxide by natural sinks like forests. Second is sea-surface temperatures reaching exceptionally high levels across the ocean, associated with an El Ni\u00f1o event<\/strong><\/a> and other ocean variability factors, amplified by climate change. <\/p>\n Changes in the amounts of aerosols, along with low clouds and variations in atmospheric circulation are further factors in this result. <\/p>\n Europe records its third-warmest year too<\/strong><\/p>\n 2025 was also the third-warmest year on record in Europe<\/strong><\/a>. The average temperature reached 10.41\u00b0C. This was 1.17\u00b0C above the 1991\u20132020 reference period.<\/p>\n In Europe, 2024 was the warmest year on record, with an average temperature of 10.69\u00b0C. The second-warmest year was 2020, at 10.43\u00b0C. This means the difference between 2020 and 2025 was very small.<\/p>\n \u201cThis report confirms that Europe and the world are in the warmest decade on record,\u201d Florian Pappenberger, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Director-General said. <\/p>\n The last 11 years were the hottest on record<\/strong><\/p>\n The Copernicus report shows that the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record globally. <\/p>\n The report warns that, at the current rate of warming, the Paris Agreement<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s 1.5\u00b0C limit for long-term global warming could be reached by the end of this decade. This would be more than a decade earlier than expected when the agreement was signed.<\/p>\n “This fact provides further evidence of the unmistakable trend towards a hotter climate. The world is rapidly approaching the long-term temperature limit set by the Paris Agreement,\u201d said Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.<\/p>\n Record heat and extreme weather events hit parts of Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n While 2025 was the third-warmest year overall, annual average temperatures reached record highs in several regions. Besides the Antarctic<\/strong><\/a>, these included parts of the northwestern and southwestern Pacific, the northeastern Atlantic, far eastern and north-western Europe, and central Asia.<\/p>\n The exceptional conditions of 2025 came in a year marked by major extreme weather events<\/strong><\/a> across many regions. These included record heatwaves, severe storms in Europe, Asia and North America, and wildfires in Spain<\/strong><\/a>, Canada and Southern California.<\/p>\n In July 2025, the global average temperature reached 16.68\u00b0C, which is 0.45\u00b0C above the 1991\u20132020 average.<\/p>\n Europe is the fastest-warming continent<\/strong><\/p>\n Europe is cooler than the global average. In 2025, the global average temperature was 14.97\u00b0C, while Europe\u2019s average was 10.41\u00b0C.<\/p>\n However,Europe is the fastest-heating<\/strong><\/a> continent on Earth, according to data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The dataset and its baseline differ from those used by Copernicus, but the findings point to the same trend.<\/p>\n In 2023, the global mean annual temperature change on land reached 1.8\u00b0C above the 1951\u20131980 baseline. In Europe, the increase was higher, at 2.4\u00b0C.<\/p>\n