Global Temperature by Year

012026 So Far

NOAA's global figures through September 2026 put the year at +1.17°C above the 20th-century average, +1.34°C above 1850-1900, which makes it the 2nd warmest January-to-September stretch in 177 years of records. To beat 2024, the record at +1.25°C, the remaining 3 months would have to average +1.49°C, warmer than any single month NOAA has ever recorded (the highest is +1.40°C). Applying how the rest of the year moved in each of the 75 complete years since 1951, 1 of those patterns would produce a record. The middle of them puts the year at about +1.20°C, and nine in ten fall between +1.17°C and +1.22°C, which would rank it 2nd warmest. This is a count of past patterns, not a forecast: it does not use El Niño forecasts, and today's climate is warmer than the years it draws on.

NOAA global land and ocean temperature, above the 1901-2000 average. Add 0.17°C to compare with 1850-1900. A month is published around the middle of the next month. NASA's figures for the same months average +1.23°C above its 1951-1980 baseline.

02Day by Day

Copernicus, the European Union's climate service, publishes a global average for every day, a few days behind real time. On November 8, 2026 the planet averaged 14.59°C, +0.98°C compared with the 1991-2020 average for that date (a preliminary figure). So far in 2026, 75 of 312 days have been the warmest on record for their date, and the year to date ranks 2nd warmest of 87 years.

ERA5 daily global surface air temperature, compared with the 1991-2020 average for each date. Grey lines are the other years since 2016. Copernicus puts 1991-2020 about 0.88°C above 1850-1900 for a full year; the gap varies a little by season.

03Every Year Since 1850

NOAA's global average for every year, compared with 1850-1900. Bars are coloured by the state of the tropical Pacific at the start of each year, which is when El Niño and La Niña usually peak; the line is the trailing 20-year average. The long rise is steady, and the swings around it follow the Pacific: years that begin in El Niño tend to sit above the line, and La Niña years below it.

04The Warmest Years on Record

The 15 warmest years in NOAA's record and where the other three datasets rank them. The very top of the list is all recent years, and the datasets sometimes order years that are only a few hundredths of a degree apart differently.

A dash means that year is not yet in the data files this page reads (Berkeley Earth's data files currently run through 2025; its reports can be newer). Copernicus starts in 1940.

05The 1.5°C Line

The Paris Agreement aims to hold warming to well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, usually taken as 1850-1900. The limit refers to long-term warming, not any single year, so a year above 1.5°C does not by itself mean it has been crossed. The IPCC dates a crossing by the middle of the first 20-year period that averages 1.5°C, which means it can only be confirmed about a decade after the fact; estimates of today's level of warming combine the recent record with projections. The trailing 20-year averages below are a simple look back over the last two decades, centred about ten years ago, so they run lower than the current warming level:

NOAA and Berkeley Earth figures are measured from each dataset's own 1850-1900 average. Copernicus starts in 1940, so its figures add the 0.88°C that Copernicus uses to convert its 1991-2020 baseline to 1850-1900. NASA's record starts in 1880 and is not converted.

06El Niño, La Niña and Record Years

The history on this page uses NOAA's traditional Oceanic Niño Index (ONI), which tracks the temperature of the tropical Pacific over three-month seasons; +0.5 or more for five seasons in a row is an El Niño, −0.5 or less a La Niña, and +1.5 or more is usually called strong. Since 2026 NOAA has used the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI) for its official monitoring, which compares the Pacific with the rest of the tropics so that warming oceans do not inflate it; it reads lower than the ONI. For August-October 2026 the RONI is +2.0 and the traditional ONI +2.46. El Niño conditions began in April-June 2026 and have reached +2.46 so far. Because the global average lags the Pacific by a few months, the year after a strong El Niño peaks has often been a record: 4 of the 9 strong El Niño events since 1950 were followed by a record year in NOAA's data.

07By Decade

NOAA, complete years only. * Decade not finished yet.

08The United States

The average temperature of the contiguous 48 states, which swings far more from year to year than the global average because it covers a much smaller area. 2024 is the warmest year on record at 55.48°F, +3.47°F above the 20th-century average; 2025 ranked 4th of 131 years. 2026 so far (January to October) ranks 1st warmest of 132.

09How This Page Works

Global temperature. NOAA's NOAAGlobalTemp land and ocean series is the main record here, monthly and yearly from 1850. Its figures are compared with the 1901-2000 average; the 1850-1900 figures subtract NOAA's own average for 1850-1900 (−0.17°C on its scale). NASA's GISTEMP, Berkeley Earth and Copernicus ERA5 are shown alongside for comparison, each on its own baseline as described in the tables.

This year and the record. A year is ranked once all 12 months are in. The chance of a record compares what the rest of the year would need to average with how the remaining months have moved relative to the latest three months in every complete year since 1951. It is a statistical estimate from history, not a forecast, and it does not use El Niño forecasts.

El Niño and La Niña. NOAA's traditional Oceanic Niño Index for the history, and its Relative Oceanic Niño Index for the current state where available; each year is labelled by its December-to-February value, and events follow NOAA's five-season rule. "The year that followed" a strong El Niño is the calendar year after the peak when the peak came late in a year, and the same year when it came early.

NOAA data through September 2026; Copernicus through November 8, 2026; page data rebuilt November 10, 2026. Related: Is AI Raising Your Power Bill? · Historical Mortgage Rates · Price History of Everyday Items · Special Features.

10Frequently Asked Questions

11Sources

• NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information: Climate at a Glance, global time series (NOAAGlobalTemp)
• NOAA NCEI: Climate at a Glance, contiguous U.S. time series
• NOAA NCEI: monthly global climate report (including NOAA's own estimate of the chance of a record year)
• NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies: GISTEMP v4
• Berkeley Earth: global land and ocean temperature (its high-resolution monthly series, which Berkeley describes as preliminary and subject to revision)
• Copernicus Climate Change Service: Climate Pulse (ERA5 daily global series; contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information)
• NOAA Climate Prediction Center: Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) and Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI)
• IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group I (2021) (human influence, and how crossing 1.5°C is defined)