Is the world getting hotter, faster? It’s a big question which has been puzzling and dividing scientists for years. A new paper says it has the answer, and it’s not good news.Global warming has accelerated “significantly” over the past 10 years, meaning the world may barrel through crucial global warming limits faster than expected, according to the study published Friday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.As parts of the Northern Hemisphere recover from very cold blasts, it can be hard to remember just how warm the planet has been over the past few years, but it’s been on an exceptionally hot streak: 2024 was the hottest year on record, capping off the hottest decade in recorded history.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe impacts of all this heat are clear; vast swaths of the world have reeled from devastating climate change-fueled extreme weather including heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires and floods.But Earth systems are very complex and it is hard to figure out whether a few abnormally hot years means the long-term trend of global warming is speeding up.In the new paper, scientists looked to answer the question by analyzing five large global temperature data sets and filtering out the “noise” — natural climate variations that have short-term impacts. These include El Niño, volcanic eruptions and the solar cycle, which influence temperatures in the short term, masking long-term changes.The Earth warmed by about 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade between 1970 and 2015. Then, between 2015 and 2025, it warmed by 0.35 degrees, the study found — a 75% jump.AdvertisementAdvertisementIt’s a “significant” increase and a higher rate than any previous decade since record keeping began in 1880, the paper concluded.The light of a fire fighting helicopter illuminates a smouldering hillside as the Palisades fire grows near the Mandeville Canyon neighborhood and Encino, California, on January 11, 2025. – Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty ImagesPeople wade through a flooded alley caused by Typhoon Kajiki in Hanoi, Vietnam, Tuesday, August 26, 2025. – Huy Han/AP“We think we are the first to show a statistically significant acceleration,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a study author and head of Earth system analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.Another recent paper co-authored by James Hansen — the US scientist who publicly sounded the alarm on the climate crisis in the 1980s — also concluded global warming is speeding up, but didn’t do a statistical significance test, Rahmstorf said.Current projections suggest the internationally agreed-upon global warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius — which refers to the average over decades not single years — will be breached at some point in the 2030s. But if this accelerated warming rate continues, the world will likely reach 1.5 degrees before 2030, the report found. Past this limit, scientists say the impacts of climate change will start to exceed the ability of humans and ecosystems to adapt.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe study’s methodology is “careful and meticulous,” said Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University, who was not involved in the research.More in ScienceThink of the atmosphere like a swimming pool, Hayhoe said. The water is equivalent to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and humans have essentially stuck a hose into the pool and every year been turning up the faucet — so the water is rising faster and faster. “In a nutshell, what this study is doing is finally DETECTING what scientists have long PRED …
