The year that is coming to an end is on track to equal 2023 and become the second warmest ever recorded in the history of the planet, according to data released today by the European Copernicus Observatory.
The observatory reports that November 2025 was “the third warmest November globally” ever recorded.
"2025 is practically certain to end up being the second or third warmest year on record, possibly tying 2023," explains the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) in the press release it publishes.
The global temperature was 0,6° Celsius higher than the 1991-2020 average in the first eleven months of the year, according to the service's measurements.
“The global average temperature anomaly for the period from January to November 2025 was 0,60° Celsius above the 1991-2020 average, or 1,48° Celsius above the pre-industrial reference period of 1850-1900,” before the climate began to warm steadily due to human activity, the agency said.
The year presents a temperature level identical to that of 2023, pending the statistics for December and the annual report, which may put 2025 on the podium of the highest temperatures, after the historic high of 2024.
Human-induced climate deregulation is making extreme weather events more frequent, deadlier and more destructive. November was marked by “extreme weather events, particularly tropical cyclones in Southeast Asia, which caused large-scale catastrophic flooding and human loss,” explains Copernicus.
On a monthly scale, November was the third warmest on record, after those of 2023 and 2024, with the average temperature on the surface of the globe reaching 14,02° Celsius, or 0,65° Celsius higher than the average for the period 1991-2020.
According to data from the European observatory, average temperatures in the period between 2023 and 2025 may exceed the 1,5° Celsius limit compared to the pre-industrial era, for the first time on a three-year scale.
Ten years ago, the Paris climate agreement set out the ambition to keep global temperature rise below 2° Celsius and, if possible, to limit it to 1,5° Celsius.
But exceeding this last limit "is now inevitable," says UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, hoping that this will be temporary.
"These milestones are not abstract, they reflect the accelerating pace of climate change and the only way to mitigate future temperature increases is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Samantha Burgess, climate change specialist at Copernicus.
Ambitions, however, seem to be weakening on a multilateral scale, as countries participating in the COP30 in Belém in November reached a modest consensus on climate action, without a plan to abandon fossil fuels, with the US absent.
According to Copernicus data, temperatures were above average last month across the globe, but particularly in northern Canada, under the Arctic Ocean and across Antarctica.
Source: KYPE
