State of the Climate report finds Earth’s energy has moved dangerously out of balance, with oceans absorbing vast majority of trapped heat
Our home planet is struggling with a record energy imbalance, which is warming oceans to unprecedented levels, making weather more extreme and threatening health and food supplies, the World Meteorological Organization has warned.
The United Nations body confirmed 2015 to 2025 were the hottest 11 years ever measured, but a still bleaker message was that the rising temperature experienced by humans on the surface was only 1% of the faster-accumulating heat in the wider Earth system.
More than 90% of that excess is absorbed by the oceans, which experienced the highest heat content in history last year. The rate of ocean warming has more than doubled over the past two decades, compared with the average over the previous 45 years.
The authors of the latest annual State of the Global Climate report say this highlights the increasing vulnerability of a planet that is moving ever further out of balance as a result of human activity. The burning of oil, gas, coal and forests releases heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, which are all at their highest level in at least 800,000 years.
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At present, humans and other life forms on the surface directly suffer only a small fraction of that energy backup because 91% is absorbed by oceans, 5% by the land, 1% warms the atmosphere, and 3% melts ice at the poles and on high mountains.
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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/23/earth-being-pushed-beyond-its-limits-as-energy-imbalance-reaches-record-high
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