“Even though the equatorial Pacific isn’t creating conditions that are warming for our global climate, we’re still seeing record temperatures,” Burgess said, adding much of that is because of record warm water temperatures in the rest of the world's oceans.
January 2025 globally was 0.09 degrees Celsius (0.16 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than January 2024, the previous hottest January, and was 1.75 degrees Celsius (3.15 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than it was before industrial times, Copernicus calculated.
Earth just set another heat record anyway The world warmed to yet another monthly heat record in January, despite an abnormally chilly United States, a cooling La Nina and predictions of a slightly less hot 2025, according to the European climate service Copernicus.
Parts of the Canadian Arctic had temperatures 30 degrees Celsius (54 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than average and temperatures got so warm sea ice started melting in places, Burgess said.
By far the biggest driver of record heat is greenhouse gas build-up from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, but the natural contributions to temperature change have not been acting quite as expected, said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate for the European weather agency.
