Warming is accelerating at a pace not seen since record-keeping began, with the decadal increase nearing the fastest on record and potentially breaching the 1.5°C limit in the 2030s if current trends persist.

Stefan Rahmstorf and colleagues find global warming rising to about 0.36°C per decade since 2013–14, roughly double the previous rate of about 0.18°C per decade, which raises the risk of tipping points and an earlier breach of the Paris 1.5°C target, possibly by 2028 in some analyses.

The warming trend has strengthened since 2015, with rates increasing from roughly 0.2°C per decade (1970–2015) to about 0.35°C per decade in the last decade.

The acceleration remains evident even after removing natural variability factors like El Niño, indicating a genuine upward trend.

In 2023–2024, the El Niño influence was accounted for separately to reveal the underlying acceleration, reinforcing the case for a real long-term trend.

Reductions in air pollution from international shipping have contributed to the acceleration signal by removing particles that reflect sunlight and seed clouds.

Some scientists caution that the acceleration could be temporary and emphasize ongoing monitoring to determine whether the shift is lasting or a transient feature of natural variability.

There is a broader call for continued monitoring to assess durability of the acceleration beyond current datasets and methods.

There is still substantial uncertainty about how much warming is due to human activity versus natural factors, as natural drivers like El Niño, volcanic activity, and solar cycles are not perfectly separable from the data.

The analysis relies on five major global temperature datasets, cross-checking results and filtering out natural short-term fluctuations to isolate long-term trends.

Researchers use multiple datasets to strengthen the case for acceleration by removing the noise from short-term variability.

Independent experts acknowledge a detectable acceleration in recent years but caution about disentangling human-driven warming from natural variability in attributing the share of warming.