Global temperatures in the first quarter of 2025 were the second warmest on record, extending a remarkable run of exceptional warmth that began in July 2023.
This is despite weak La Niña conditions during the first two months of the year – which typically result in cooler temperatures.
With temperature data for the first three months of the year now available, Carbon Brief finds that 2025 is very likely to be one of the three warmest years on record.
However, it currently remains unlikely that temperatures in 2025 will set a new annual record.
In addition to near-record warmth, the start of 2025 has seen record-low sea ice cover in the Arctic between January and March – and the second-lowest minimum sea ice extent on record for Antarctica.
Second-warmest start to the year
In this quarterly state of the climate assessment, Carbon Brief analyses records from five different research groups that report global surface temperature records: NASA, NOAA, Met Office Hadley Centre/UEA, Berkeley Earth and Copernicus/ECMWF.
The figure below shows the annual temperatures from each of these groups since 1970, along with the average over the first three months of 2025.
(It is worth noting that the first three months may not be representative of the year as a whole, as greater historical warming rates mean that temperatures relative to pre-industrial levels tend to be larger in the northern hemispheric winter months of December, January and February.)
Annual global average surface temperatures from NASA GISTEMP, NOAA GlobalTemp, Hadley/UEA HadCRUT5, Berkeley Earth and Copernicus/ECMWF (lines), along with 2025 temperatures so far (January-March, coloured dots). Anomalies plotted with respect to the 1981-2010 period, and shown relative to pre-industrial based on the average pre-industrial temperatures in the Hadley/UEA, NOAA and Berkeley datasets that extend back to 1850. Chart by Carbon Brief.
Starting with this state of the climate update, Carbon Brief will be showing a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) aggregate of the five surface temperature records, rather than highlighting any particular one, reflecting a single best-estimate across the different groups.
The WMO aggregate is calculated by averaging the different records using a common 1981-2010 baseline period, before adding in the average warming since the pre-industrial period (1850-1900) across the datasets – NOAA, Hadley, and Berkeley – that extend back to 1850.
The figure below shows how global temperature so far in 2025 (black line) compares to each month in different years since 1940 (with lines coloured by the decade in which they occurred) in the WMO aggregate of surface temperature dataset.
Temperatures for each month from 1940 to 2025 from the WMO aggregate of temperature records. Anomalies plotted with respect to a 1850-1900 baseline. Chart by Carbon Brief.
The first three months of 2025 have been unusually warm, coming in in the top-three warmest on record across all the different scientific groups that report on global surface temperatures. This is despite the presence of moderate La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific, which typically suppress global temperatures.
January 2025 was the warmest January on record in the WMO aggregate, February was the third warmest and March was tied with 2016 as the second warmest.
When combined, the first three months of the year in 2025 were the second-warmest Q1 period in the historical record, just 0.035C below the record set in 2024 after the peak of a strong El Niño event, as shown in the figure below.
Q1 temperature anomalies from 1850 through 2025 from the WMO aggregate of temperature records. Anomalies plotted with respect to a 1850-1900 baseline. Chart by Carbon Brief.
The persistence of warmth after the end of the 2023-24 El Niño event – and through a weak La Niña – has been highly unusual by historical standards. In most prior cases, global temperatures returned closer to the long-term temperature trend following the return to neutral El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions in the tropical Pacific.
Weak La Niña conditions have faded over the past month, with ENSO-neutral conditions returning and expected to persist for most models through the remainder of the year. However, predictions of ENSO status are particularly uncertain at this time of year due to a phenomenon known as the “spring predictability barrier”.
The figure below shows a range of different forecast models for the ENSO for the rest of this year, produced by different scientific groups. The values shown are sea surface temperature variations in the tropical Pacific – known as the El Niño 3.4 region – for overlapping three-month periods.
ENSO forecast models for overlapping three-month periods in the Niño3.4 region (January, February, March – JFM – and so on) for the remainder of 2025. Credit: Image provided by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia Climate School.
On track to be a top-three warmest year
By looking at the relationship between the first three months and the annual temperatures for every year since 1970 – as well as ENSO conditions for the first three months of the year and the projected development of El Niño conditions for the remaining nine months – Carbon Brief has created a projection of what the final global average temperature for 2025 will likely be.
The analysis includes the estimated uncertainty in 2025 outcomes, given that temperatures from only the first quarter of the year are available so far.
The chart below shows the expected range of 2025 temperatures using the WMO aggregate – including a best-estimate (red) and year-to-date value (yellow). Temperatures are shown with respect to the pre-industrial baseline period (1850-1900).
Annual global average surface temperature anomalies from the WMO aggregate plotted with respect to a 1850-1900 baseline. To-date 2025 values include January-March. The estimated 2025 annual value is based on the relationship between the January-March temperatures and annual temperatures between 1970 and 2024. Chart by Carbon Brief.
Carbon Brief’s projection suggests that 2025 is virtually certain to be one of the top-three warmest years, with a best-estimate approximately equal to global temperatures in 2023.
However, this model assumes that 2025 follows the type of climate patterns seen in the past – patterns that were notably broken in 2023 – and to a lesser extent in 2024. Other recent estimates – such as one published by Berkeley Earth – give a higher probability of around 34% that 2025 will set a new temperature record.
The figure below shows Carbon Brief’s estimate of 2025 temperatures using the WMO aggregate, both at the beginning of the year and once each month’s data has come in. The estimate jumped notably after t2025 saw the warmest January on record, but has been relatively stable over the past three months.
Record-low Antarctic and Arctic sea ice
Both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent spent much of early 2025 at record, or near-record, lows.
The figure below shows both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent in 2025 (solid red and blue lines), the historical range in the record between 1979 and 2010 (shaded areas) and the record lows (dotted black line).
(Unlike global temperature records, which only report monthly averages, sea ice data is collected and updated on a daily basis, allowing sea ice extent to be viewed up to the present.)
Arctic and Antarctic daily sea ice extent from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The bold lines show daily 2025 values, the shaded area indicates the two standard deviation range in historical values between 1979 and 2010. The dotted black lines show the record lows for each pole. Chart by Carbon Brief.
Arctic sea ice saw a new record low nearly each day between January and March, recording a record-low winter peak extent in late March. Ice extent subsequently moved out of record-low territory in April.
It is worth noting that, as northern hemisphere winter conditions remain cold enough to refreeze sea ice, there tends to be less variability in extent year-to-year in the winter than in the summer, as the chart below illustrates.
Antarctic sea ice started the year within the historical range (1979-2010), before plunging to tie for the second-lowest minimum on record in late February. It has since recovered in April, and is currently on the low end of the historical range.
The post State of the climate: 2025 close behind 2024 as the hottest start to a year appeared first on Carbon Brief.
State of the climate: 2025 close behind 2024 as the hottest start to a year
Months after a collapsed pipe pushed nearly 250 million gallons of raw sewage into the river, residents say the area still smells.
Members of a congressional subcommittee this week questioned utility leaders and state officials about their knowledge of preexisting problems with the sewage line that collapsed on Jan. 19 near the Potomac River.
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A formal petition to the U.S. government calls for sanctions on Chinese seafood imports as it highlights China’s loophole-ridden illegal shark fin trade.
For migrant workers trapped onboard Chinese distant water fishing fleets, cutting the fins off sharks as they writhe violently on rusted decks in the Indian Ocean isn’t accidental. It’s an intentional and lucrative act that marks the start of a bloody half-a-billion-dollar offshore supply chain, tacitly supported by Beijing yet covertly concealed from port inspectors globally.
New data on international climate finance for 2023 and 2024 suggests that wealthy countries are highly unlikely to have met their pledge to double funding for adaptation in developing nations to around $40 billion a year by 2025 amid cuts to their overseas aid budgets.
At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, all countries agreed to “urge” developed nations to at least double their funding for adaptation in developing countries from 2019 levels of around $20 billion by 2025. Funding for adaptation has lagged behind money to help reduce emissions and remains the dark spot even as the data showed overall climate finance rose to a record $136.7 billion in 2024.
A United Nations Environment Programme report warned last year that wealthy nations were likely to miss the adaptation finance target and the data released on Thursday by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that in 2024 adaptation finance was just under $35 billion.
The OECD, an intergovernmental policy forum for wealthy countries, said the increase between 2022 and 2024 was “modest”, adding that meeting the doubling target would require “strong growth” of close to 20% in 2025.
More cuts likely
The OECD’s figures do not go up to 2025, but several nations announced cuts to climate finance last year. The most notable was the abandonment of US pledges to international climate funds by the new Trump administration but the UK, France, Germany and other wealthy European countries also pared back their contributions.
Joe Thwaites, international finance director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said developed countries were “not on track” to meet the adaptation funding goal.
Power Shift Africa director Mohamed Adow said adaptation finance is needed to expand flood defences, drought-resistant crops, early warning systems and resilient health services as the world warms, bringing more extreme weather and rising seas. “When that money fails to arrive, people lose homes, harvests and livelihoods – and in the worst cases, their lives,” he warned.
Imane Saidi, a senior researcher at the North Africa-based Imal Initiative, called the $35 billion in adaptation finance in 2024 “a drop in the ocean”, considering that the United Nations estimates the annual adaptation needs of developing countries at between $215 billion and $387 billion.
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If confirmed, a failure to meet the goal is likely to further strain relations between developed and developing countries within the UN climate process. A previous pledge to provide $100 billion a year of total climate finance by 2020 was only met two years late, a failure labelled “dismal” by the UAE’s COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber and many other Global South diplomats.
Missing that goal would also raise doubts about donor governments’ commitment to meeting their new post-2025 adaptation finance goal. At COP30 last year, governments agreed to urge developed countries to triple adaptation finance – without defining the baseline – by 2035.
African and other developing countries have pointed to lack of funding as a key flaw in ongoing attempts to set indicators to measure progress on adapting to climate change.
Speaking to climate ministers from around the world in Copenhagen on Wednesday, Turkish COP31 President Murat Kurum stressed the importance of climate finance. “It is easy to say we support global climate action,” he said, “but promises must be kept.”
He said the COP31 Presidency will use the new Global Implementation Accelerator and recommendations in the Baku-to-Belem roadmap, published last year, to scale up climate finance – and will hold donors accountable for their collective finance goals.
He noted that developed countries should this year submit their first reports showing how they will deliver their “fair share” of the new broader finance goal set at COP29 in 2024, to deliver $300 billion a year in climate finance by 2035. They are due to report on this once every two years.
Broader climate finance
The OECD data shows that the overall amount of climate finance – including funding for emissions cuts – provided by developed countries grew fast in 2023 before declining in 2024. In contrast, the amount of private finance developed countries say they “mobilised” increased in both 2023 and 2024, pushing the top-line figure to a record high.
While the OECD does not say which countries provided what amounts, data from the ODI Global think-tank suggests that the 2024 cuts to bilateral climate finance were spread broadly among wealthy nations.
Thwaites of NRDC welcomed the fact that overall climate finance provided and mobilised by developed countries exceeded $130 billion in both 2023 and 2024. He said that this was “well above earlier projections” and “shows that when rich countries work together, they can over-achieve on climate finance goals”.
But Sehr Raheja, programme officer at the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said these figures are “modest” when set against the new $300-billion goal.
“While the headline total figure of climate finance remains alright,” she said, “declining bilateral climate spending raises important questions about the predictability of high-quality, concessional public finance, which has consistently been a key demand of the Global South.”
She also lamented that loans continue to dominate public climate finance and that mobilised private finance is concentrated in middle-income countries and on emissions-reduction measures rather than adaptation projects. “Private capital continues to follow bankability rather than climate vulnerability or need,” she added.
Ritu Bharadwaj, climate finance and resilience researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development, said the figures painted an outdated picture as climate finance has since declined as rich countries shrink their overseas aid budgets and increase spending on defence.
Last month, the OECD published figures showing that international aid – which includes climate finance – fell by nearly a quarter in 2025. The US was responsible for three-quarters of this decline. The OECD projects a further decline in 2026.
With Thursday’s climate finance report, the OECD is “publishing a victory lap for 2023 and 2024 at almost the same moment its own aid statistics show the funding base eroding underneath it,” Bharadwaj said.
The post New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance appeared first on Climate Home News.
New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance
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