Met Office shares stark global temperatures warning as warming ‘surge’ continues
Global temperatures will remain worryingly high, with 2026 predicted to be the fourth year in a row to be 1.4 degrees above pre-industrial levels, according to the Met Office.
In its annual outlook, the UK’s national weather service predicts 2026 will reach an estimated 1.46C above the 1850-1900 baseline, indicating a permanent “warming wave”.
Although this figure is below the record 1.55C observed in 2024, 2026 is expected to be among the four hottest years ever recorded.
Last year, 2024, marked the first time the critical 1.5C threshold, one of the Paris Agreement’s key targets to prevent the most severe climate impacts, was breached.
There is a possibility that 2026 will exceed this critical limit.
Professor Adam Scaife, who led the team behind the Met Office’s 2026 global forecast, said: “Temperatures are likely to have exceeded 1.4 degrees over the last three years and we expect 2026 to be the fourth consecutive year of doing so.
“Prior to this increase, the previous global temperature had not exceeded 1.3 degrees.”
The forecast shows the average global temperature to be between 1.34 and 1.58 degrees, with the central forecast at 1.46 degrees, above the 1850-1900 baseline before large-scale burning of fossil fuels began.
The Met Office’s Dr. Nick Dunstone said: “2024 saw the first temporary exceedance of 1.5C and our 2026 forecast shows this is possible again.
“This shows how quickly we are approaching the 1.5C Paris Agreement target.”
In the Paris climate agreement signed in 2015, countries committed to limiting global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and continuing efforts to limit increases to 1.5C to avoid the worst impacts of rising sea levels, droughts, floods, heatwaves and extreme storms caused by climate change.
Scientists have repeatedly warned that increasing warming has increasingly severe impacts and that the ability of people and nature to adapt to changes is diminishing, and that every bit of a degree makes a difference in avoiding the worst effects of climate change.
But the UN has warned that the world is still on track for a warming of 2.8 degrees Celsius under current policies, or around 2.3 to 2.5 degrees if all the measures promised by countries are implemented.
Earlier this year, the World Meteorological Organization estimated that current global warming levels, excluding temperature fluctuations between years, are 1.37C above the average for the period 1850-1900.
