January 2025 was surprisingly hot, breaking the record for the warmest January ever, according to Copernicus, a European climate organization. This happened even though the United States experienced chilly temperatures, and a cooling natural event called La Nina was underway.
The new study by James Hansen, a well-known climate scientist, suggests that global warming is speeding up. January 2025 was 0.09 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous year, making it a total of 1.75 degrees Celsius warmer compared to times before industry began. This marks the 18th month in the last 19 that temperatures exceeded the important limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
While scientists won’t call this limit breached until global temperatures stay above it for 20 years, Copernicus’ records show that this era is the warmest in about 120,000 years. The main reason for the record heat is greenhouse gases released from burning energy sources like coal and gas.
Samantha Burgess from Copernicus mentioned that even though La Nina usually leads to cooler global temperatures, last year’s El Nino caused significant warming. Surprisingly, after El Nino’s end, global temperatures didn’t decrease as expected. Instead, warmer water temperatures in oceans around the world are contributing to this unusual heat.
For Americans, it might seem strange that January was so warm when many places in the U.S. were cold. However, the rest of the world had much warmer temperatures. The Arctic region, for instance, saw an unusual warming, with some areas in Canada experiencing temperatures 30 degrees Celsius higher than normal, which caused sea ice to melt.
Although February has started cooler than last year, experts suggest not to rule out 2025 as a contender for the hottest year. Hansen believes the pace of warming in the last 15 years is about twice as fast as in the previous 40 years, and he predicts this trend will continue for several more years.
Some scientists agree with Hansen, saying the warming trend is alarming. However, others, like Princeton’s Gabe Vecchi and Michael Mann from the University of Pennsylvania, believe there’s not enough evidence to confirm that the warming is accelerating as Hansen claims.
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