Earth’s systems are accumulating heat at an accelerating pace, according to the latest State of the Global Climate update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). As diplomats and world leaders gather in the Turkish resort city of Antalya for the Cop31 climate summit, the agency has warned that the planet has entered a new era of climate extremes, with 2026 on track to be one of the four warmest years ever recorded. This means the period from 2023 to 2026 now stands as the four warmest years since records began.
The WMO highlights a critical imbalance between incoming solar energy and energy escaping the planet, which has reached its highest level since monitoring began. This energy trap is directly responsible for supercharging extreme weather events, including intense heatwaves, prolonged droughts, and tropical cyclones. Between January and September 2026, global average surface temperatures were approximately 1.47C above preindustrial levels. Furthermore, 2026 is poised to be the 10th consecutive year of record-breaking ocean heat, with the oceans absorbing 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases.
UN secretary general António Guterres described the situation as a collision between a supersized El Niño and a planet already superheated by human activity. “We have entered a new age of climate extremes,” Guterres stated. “A supersized El Niño is colliding with a planet already superheated by manmade climate change. Climate records keep falling. The human costs keep rising. And those least responsible are suffering first and worst.”
The data shows that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has risen significantly since the UN climate convention was signed in 1992, climbing from 356.42 parts per million (ppm) to 426.8 ppm in 2025—a 53% increase since the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1750. The WMO report indicates that Earth’s energy imbalance increased at a rate of 0.3W per square metre each decade from 2001 to 2025, a sharp rise compared to the 0.13W per square metre observed between 1960 and 2025.
Heat content in the upper 2,000 metres of the ocean reached record highs in 2025, a trend the WMO describes as irreversible on centennial or millennial timescales. The cryosphere is also showing severe signs of stress, with Antarctic sea ice reaching its third-lowest annual maximum in 2026, while the Arctic maximum was the lowest or second lowest. Glaciers lost more than 400 gigatonnes of mass, marking the fourth consecutive year of mass loss across all 19 glacierised regions.
Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, noted that these findings confirm that the planet is in a dire state, stating there were “no surprises” in the report. He emphasized that the growing imbalance between incoming and outgoing energy is the most accurate indicator of future heating, as natural feedback loops are now driving up temperatures more rapidly than 20 years ago. McGuire cautioned that the widely publicised idea that the world is still on track for 2.6-2.8C warming by the end of the century now seems “wildly optimistic, if not downright impossible.”
