In a new report, the UN agency predicts that the global mean near-surface temperature for each year between 2025 and 2029 will be between 1.2°C and 1.9°C higher than the average for 1850-1900.
There is an 80% chance that at least one of the next five years will be warmer than the warmest on record – currently 2024 – and an 86% chance that at least one year will be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Alarmingly, the WMO also forecasts a 70% chance that average warming for 2025-2029 will be more than 1.5°C, which is up from 47% in last year’s report for the 2024-2028 period, and up from 32% in the 2023 report for the 2023-2027 period.
Although this would not technically surpass the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C threshold – which refers to temperature anomalies averaged over at least 20 years – every additional fraction of a degree of warming drives more extreme climate impacts.
“Unfortunately, this WMO report provides no sign of respite over the coming years, and this means that there will be a growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet,” said deputy secretary-general Ko Barrett.
“Continued climate monitoring and prediction is essential to provide decision-makers with science-based tools and information to help us adapt.”
Arctic warming over the next five extended winters between November and March is predicted to be more than three and a half times the global average, while further reductions in sea-ice concentration is forecast in the Barents Sea, Bering Sea, and Sea of Okhotsk.
The report also suggests wetter than average conditions between May and September over the next five years in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska, and northern Siberia, and drier than average conditions over the Amazon.
This comes after a separate WMO report in March revealed that 2024 was likely the first calendar year to be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial era, with a global mean near-surface temperature of around 1.55°C above the 1850-1900 average.
“Our planet is issuing more distress signals,” said UN secretary-general António Guterres. “But this report shows that limiting long-term global temperature rise to 1.5°C is still possible.
“Leaders must step up to make it happen, seizing the benefits of cheap, clean renewables for their people and economies, with new national climate plans due this year.”
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Chris Seekings is the Deputy Editor of IEMA’s Transform magazine, which is published biomonthly for IEMA members. Chris’s role involves writing sustainability-related news, features and interviews, as well as helping to plan and manage the magazine’s other day-to-day activities.