Seven of 16 climate vital signs hit record extremes this year, a new report finds, even as renewables passed coal in global electricity.
Climate change is often pictured as a slow drift that mostly threatens some future generation. The authors of a new report on the planet’s vital signs wrote that the picture is out of date. In their reading, Earth’s climate system is becoming unstable now, even as clean electricity spreads quickly around the world.
The report is the seventh annual update from an international coalition led by scientists at Oregon State University. It tracks 16 measures of the climate’s health, from heat-trapping gases to ice, and seven of them are at record extremes. Its 11 authors include Johan Rockström of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
“Rapid destabilization is now a diagnosis rather than a warning for the future,” said co-lead author William Ripple, a distinguished professor emeritus in the OSU College of Forestry.
The team didn’t run a new experiment. It pulled together existing measurements from many sources, and several of the newest figures are preliminary.
Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, the three most important heat-trapping gases, all hit new highs again this year. In May, carbon dioxide passed 428 parts per million. That’s about 50% higher than before the Industrial Revolution. It’s also higher than at any time in the last two million years.
The oceans absorb most of the extra heat those gases trap. As seawater warms, it expands, and that expansion accounts for about 56% of the sea level rise seen in recent decades.
Melting on Greenland’s ice sheet has grown more extreme, too. It has gone through a series of intense melting episodes in recent decades, and the volume of extreme summer meltwater has risen sixfold.
In an interview with Earth.com, Ripple named what surprised him most this year. “I was especially struck by how many different parts of the climate system are moving in the wrong direction at the same time,” he said. “Ocean heat content and sea level are at record highs, while glacier thickness and Greenland ice mass are at record lows.”
Add the three gases to those four indicators, and that’s the full set of seven records.
From 1970 to 2010, the planet warmed by about 0.34°F (0.19°C) per decade. Between 2010 and 2024, the rate was about 0.65°F (0.36°C) per decade. That’s nearly twice as fast.
At that pace, the authors wrote, warming could reach 3.6°F (2°C) above preindustrial levels before 2050.
Cleaner air may explain part of it. Some kinds of air pollution reflect sunlight and cool the planet slightly, and as that pollution has dropped, less of the greenhouse warming has been offset.
Another analysis the report cites reached a different view. It found that the warming, including the 2023–2024 temperature spike, is consistent with leading climate models. Even so, those models may not fully capture the rise in extreme weather, the authors wrote.
El Niño, a periodic warming of the tropical Pacific that pushes global temperatures up, is expected to be very strong this fall. Asked by Earth.com what he’s watching as a strong El Niño builds, Ripple pointed to temperatures.
“I will be watching global temperatures and ocean heat very closely,” he said. “A very strong El Niño could add substantial warming on top of the long-term warming caused by greenhouse gases, so the coming months may give us another glimpse of what a hotter world looks like.”
Fires caused the loss of tree cover across about 27 million acres (10.8 million hectares) worldwide in 2025. That’s an area roughly the size of Tennessee, and the third-highest total on record. Those fires also release greenhouse gases, which can drive more warming and, in turn, more fire.
The past year also brought deadly extreme weather. In October 2025, Hurricane Melissa, which tied the record for the strongest Atlantic hurricane by wind speed, killed 95 people, mostly in Jamaica and Haiti.
In June 2026, a heatwave in Europe caused about 14,000 deaths, according to a preliminary estimate. The authors list both among events at least partly attributable to climate change.
They also flag the Amazon rainforest. On warming alone, it may stay stable up to 5.4°F to 9°F (3°C to 5°C). Add deforestation, and research the report cites suggests it could cross an irreversible threshold at just 2.7°F to 3.4°F (1.5°C to 1.9°C) of warming.
A few of the measures are improving. In 2025, renewable sources such as solar, wind, and hydropower produced more of the world’s electricity than coal for the first time in more than a century. Solar and wind use grew by about 18% in a single year.
“With low-carbon sources now providing about 43% of global electricity, we may be witnessing the emergence of what we call the ‘Age of Electricity,’” said co-lead author Christopher Wolf, a former Oregon State postdoctoral researcher.
That growth hasn’t pushed fossil fuels out, because demand for energy kept rising. In 2025, fossil fuel use rose 0.9%, with oil, coal, and gas each at a record high. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions topped 45 billion tons (41 billion metric tons) for the first time.
There was good news from forests, too. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell for the fourth year in a row, reaching its third-lowest level in 38 years.
Ripple said signs like these shouldn’t get lost. “We are seeing progress, just not yet at the speed and scale needed,” he told Earth.com.
Cutting emissions is still essential, the authors wrote, but it’s no longer sufficient by itself. In their view, the extreme weather of recent years shows that people also need to adapt fast.
Their list of quick measures includes urban trees and cooling centers for heat, restored wetlands for flooding, and mangroves against storm surges. Solar panels with batteries can lower the risk of power outages when storms hit the grid.
Funding falls far short. Global spending on climate adaptation was about $64 billion in 2024. By 2035, adapting to climate change in developing countries alone is expected to cost $310 billion to $365 billion a year.
Even the low end of that range is nearly five times what the world spent.
“I think people should focus on what they can do both individually and collectively,” Ripple said. “That can mean reducing fossil fuel use where practical, supporting clean energy and climate-friendly policies, and helping their communities prepare for heat, wildfire, flooding and other growing risks.”
The authors also cite tools such as the En-ROADS Climate Solutions Simulator, which lets users test how mixes of policies and technologies could change future warming.
Scientists still disagree about why Earth’s energy imbalance has grown. That imbalance is the gap between the sunlight the planet absorbs and the energy it sends back to space, and it measures how much heat the planet is gaining. Explanations in the report range from fewer reflective clouds to shifts tied to El Niño to land that’s absorbing less carbon.
How much nature itself will add is also uncertain. Thawing permafrost, wetlands, and wildfires all release greenhouse gases as the planet warms. Researchers cited in the report estimate that those sources could make human-caused warming after 2020 roughly 20% to 30% larger by 2100.
This year’s El Niño is the nearer test. If it’s as strong as forecasters expect, 2026 is on track to be one of the hottest years on record, the authors wrote. The next round of measurements will show what that extra heat did to the other vital signs.
The full study was published in the journal BioScience.
—–
Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.
Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.
—–

source