We’re Touching 1.9°C - And It’s Only 2025

Real time data coming out of the world’s climate measurement systems should be stopping us in our tracks. The latest estimate by climate scientist Dr Karsten Haustein shows that, this week, the Earth is 1.9°C warmer than before humans began burning fossil fuels at scale.

Haustein’s work is widely respected in the field of climate science. A researcher at the University of Leipzig and formerly of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, he specialises in the modelling and attribution of extreme weather and climate trends. His website publishes daily maps showing global temperature anomalies drawn from the latest reanalysis and forecast data. They’re not political statements. They’re scientific observations and projections, grounded in the best available datasets.

The current map is shocking. It’s painted in deep reds across much of the Northern Hemisphere - the Arctic, Canada, Europe, Africa and Asia - with pockets of cooler blues too small to counterbalance the global warmth. Australia has a huge red blob too. The numbers are stark: a +1.766°C anomaly in the Northern Hemisphere, and +0.802°C in the Southern Hemisphere, producing a global mean of +1.284°C above 1981-2010. Since that 30-year period was already around 0.62°C warmer than the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average, the maths is simple but alarming. Add them together and you get 1.9°C above pre-industrial - this month, not decades from now!

A Glimpse of the Future - or the Present?

It’s true that this figure represents a short-term global anomaly, not a long-term average. But the fact that we are now brushing up against 1.9°C, even temporarily, shows how little room remains before the 2°C threshold that scientists and policymakers once considered a distant red line. It’s happening in real time. It’s being driven by the relentless accumulation of greenhouse gases.

When Haustein’s map is viewed in context, it’s more than a forecast - it’s a snapshot of a radically altered climate system. Polar amplification effects are visible. Continental heat extremes are becoming normal. And every new record pushes the boundary of what future models must consider “plausible”.

The world agreed in Paris to “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”. That line is already crossed. And as this latest analysis shows, 1.9°C is no longer theoretical. It’s within daily reach.

Where This Leaves Us

Numbers like these should jolt us, but they should also remind us of agency. We can’t undo the heat already baked into the system, but we can choose what happens next - whether these spikes become the new normal or remain warnings that we finally heed.

Karsten Haustein’s quietly published data tells a loud story. The planet is running a fever, and the thermometer is edging ever closer to levels that will reshape our civilisation. Pretending it’s not happening won’t cool it down. Acting swiftly and decisively just might.