By Olivier Acuña Barba •
Published: 29 May 2025 • 11:51
• 2 minutes read
Global warming is real and every fraction of degree warmer causes more harmful weather conditions | Credits: WMO/Joao Murteira
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) estimates there is an 80 per cent chance that at least one of the next five years (2025-2029) will be hotter than 2024, which is the warmest in history.
The WMO’s forecast confirms that global temperatures will remain at or near record levels over the next five years, increasing climate change risks and their impacts on societies, economies, and development.
The organisation’s report warns that global warming is expected to continue. The global average annual near-surface temperature for each year between 2025 and 2029 is projected to be between 1.2°C and 1.9°C higher than the average over the years between 1850 and 1900.
More harmful heatwaves, rains and droughts
“Every additional fraction of a degree of warming drives more extreme weather conditions, harmful heatwaves, extreme rainfall events, intense droughts, melting of ice sheets, sea ice, and glaciers, heating of the ocean, and rising sea levels,” the report says..
There is an 86 per cent chance that at least one year will be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level, the WMO said.
The report forecasts a 70 per cent chance that the five-year average warming for 2025-2029 will exceed 1.5°C, according to the report. This is up from 47 per cent in last year’s report (for the 2024-2028 period) and up from 32 per cent in the 2023 report for the 2023-2027 period.
“We have just experienced the ten warmest years on record. Unfortunately, this WMO report provides no sign of respite over the coming years, and this means that there will be a growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our weather conditions, ecosystems and our planet,” said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett.
Other key points in the report:
- Arctic warming over the next five extended winters (November to March) is predicted to be more than three and a half times the global average, at 2.4°C above the average temperature during the most recent 30-year baseline period (1991-2020).
- Predictions of sea ice for March 2025-2029 suggest further reductions in sea-ice concentration in the Barents Sea, Bering Sea, and Sea of Okhotsk.
- Predicted precipitation patterns for May-September 2025-2029, relative to the 1991-2020 baseline, suggest wetter-than-average conditions in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska, and northern Siberia, and drier-than-average conditions for this season over the Amazon.
- In recent years, except for 2023, the South Asian region has been wetter than average, and the forecast suggests this trend will continue for the 2025-2029 period. This may not be the case for all individual seasons in this period.
