2025 was one of the three hottest years on record, scientists find

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Last year was the Earth’s second or third-hottest on record, several U.S. and global climate science organizations said.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as the EU’s Copernicus and the UK’s Met Office, found that 2025 was the third-hottest year recorded.

NASA found that 2025 was the second-hottest year, though the numbers were so close it was effectively tied with 2023.

The last three years are the three hottest our planet has ever faced, with 2024 being the warmest ever. The trend is not a blip, the last decade has been the hottest years the planet has faced.

“The fact that the last eleven years were the warmest on record provide further evidence of the mistakeable trend towards a hotter climate,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, in a written statement.

Human activities, especially burning of fossil fuels — as well as agriculture — are heating up the planet through the release of greenhouse gases. Increasing temperatures are causing sea level rise and exacerbating extreme weather.

Copernicus’s report said that preliminary data shows that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere also increased in 2025.

The group reported that February 2025 had the lowest amount of global sea ice recorded since satellite observations started in 1970.

It also found that January 2025 was the hottest January ever recorded.

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