Last month was the second warmest May on record globally. But there is some good news: it broke an unprecedentedly long streak of months with temperatures more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
This is evidenced by a report from the European Unionʼs climate monitoring agency Copernicus.
May 2025 was 1.4 degrees hotter than May in the pre-industrial era. Globally, May 2025 was:
- The surface air temperature was 15.79°C, which is 0.53 degrees higher than the average for May in the period 1991–2020.
- This is the second warmest May on record: it was 0.12 degrees colder than the record-warmest May of 2024 and 0.06 degrees warmer than the third warmest May of 2020.
- The temperature was 1.40 degrees above the average for May in the pre-industrial period from 1850 to 1900.
In Europe, temperatures were marked by contrasts. From eastern Italy and the Balkans to Finland, it was cooler than the 1991–2020 average. The strongest cooling was recorded northwest of the Black Sea, especially in western Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Western Europe was experiencing a heatwave. Iceland set a new May record of 26.6 degrees Celsius (78.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in a mid-month heatwave. The UK had its fifth warmest month on record. Portugal, Spain and southern France also saw record temperatures in late May.
- In 2024, due to climate change, annual global temperatures exceeded the internationally agreed target of 1.5 degrees for the first time.
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