Loading
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that 2 degrees of global warming would make extreme heat 2.6 times worse, raise sea levels by 6 centimetres, accelerate extinctions, reduce crop yields and global fisheries, and increase extreme weather events.
Lowe said climate models could not account for positive feedback loops, such as forests being more likely to burn and thereby release more carbon dioxide, polar ice caps shrinking so the dark water absorbs more sunlight and heats up, and the Arctic tundra melting and releasing methane, all of which were happening.
“That’s probably why we are now seeing in the mid-2020s the sort of changes that climate models were suggesting we would see sometime towards the late 2030s,” Lowe said.
In February 2025, the combined sea ice cover from both poles fell to its lowest value since at least the start of satellite observations in the late 1970s, the ECMWF figures show. Antarctica saw its warmest annual air temperature on record and the Arctic its second warmest.
Perkins-Kirkpatrick said Australia needed to have a serious conversation about climate adaptation because some warming – “definitely 1.5, extremely likely to 2.0, and very likely higher” – was baked in.
The sooner countries reached net zero – where the amount of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere is balanced by the amount removed – the less severe the climate change would be, she said. It might also be possible to go further and achieve “net negative” by using technology and reforestation to reduce the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
“It’s imperative we reach net zero – I can’t stress that enough – but we’re now well and truly past the point where that’s no longer enough,” Perkins-Kirkpatrick said.
“Net negative is imperative if we want to maybe overshoot 1.5 degrees and then come back down to a lower global average temperature – there’s talk of that, but whether or not it’s feasible, that’s the problem.”
Loading
ECMWF operates the Copernicus Climate Change Service and Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service for the European Commission. The results encompass global climate monitoring from other organisations including NASA, NOAA, the UK Met Office, Berkeley Earth, and the World Meteorological Organisation.
Australia’s fourth-warmest year on record was 2025 at 1.23 degrees above the 1961-90 average, behind 2019, 2024 and 2013, separate figures from the Bureau of Meteorology show.
Get to the heart of what’s happening with climate change and the environment. Sign up for our fortnightly Environment newsletter.
