• March 2025 was the second warmest on record globally and the warmest ever recorded in Europe.
• It is the twentieth month out of twenty-one in which the global average temperature has exceeded pre-industrial levels by at least 1.5 degrees.
• Arctic sea ice extent in March has also never been so reduced.

Once again, the monthly climate bulletin published by Copernicus – the European climate change monitoring service – signals a record. March 2025 was, in fact, the warmest ever in Europe. Globally it ranks second, but only by the slimmest margin of 0.08 degrees compared to the all-time warmest. Which, moreover, dates back only to last year.

March 2025 was also exceptionally warm

At the global level, the warmest March ever recorded was that of 2024, with an average surface temperature of 14.14 degrees Celsius. The month just passed settled at an average of 14.06 degrees Celsius, well 1.6 degrees above pre-industrial levels. In third place is March 2016, with 0.02 degrees less. Of the last 21 months, this was the twentieth in which the global average temperature exceeded pre-industrial levels by at least 1.5 degrees Celsius. It should nonetheless be noted that, in order to consider the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement on climate failed, a single year is not enough — the assessment must be based on a twenty-year average.

In Europe, the temperature settled at 6.03 degrees, fully 2.41 degrees above the average recorded in the same month during the 1991–2020 period. These figures confirm the month just passed as the warmest March ever recorded. Eastern Europe and Russia in particular were grappling with unusually mild temperatures, while the situation was the opposite on the Iberian Peninsula. In terms of precipitation, the picture is also patchy, with heavy rainfall on the Iberian Peninsula and in northern Italy and, conversely, severe drought across Belgium, the Netherlands and northern Germany.

A negative record for Arctic sea ice too

March is also the month in which Arctic sea ice — the ice that periodically forms, melts and re-forms on the ocean surface — reaches its maximum extent. This is because the end of the boreal winter is approaching, a period during which temperatures have long been below zero, allowing the ice to consolidate.

This year was no exception, yet Arctic sea ice extent was nonetheless the lowest ever recorded in the month of March in 47 years — that is, since satellite observations began. The difference compared to the average is 6 per cent. And it is the fourth consecutive month in which a negative record has been set for the corresponding period of the year. Antarctic sea ice extent, also in March, was 24 per cent below average.