New york: As global warming continued to reshape Earth’s climate, the planet’s oceans reached record high temperatures for the third year in a row in 2025. Some northern forests and tundra released more carbon dioxide than they absorbed, and the Greenland Ice Sheet lost about 129 gigatons of ice, enough to form a cube of ice about three miles wide on each side.

According to Iraqi News Agency, these were among the findings in the 2025 State of the Climate report, released Monday by the American Meteorological Society and led by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report identified continued burning of fossil fuels as the primary source of record-high greenhouse gas levels, which are raising global temperatures and intensifying extreme weather.

In Europe, for example, average temperatures have risen about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1960s, while extreme high temperatures have shot up by as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit. The findings carry added significance in light of an advisory opinion on climate change issued last year by the International Court of Justice, which concluded that countries may be liable for cross-border climate damage they knowingly cause or fail to prevent. As a result, governments that continue to promote fossil fuel use face increasing legal scrutiny and could be held responsible for ongoing and future climate-related harm.

‘Anyone who still doubts the reality or severity of the climate crisis needs to read this report,’ said climate scientist Jennifer Francis, who studies Northern Hemisphere climate extremes at the Woodwell Climate Research Center. Francis did not contribute to the report. The report, she said, ‘underscores our collective failure in stemming human-caused climate warming and related impacts,’ including ‘worse and more frequent heat waves, flooding, droughts, wildland fires, and disruptions to all life on Earth.’

The time to slow the changes is running dangerously short, she said, adding that ‘many leaders continue to ignore the warning bells.’ Despite widespread public support for policies that protect the climate, many countries have expanded fossil fuel use, even since signing the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit human-caused warming. The report foreshadows the even more intense climate extremes erupting around the world, from the March heatwave in western North America to extreme drought and wildfires in Europe this summer that have already caused more than $3 billion of economic damage.