Temperatures for 2025 indicate global warming acceleration

Global average temperatures surged again in 2025, placing the year among the three warmest on record and indicating a continuing acceleration of global warming, according to data released by the China Meteorological Administration's National Climate Center.

The global average surface temperature last year was 1.4 C higher than the preindustrial level (1850—1900 average) and 0.52 C above the 1991—2020 average, the data shows.

January 2025 set the highest global land surface temperature for the month in recorded history, the center said. The past three years, from 2023 to 2025, is the warmest such period ever observed.

Last year, large parts of the planet experienced temperatures ranking among the highest on record. Northern and south-eastern Asia, much of Central Asia, eastern Europe, parts of North America, most of Antarctica and broad areas of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans recorded annual average temperatures among their top three warmest years, with several core regions breaking heat records.

The data also shows that polar regions continued to warm significantly. The Arctic averaged 1.17 C above normal, ranking as its third-warmest year on record, while the Antarctic region was 0.43 C above normal.

The Third Pole region — covering high-altitude areas in and around the Tibetan Plateau — was 1.12 C above normal and has now broken its temperature record for four consecutive years, from 2022 to 2025, according to the center.

China also experienced another exceptionally warm year. The national average temperature reached 11 C last year, exceeding the long-term average by 1.1 C and surpassing the previous national record of 10.9 C set in 2024.

Most parts of China were warmer than usual, and 16 provincial-level regions recorded their warmest year since 1961. The country recorded an average of 16.5 high-temperature days with a daily high of 35 C or above, the most in history and 7.4 days more than normal, according to the center.