It's still 2024, but scientists are already confident 2025 will be in top three warmest on record
Next year is expected to be hot even though the El Nino weather pattern, which had a warming effect on 2023 and 2024, has waned.
Thursday 12 December 2024 03:46, UK
It is not even Christmas yet: trees are still being decorated, turkeys are yet to be defrosted and Christmas puddings remain intact.
But though 2024 is not even out, scientists already have a handle on how hot 2025 will be.
Next year's global average temperature is likely to be the third-highest on record - going back to 1850 - after 2024 in the top spot and 2023 in second place, the Met Office said today.
This year is on course to be at least 1.5C hotter than pre-industrial times, before humans started burning fossil fuels at scale, and 2023 was 1.45C warmer.
Next year is forecast to be at least 1.29°C hotter, but probably closer to 1.4C, bumping 2020 into fourth place.
And 2025 is expected to be hot even though the El Nino weather pattern, which had a warming effect on 2023 and 2024, has waned.
The Met Office said that's because an underlying trend is making all years hotter - climate change.
Greenhouse gases - which primarily come from fossil fuels - are continuing to build up in the atmosphere, warming the planet.
That's why scientists are already pretty confident next year will be hot.
Professor Adam Scaife from the Met Office said: "The 2023/24 El Niño event has temporarily provided a boost to global temperature, adding a peak to the rising temperatures driven by years of increasing greenhouse gas emissions."
But climate researchers are also "actively looking at other factors" that might be responsible for a recent extra surge in temperatures, he added.
They are racing to understand whether other factors could have played a role, such as the Hunga-Tonga volcano eruption, a reduction in aerosols from shipping emissions or worrying, anomalous heat in the world's oceans.
The figures published by the Met Office today are global average temperatures, which smooth out extremes from different parts of the world.
That is the reason it can still feel cold in some countries, even if the global average temperature is high.
Countries are trying to limit global warming to no more than 2C, and ideally 1.5C, above pre-industrial levels.
This is the goal they signed up to under the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement and is one of the things they try to achieve via their annual COP climate summits.
On Tuesday, the UK's climate envoy Rachel Kyte warned the Paris Agreement is "more fragile" than it has ever been.
She said the seminal treaty was losing "friends" on both end of the spectrum, with some countries angry that it moves too slowly, and others stopping it from moving too quickly.