The year 2025 is set to become the second-hottest ever recorded, surpassed only by the unprecedented global heat of 2024, according to data from the UN and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

In a historic first, the average global temperature over the three-year period from 2023 to 2025 has exceeded +1.5°C above pre-industrial levels — the threshold countries pledged to avoid under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, according to the BBC’s Russian Service.

“This is not an abstract number; it is clear evidence of accelerating climate change,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of C3S. She stressed that rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions remain the only effective response.

Every year from 2015 to 2025 ranks among the hottest in 176 years of observations, with 2023, 2024 and 2025 taking the top three positions in this record-setting sequence.

Climate extremes intensify

Scientists had hoped that, following an unusually warm winter, summer temperatures might return closer to normal. Those expectations did not materialize. C3S confirmed that 2025 has nearly matched the extreme warmth of two years earlier, keeping the planet within what researchers describe as “the warning zone of climate catastrophe.”

November 2025 was the third-warmest November ever recorded. Severe temperature anomalies were observed in northern Canada and across the Arctic region. The month was marked by extreme weather events, including destructive tropical cyclones in Southeast Asia that caused widespread flooding and numerous fatalities.

Globally, autumn was warmer than average across nearly all regions. Eastern Europe, including Russia and Scandinavia, experienced especially pronounced warming.

Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice continues to shrink at alarming rates. In November, the region’s sea ice extent was 12% below average, with even greater deficits recorded near Svalbard, Franz Josef Land, the Kara Sea and northeastern Canada.

The Arctic is warming about four times faster than the rest of the world. As reflective sea ice disappears, the ocean absorbs more solar heat, accelerating ice melt and amplifying global warming — a self-reinforcing and increasingly dangerous cycle.