July 2025 was a global scorcher

Earth experienced its third-warmest July on record, marked by a scorching national temperature record of 50.5°C in Turkey, according to scientists monitoring global climate trends.

The data underscores a continuing pattern of severe climate events linked to human-driven global warming, despite a recent pause in successive temperature records.

The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reported that the average global surface air temperature in July reached 16.68°C, standing 0.45°C above the 1991-2020 July average.

Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S, noted: “Two years after the hottest July on record, the recent streak of global temperature records is over – for now. But this doesn’t mean climate change has stopped. We continued to witness the effects of a warming world in events such as extreme heat and catastrophic floods in July.”

Though July 2025 did not surpass the record-breaking temperatures of July 2023 or the second-warmest July of 2024, the earth’s average surface temperature for this month remained 1.25°C above pre-industrial levels from 1850-1900 – the period when industrial-scale fossil fuel burning began.

Furthermore, the yearlong span from August 2024 to July 2025 averaged 1.53°C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the 1.5°C limit set by the 2016 Paris Agreement aimed at limiting global warming.

Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion remain the primary driver of this climate shift.

While 2024 was officially recorded as the hottest year globally, the world has yet to surpass the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target as a sustained long-term average.

However, many scientists believe keeping temperatures below this threshold is no longer feasible and are calling for urgent, accelerated reductions in carbon dioxide emissions to mitigate the severity of climate impacts and the frequency of extreme weather events.

The C3S database, tracking temperature records since 1940 and cross-referencing with global data extending back to 1850, continues to provide critical insights into the evolving state of the planet’s climate.

This latest data serves as a stark reminder of the ongoing and intensifying consequences of human-induced climate change.