Copernicus Ranks 2025 as the Third Warmest Year on Record at 1.47°C Above Pre-Industrial Levels
The Copernicus Climate Change Service, operated by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Commission, has ranked 2025 as the third warmest year in its records. In its Global Climate Highlights 2025 report, published in January 2026, Copernicus said the global average surface air temperature for the year was 14.97°C, which is 1.47°C above the 1850 to 1900 pre-industrial level. 2025 was 0.01°C cooler than 2023 and 0.13°C cooler than 2024, the warmest year on record.
January 2025 was the warmest January in the dataset, and March, April and May were each the second warmest for their respective months. 2024 was boosted by an El Niño event, a natural pattern in the tropical Pacific that releases heat from the ocean to the atmosphere. El Niño faded in 2024, and weak La Niña conditions developed at times during 2025. Copernicus also noted that the three-year average for 2023 to 2025 exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time.
The Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C refers to long-term averages over about 20 years, so a single year or a three-year window above that level does not mean the goal has been formally breached. Copernicus reported that sea surface temperatures remained exceptionally high in 2025, though below the record of 2024. The Copernicus figures are based on the ERA5 reanalysis, which combines billions of observations from satellites, weather stations, ships and aircraft with a weather forecasting model to produce a consistent record of the global climate.
For gas and power markets, the temperature record is part of a longer trend that affects seasonal planning, storage strategy and capacity procurement. Energy analysts translate temperature data into heating degree days and cooling degree days, which measure how far daily temperatures fall below or rise above a comfort baseline. Regulators and system operators have started to replace simple historical averages with forward-looking climate scenarios in their planning studies.