"Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific American's Science Quickly, I'm Kendra Pierre-Louis, in for Rachel Feltman. You're listening to our weekly science news roundup. First up, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service reported last Monday that 2025 is shaping up to be the second-hottest year on record, with data suggesting it will tie with 2023 for runner-up status. To learn more about what this means, we are talking to Andrea Thompson, senior desk editor for life science here at Scientific American. Hi, Andrea."
"Thompson: Yeah, so the agency looked at global average temperature through the end of November for the year and found that we're at about 1.48 degrees Celsius above preindustrial, which is roughly the last half of the 19th century. And that puts us right now tied with second place for 2023 in terms of where we rank in the hottest years on record. The record holder is, of course, last year, 2024, which was the first year to breach 1.5 degrees Celsius."
The Copernicus Climate Change Service recorded global average temperatures through November 2025 at about 1.48°C above preindustrial levels. That value places 2025 on track to tie 2023 as the second-warmest year recorded. The year 2024 remains the warmest year, marking the first single year to exceed 1.5°C above preindustrial. The Paris Agreement set targets to keep warming well below 2°C and to pursue limiting warming to 1.5°C. A single-year exceedance does not constitute a permanent breach of those goals, which are evaluated over multi-year averages.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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