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The imbalance between the energy entering Earth's climate system and the heat escaping back into space has reached its highest level since monitoring began, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Monday, as the COP31 climate summit opened in Antalya, Turkey.
The UN weather agency said 2026 is on course to be among the four warmest years on record, with the average global surface temperature between January and September standing at around 1.47 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.
Separately, scientists at Berkeley Earth forecast a 95 per cent chance that 2026 will surpass 2024 as the hottest year on record. The WMO's assessment is more cautious, placing 2026 among the four warmest years.
The warning comes as an unusually powerful El Nino develops in the Pacific Ocean, threatening to push global temperatures higher and increase the risk of extreme weather in the coming months. The WMO expects the phenomenon to add between 0.1 and 0.2 degrees Celsius to global temperatures.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo described the climate situation as "off the charts", warning that adapting to rising temperatures would become increasingly difficult without a change in the current warming trajectory.
Earth's energy imbalance reaches record levels
This growing imbalance reflects the continued accumulation of heat in the atmosphere, oceans and other parts of the climate system.
Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, trap additional heat in the atmosphere. Around 90 per cent of this excess heat is absorbed by the oceans, making ocean temperatures an important indicator of the pace of global warming.
According to the WMO's latest State of the Global Climate update, the energy imbalance rose at an average rate of 0.3 watts per square metre per decade between 2001 and 2025, compared with 0.13 watts per square metre per decade over the longer period between 1960 and 2025.
Ocean heat content in the upper 2,000 metres reached its highest level in the observed record in 2025. It continued to increase in 2026, indicating that the Earth system is accumulating heat at an accelerating rate. The WMO said 2026 was on track to be the 10th consecutive year of record ocean heat.
Sea surface temperatures also reached monthly records in 2026, while sea levels were at their highest since records began. Between 2017 and 2026, sea levels rose by an average of 3.9 millimetres annually, compared with 2.4 millimetres a year between 1993 and 2002.
The WMO reported that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reached 426.8 parts per million in 2025, marking a 53 per cent increase since 1750.
The effects of rising temperatures are also visible across the polar regions. Arctic sea ice recorded its lowest or second-lowest annual maximum extent in March 2026, while Antarctic sea ice reached its third-lowest annual maximum.
Glaciers worldwide lost more than 400 gigatonnes of mass in 2025, with all 19 monitored glacierised regions recording losses for the fourth consecutive year.
El Nino could intensify global warming
El Nino is a naturally occurring climate phenomenon characterised by warmer-than-usual sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. It influences temperature and rainfall patterns across the world, changing the likelihood of heatwaves, droughts, floods and other extreme weather events.
The developing El Nino is emerging against a backdrop of already elevated global temperatures. The WMO expects the phenomenon to persist until February, extending the period of unusually high temperatures into early 2027.
El Nino does not create new heat in the climate system. Instead, it releases heat stored in the ocean into the atmosphere, contributing to higher global surface temperatures. The effect is expected to be particularly pronounced because the oceans are already exceptionally warm.
The WMO expects sea surface temperature anomalies in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific to reach up to 3.7 degrees Celsius, compared with 0.2 degrees Celsius in March.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the combination of El Nino and human-induced warming was pushing the world into a more dangerous climate phase.
"We have entered a new age of climate extremes," Guterres said. "A supersized El Nino is colliding with a planet already superheated by manmade climate change."
He added that climate records continued to fall while the human costs rose, with those least responsible for global warming suffering first and worst.
COP31 faces pressure to turn climate commitments into action
The WMO's warning adds urgency to negotiations at COP31, the UN climate conference being held in Antalya. Governments are expected to discuss emissions reductions, climate finance and measures to help countries adapt to increasingly severe weather events.
The findings underline the gap between existing climate commitments and the pace of global warming. Under current national emissions commitments, the world remains on course for around 2.6 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century, according to the UN projection cited in the Bloomberg report.
The Paris Agreement seeks to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius while pursuing efforts to keep the increase within 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels. Although global temperatures have exceeded the 1.5-degree mark in individual calendar years, including 2024, this does not mean the long-term threshold has been permanently breached.
Alongside reducing emissions, COP31 negotiations are expected to focus on climate adaptation, including early-warning systems and infrastructure capable of withstanding extreme weather.
The WMO reported that 136 countries had early-warning systems in place in 2025, up from 56 a decade earlier. The UN aims to ensure that early-warning systems cover the entire global population by the end of 2027.
