Findings from the World Meteorological Organization’s newly released Global Climate Report (2025)

If only the most alarming trends we are witnessing lately—warming oceans, heat waves in the Arctic and record high temperatures elsewhere—could be credited to normal fluctuations. But the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) makes clear in the latest Global Climate Report (GCR), released in March 2026, that the extreme values of several key indicators can no longer be explained by natural variability alone; too many observed trends strongly suggest otherwise. As an important first, the GCR introduces a concept known as the earth energy imbalance (EEI), which tracks the difference between incoming heat in the form of solar radiation and outgoing longwave energy, as well as shortwave energy dynamics. The EEI has been steadily increasing and reached its highest value in sixty-five years in 2025.

By temperatures alone, the last decade has broken records. The interval between 2015-2025 was the warmest 11-year block of time yet tracked in official records. The year 2024 reached 1.5 °C above pre-industrial norms and the year 2025 followed closely at 1.43 °C above baseline temperatures set in 1850-1900. The WMO states that these temperatures now represent an “operational reality rather than a future scenario.” Consider the significance of this statement: Essentially, we are no longer approaching some ominous climate tipping point in the distant future—we are there now. This article outlines some of the most important findings in the 2025 GCR, forcing us to consider where we go from here.

Greenhouse gases and trapped heat

Land at higher latitudes like the North and South Poles and mountain ranges have historically been the coldest locations on the planet but have been experiencing significantly warmer temperatures in recent decades. This steady warming drives large-scale loss of glacial mass and permafrost, which contributes to sea level rise and triggers other hydrological and atmospheric shifts.

For example, atmospheric levels of three major greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O)—increased significantly in 2024. In fact, the year 2024 recorded the largest year-on-year increase in cumulative greenhouse gas loading on record. These trends appear to be continuing through 2025 according to real-time data. Accelerated release of methane from melting permafrost and increases in N₂O levels affect radiative forcing, stratospheric chemical dynamics and alter whole-earth climate model projections. Natural variability may trigger short periods of cooling, but the WMO stresses that these episodes do not reverse the irrefutable warming that the records show is occurring. As many professionals and decision-makers now recognize, these data show that we cannot continue to use engineering design standards based on stationarity. Too much is changing too fast.

The EEI, warming oceans and irreversible trends

Under stable climate conditions, incoming energy would be roughly equal to energy that is leaving the system. Earth’s high EEI value shows that more heat energy is being trapped within Earth’s atmosphere than is being released. This means that the trends we are observing in terms of sea level rise and other phenomena will continue an upward trajectory. Even if the political will existed to reduce global emissions, no known mitigation regime would be effective enough to reverse prevailing trends.

The GCR estimates that roughly 90% of excess energy from greenhouse gas emissions is being stored in the planet’s oceans; the ocean heat content (OHC) index is therefore an important “integrative” indicator of whole system climate dynamics. Measurements of OHC at depths of 2000 m over the course of a multi-decade record starting in 1960 shows a distinct upward trend notwithstanding some interannual variability. WMO stresses that this trend is now “locked in” and that reversing ocean warming at these depths is virtually impossible—at least for the next century.

One of the most significant consequences of warmer oceans is also the most problematic for the near and foreseeable future. Higher ocean surface temperatures and latent available heat energy are known to fuel the most intense and life-threatening tropical storm systems. When these systems hit coastal areas where roughly 900 million people reside, wide-spread loss to life and infrastructure through storm surge and flooding become virtually inevitable.

Steady sea level rise, future trends and an engineer’s duty

Global mean sea level (GMSL), which has been measured by satellite altimetry since 1993, is steadily increasing. Data now show that the rate of sea level change has now doubled from 2.1 mm/ year in 1990 to approximately 4.1 mm/year in 2024 and 2025. Thermal expansion from warming ocean temperatures to runoff from glacial melt and warming of arctic regions are behind the steady rise of the seas. As a case in point, Venezuela lost its last remaining glacier in 2025. The WMO notes that these impacts are signs that the Earth has crossed a key cryospheric “tipping” threshold.

The WMO’s 2025 report brings the jarring reality of our situation to the fore: climate change is not in the future—it’s here. Important indicators—from record-breaking global temperatures to Earth’s energy imbalance, ocean heat content and sea levels—all reinforce this conclusion. Finally, the WMO introduced the concept of the EEI index in the 2025 report. The high observed EEI values between 2001–2025 indicate not just a warmer climate, but a climate with a higher rate of change. Clearly, engineers need to start approaching infrastructure design as if extreme conditions are on the figurative “doorstep” now. We need to heed the call and act accordingly.