The world just had its warmest January on record, according to leading international datasets from the Copernicus Climate Change Service and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The record heat occurred despite the emergence of a La Niña event, which normally has a temporary cooling effect. It was warmer than January 2024, when there was a warming El Niño event.
January 2025 was 1.75°C above the pre-industrial level, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. It said that it was the 18th month in the last nineteen months for which the global-average surface air temperature was more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level.
Datasets other than ERA5 may not confirm this because of the relatively small temperature margins involved. Despite the slight differences in the datasets, all show that there has been an extended streak of record-breaking temperatures.
2024 was the warmest year on record, likely temporarily hitting 1.5°C for the first time, according to WMO’s consolidated global analysis of six international datasets. A single year above 1.5°C does not mean that we have failed to meet Paris Agreement long-term temperature goals, which are measured over decades rather than an individual year.
However, it is essential to recognize that every fraction of a degree of warming matters. The last ten years have been the ten warmest on record.
