Next year will bring heat more than 1.4C above preindustrial levels, meteorologists project, as fossil fuel pollution continues to bake the Earth and fuel extreme weather.
The UK Met Office’s central forecast is slightly cooler than the 1.55C reached in 2024, the warmest year on record, but 2026 is set to be among the four hottest years dating back to 1850.
A blanket of carbon smothering the Earth has begun to jeopardise the stable conditions in which humanity has thrived, worsening weather extremes and increasing the risk of catastrophic tipping points. The Met Office expects 2026 will be between 1.34C and 1.58C hotter than the average from 1850-1900.
“The last three years are all likely to have exceeded 1.4C, and we expect 2026 will be the fourth year in succession to do this,” said Adam Scaife, a climate scientist at the Met Office who led the forecast. “Prior to this surge, the previous global temperature had not exceeded 1.3C.”
World leaders promised to limit global heating to 1.5C (2.7F) by the end of the century at a landmark climate summit in Paris 10 years ago. As the target is measured by a 30-year average, it is still physically possible to achieve, despite individual months and years crossing the threshold.
“2024 saw the first temporary exceedance of 1.5C and our forecast for 2026 suggests this is possible again,” said Nick Dunstone, a climate scientist at the Met Office. “This highlights how rapidly we are now approaching the 1.5C Paris agreement target.”
Last week, EU scientists said 2025 is “virtually certain” to end as the second or third-hottest year on record, confirming projections from the World Meteorological Organization in November.
Average global temperatures from January to November were 1.48C higher than preindustrial levels, according to Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation programme.
It found the anomalies were identical to those recorded in 2023, the second-hottest year on record. Last year, the Met Office predicted 2025 would see temperatures 1.29C to 1.53C higher than preindustrial levels.
Natural variation including warming El Niño conditions boosted global temperatures during 2023 and 2024, but gave way to weakly cooling La Niña conditions in 2025. The fluctuations take place against a backdrop of heat-trapping gas pumped out of power plants, cars and boilers, as well as the destruction of nature that can suck carbon from the air.
Levels of carbon dioxide clogging the atmosphere soared to unprecedented levels last year, a UN report found in October. As well as the unrelenting burning of fossil fuels and the fallout from rampant wildfires, scientists fear the Earth’s natural “carbon sinks” may be beginning to fail.
