The world continues to witness record-breaking temperatures. The European Climate Change Service confirmed that January 2025 is officially the warmest first month of the year in history.
Last month was the warmest January worldwide, with an average global temperature of 13.23°C. This is almost 0.80°C above the 1991-2020 average for the month, and 1.75°C above the pre-industrial level (1850-1900).
"January 2025 is another surprising month, continuing the record temperatures observed over the last two years," Samantha Burgess, Strategic Lead for Climate at Copernicus Climate Change Service, told The Brussels Times.
She noted that this is particularly surprising because of the development of La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean. This should have a temporary cooling effect on global temperatures.
"We’re not seeing a warming contribution from El Niño as we did in January 2024. However, when we zoom out from the tropical Pacific and look at other ocean basins, we see record ocean temperatures in the Indian Ocean, Atlantic, Southern and North Pacific and these record-high temperatures are contributing to the January record."
The previous three record January months, 2024, 2020, and 2016, occurred either during the ongoing El Niño phenomenon—the warmer-than-normal equivalent of La Niña—or when sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean approached El Niño.
Human-induced climate change
For 18 of the past 19 months, the global average surface air temperature was more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level. In 2015, world leaders promised to try to limit the long-term temperature rise to 1.5°C above the average for this period. This Paris Agreement's temperature goal is seen as crucial to avoid the most damaging impacts.
The last 12-month period (February 2024 – January 2025) was 0.73°C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.61°C above the estimated average for the pre-industrial level. Meanwhile, 2024 was the world's warmest year on record. The average global temperature exceeded 1.5°C above its pre-industrial level.
"However, the long-term global warming level is still at about 1.3-1.4ºC above the preindustrial average (from 1850-1900), even though we’ve now had two years (2023 and 2024) with an average above 1.5ºC," Burgess said. "So this does not mean that the Paris Agreement limit has been breached and won’t do until we’ve had 10-15 years above the 1.5ºC level. We estimate that this will occur in early 2030."
Credit: Copernicus
The main driver of the increasing global temperature remains human-induced climate change. This is caused by a global increase in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, deforestation and farming livestock, among others. The atmospheric GHG reached its highest annual levels ever last year.
"The sooner NetZero targets [bringing down global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero around 2050] are reached, the sooner global temperatures will stabilise," Burgess said.
Europe heating up
Europe recorded its second warmest January. The average temperature over the continent was 1.80°C, or 2.51°C above the 1991-2020 average for January. The record year remains 2020, when temperatures in January were 2.64°C above average. Temperatures in January 2025 were highest over southern and eastern Europe, and below average over Iceland, the United Kingdom, Ireland and northern France.
Last month also saw wetter-than-average conditions over western Europe, and heavy precipitation led to flooding in some regions. In Belgium, January 2025 tied with January 2004 for being the wettest on record. Uccle's weather station reported 153.8 mm of rainfall – twice the average of 75.5 mm.
The average sea surface temperature last month was 20.78°C over 60°S–60°N (the region of the ocean free of seasonal sea ice). "This is the second-highest value on record for the month, and 0.19°C below the January 2024 record," said Burgess.
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Temperatures were close or above average over the eastern equatorial Pacific, "suggesting a slowing or stalling of the move towards La Niña conditions." Copernicus noted sea temperatures remained unusually high in many other ocean basins and seas. Arctic sea ice reached its lowest monthly extent for January, at 6% below average.
Copernicus publishes monthly climate bulletins reporting on changes observed in global surface air and sea temperatures, sea ice cover and hydrological variables based on billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world.
