La Nina Can't Cool, Earth Experiences Record Heat Again

JAKARTA, KOMPAS - The Earth's temperature continues to rise, reaching a monthly record in January 2025, despite the occurrence of La Nina and winter in some regions. This new record was announced alongside a new study from climate science experts who found that global warming is now accelerating and is predicted to increase by up to two degrees Celsius by 2045.

This monthly temperature record was announced by the European Climate Service Copernicus on Thursday (2/6/2025). According to their data, January 2025 was globally 0.09 degrees Celsius hotter than January 2024, breaking the record in the history of measurements. January 2025 was already 1.75 degrees Celsius hotter than before the Industrial Revolution in 1850.

The new monthly record marks the 18th of the last 19 months that the world has reached or exceeded the internationally agreed limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. Meanwhile, tree-ring proxies suggest this is the warmest era in about 120,000 years, or since the dawn of modern human civilization (Homo sapiens).

Samantha Burgess, Director of the Copernicus European Climate Service, said that the biggest driver of record heat is the accumulation of greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas. Natural factors such as the ENSO cycle do not play an optimal role.

El Niño, which contributed to raising the Earth's temperature, ended in June 2024, and La Niña began in January 2025. Last month, climate scientists predicted that the year 2025 will not be as hot as 2024 or 2023, with La Niña being the main reason.

"Usually, after an El Niño like last year, temperatures drop quickly, but we haven't seen that this time. Although the equatorial Pacific temperatures are not creating warming conditions for our global climate, we are still seeing record temperatures," said Burgess, as reported by AFP.

Data from Copernicus also shows that the weather in January 2025 in the Arctic is unusual. Some areas of the Arctic, Canada have temperatures 30 degrees Celsius warmer than average. The temperature has become so warm that sea ice has started to melt in some places.

According to Burgess, the Arctic this month matched the January record for the lowest sea ice. The US-based National Snow and Ice Data Center recorded it as the second lowest after 2018.

James Hansen, a former NASA scientist who is known as the father of climate science, said that 2025 will likely still be hot because of the increasingly rapid rate of global warming. Hansen, who now works at Columbia University, and his team in their latest research in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development showed that the temperature increase in the last 15 years is twice the rate of the previous 40 years.

"I believe that this higher rate is going to continue for at least a few years," Hansen said. "Over the course of a full year, there will be a sudden change between 2024 and 2025."

The biggest driver of record heat is the buildup of greenhouse gases from burning coal, oil and natural gas.

Hansen and his team conclude that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. The crisis is exacerbated by a decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which has mitigated some of the warming.

According to Hansen and team, given current developments, the United Nations Climate Panel's ambitious climate change scenario, which gives the planet a 50 percent chance of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, is an implausible scenario.

"That scenario is now impossible," said Hansen, who is best known for telling the U.S. Congress in 1988 that global warming was underway. "The two-degree target is no longer valid."

Instead, he and his co-authors argue, the amount of greenhouse gases already pumped into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels guarantees that global warming will continue to rise at or above 1.5 degrees Celsius for years to come — damaging coral reefs and fueling more powerful storms — before rising to about 2 degrees Celsius by 2045.

They predict that melting polar ice and freshwater injection into the North Atlantic will trigger the closure of the Atlantic Meridian Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in the next 20-30 years. This current carries warm ocean currents to various parts of the world and brings nutrients needed to sustain marine life.