The rate at which the Earth is warming has accelerated sharply since 2015, according to new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The authors warn that if it continues at this pace, the world could breach a key climate target before the end of this decade.
Over the past ten years, the planet has been warming at around 0.35°C per decade, nearly double the average rate of just under 0.2°C per decade recorded between 1970 and 2015. This recent rate is faster than any previous decade since reliable temperature records began in 1880. The study, carried out by researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Germany, is the first to detect a statistically significant acceleration in the long-term warming trend.
To reach these conclusions, the researchers analysed five major global temperature datasets (NASA, NOAA, HadCRUT, Berkeley Earth and ERA5) and stripped out the short-term effects of natural events such as El Niño weather patterns, volcanic eruptions and fluctuations in solar activity, which can temporarily push temperatures up or down and obscure the underlying trend.
“We filter out known natural influences in the observational data, so that the ‘noise’ is reduced, making the underlying long-term warming signal more clearly visible,” said co-author Grant Foster, a US statistics expert.
The results were consistent across all five datasets and across different methods of analysis. “The adjusted data show an acceleration of global warming since 2015 with a statistical certainty of over 98%, consistent across all data sets examined and independent of the analysis method chosen,” said lead author Stefan Rahmstorf of PIK.
Even after adjusting for natural influences, 2023 and 2024 remain the two warmest years on record. The acceleration in warming appears to have begun around 2013 or 2014 across all the datasets examined.
The study focuses on measuring the acceleration itself rather than explaining what is driving it. However, the authors note that climate models show this kind of speeding up is consistent with current scientific understanding of how the climate system works.
The implications for international climate commitments are stark. “If the warming rate of the past 10 years continues, it would lead to a long-term exceedance of the 1.5°C limit of the Paris Agreement before 2030,” said Rahmstorf. “How quickly the Earth continues to warm ultimately depends on how rapidly we reduce global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels to zero.”
“We can now demonstrate a strong and statistically significant acceleration of global warming since around 2015,” added Foster.
Foster, G., & Rahmstorf, S. (2026). Global warming has accelerated significantly. Geophysical Research Letters, 53, e2025GL118804. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL118804