Alarms from scientists, conferences and agreements, but nothing helps: the temperature on Earth continues to increase. The European Climate Report 2025, published by Copernicusreports a “record” for European sea temperatures, with 86% of our continent’s oceanic region (excluding ice-covered areas) recording at least one day with intense marine heatwave conditions.
The year of records (which we didn’t want)
As we read in the document, the result of a collaboration between around 100 scientists from across Europe and the rest of the world, in 2025, the average annual sea surface temperature in the European ocean area reached a record value for the fourth consecutive year, standing at 10.94 °C.
This value is 0.65 °C above the average and 0.07 °C above the previous record set in 2024 (10.88 °C). The 2025 data confirms the marked increase in annual SST observed since 2021. For the Mediterranean Sea, the 2025 annual SST was the second highest ever recorded, at 21.35 °C, 1.03 °C above average, after the record value of 2024 (21.50 °C).
Annual SSTs were well above average in two-thirds (65%) of the region, including 98% of the Mediterranean Sea
data that, honestly, is really scary
The main exceptions were in the central and western North Atlantic, where annual SSTs were close to or below average. But record high temperatures were recorded in more than 23% of the region, including large parts of the northeastern North Atlantic, the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the western Mediterranean. These areas of record temperatures differ from those of 2024, when records were mainly set in the subtropical North Atlantic and the eastern Mediterranean.
Specifically from January to May, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were well above average across most of the European region, except for an area east of Iceland, where they were lower.
During this period, monthly SSTs reached record values for the time of year across much of the northeastern North Atlantic, including just over half (55%) of the Mediterranean Sea in March
But make no mistake: While conditions in the North Atlantic were less extreme in the second half of the year, with lower-than-average SSTs spreading across the central and western parts of the basin, record SSTs meanwhile spread further north into European Arctic seas, including the Norwegian Sea, The Greenland Sea and the Barents Sea.
Not just water
Although the water data are particularly shocking, naturally everything is the consequence of a general warming of temperatures on our planet. And Europe is the continent that is warming the fastest, at a rate more than double the global average, in particular by around 2.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels.
Notably, in 2025 at least 95% of Europe experienced above-average annual temperatures. Among other things, a record three-week heat wave even hit the Fennoscandia 30 °C.
For this reason we are not surprised – alas – by the consequences on the glaciers too: these, in all European regions, have recorded a net loss of mass, with Iceland having suffered the second greatest loss of glaciers ever recorded. Snow cover was then found to be 31% lower than average, with the Greenland ice sheet losing 139 gigatons (139 billion tons) of ice.
Just as it seems “natural” that throughout Europe, river flows were lower than average for 11 months of the year, with 70% of rivers recording annual flows lower than average.
On the other hand, we see it: storms and floods have affected thousands of people across Europe, although extreme rainfall and flooding have been less widespread than in previous years. And the fires have burned approximately 1,034,550 hectares, the largest area ever recorded.
We have nothing else to add.
