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In 2025, Central Asia, the Sahel region, and northern Europe experienced their hottest year on record, based on data from the European Copernicus program analyzed by AFP. Over the past 12 months, the global temperature trend ranks as the third hottest year ever, trailing only 2024 and 2023, pending official confirmation in Copernicus’s upcoming annual report.
This average temperature includes both land and ocean surfaces, but certain regional records tell a more alarming story. Due to limited climate data reporting from some developing nations, AFP supplemented the global picture by independently examining Copernicus data, satellite measurements from around 20 different sources, and weather station reports, covering worldwide hourly data since 1970.
In 2025, a total of 120 monthly temperature records were broken across more than 70 countries. Notably:
Central Asia saw every nation surpass its previous annual temperature records. Tajikistan, a landlocked and mountainous country where only 41% of the population has access to safe drinking water, experienced the highest abnormal temperatures globally — over 3°C above historical seasonal averages from 1981 to 2010. Monthly temperature records there have been broken every month since May, except November. Nearby countries like Kazakhstan, Iran, and Uzbekistan faced temperatures 2°C to 3°C higher than typical seasonal levels.
The Sahel and West Africa regions registered temperature increases between 0.7°C and 1.5°C above seasonal norms. Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Chad experienced some of their hottest months ever, with Nigeria recording its hottest year on record and other nations ranking among the top four hottest in history. Experts from the World Weather Attribution network state that extreme heat events have become nearly ten times more likely since 2015, emphasizing the role of climate change. These vulnerable nations, already battling conflict, food insecurity, and poverty, are on the frontline of rising temperatures.
Europe faced a scorching summer, with about ten countries nearing or setting new annual temperature records. Switzerland and Balkan nations saw summer temperatures spike 2°C to 3°C above average. Spain, Portugal, and the UK endured their worst summers on record, sparking massive wildfires. The UK’s driest spring in over a century contributed to water shortages. While northern Europe avoided the June heatwave, it experienced unusually warm autumns, making 2025 one of the two warmest years on record in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland.
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