January 2025: a month of extreme heat according to Copernicus

The world experienced another monthly heat record in January, as reported by the European climate service Copernicus.

Globally, January 2025 was 1.75 degrees Celsius (3.15 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial levels, according to Copernicus.

This marked the 18th month out of the last 19 that global temperatures reached or exceeded the internationally recognized warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

Scientists will not consider this limit breached until global temperatures remain above it for 20 consecutive years.

Copernicus has been tracking data since 1940, while other records from the U.S. and the UK date back to 1850.

Researchers using proxies like tree rings indicate that this period is the warmest in approximately 120,000 years, coinciding with the dawn of human civilization.

The primary cause of record heat is the accumulation of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas.

However, natural factors influencing temperature changes have not behaved as anticipated, according to Samantha Burgess, the strategic lead for climate at the European weather agency.

Typically, the natural cycle of changes in the equatorial Pacific Ocean plays a significant role in global temperatures, impacting weather patterns worldwide.

When the central Pacific is particularly warm, it leads to an El Niño event, which usually results in a spike in global temperatures.

Last year saw a significant El Niño, which concluded in June, yet the year turned out to be even warmer than expected, setting a new record.

Conversely, La Niña, the cooler counterpart to El Niño, tends to mitigate the effects of global warming, making record temperatures less likely.

A La Niña event began in January after developing for several months.

“Despite the equatorial Pacific not generating warming conditions for our global climate, we are still witnessing record temperatures,” Burgess noted, attributing much of this to exceptionally warm water temperatures in other oceans around the world.

January experienced unusually warm weather in the Arctic.

Certain areas of the Canadian Arctic saw temperatures rise by 30 degrees Celsius (54 degrees Fahrenheit) above the norm, leading to melting sea ice in some regions, as reported by Copernicus.