2025’s dark red stripe represents Earth’s third-warmest year

Earth's third-warmest year on record has earned another dark red stripe in the climate stripes graphic, highlighting continued and unprecedented global heating.

The image, which shows how Earth has warmed over the past 176 years, has been updated following the latest release today (Wednesday, 14 January) of annual global temperature data from Copernicus Climate Change Service, ECMWF, NASA, NOAA, the UK Met Office, Berkeley Earth, and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). 

The new data means the global climate stripes now have an extra dark red stripe to represent the extreme temperature of 2025. 

Professor Ed Hawkins, the University of Reading scientist who created the climate stripes, said: "2025 was slightly cooler than 2023 and 2024, but this drop should not be seen as a sign that things are getting better. The last 11 years have been the warmest 11 years on record, and 2026 is almost certain to continue this sequence due to the relentless accumulation of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, primarily due to burning fossil fuels.

“Warmer temperatures have real impacts. Hotter heatwaves cause more health issues, heavier downpours cause greater flooding risks and rising sea levels causing more coastal flooding hazards. We must urgently step up our efforts to cut emissions and prepare for the warming that is now inevitable.”

The climate stripes show the change in average annual global temperatures since 1850. Red stripes indicate hotter years and blue stripes indicate cooler years, against the average of the period 1961-2010. 

New climate stripes graphics have also been created to show the UK’s warmest year on record, according to Met Office data back to 1884, and the second-warmest year on record in Reading, according to data from the Reading University Atmospheric Observatory back to 1908. 

Stripes images for individual cities, countries and continents can be viewed at showyourstripes.info and will be updated to include the latest 2025 data in the coming months.

Read more about the climate stripes.