Earth showing alarming symptoms of climate distress as 22 of 34 key indicators hit record highs: Report

Earth is showing alarming symptoms of climate distress, with 22 of 34 key indicators of planetary health hitting record highs, warned a new scientific assessment.

The study, led by researchers from Oregon State University with contributions from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), painted a stark picture of a planet under stress.

The researchers tracked 34 “vital signs”, including global temperature, greenhouse gas levels, sea ice loss and sea level rise, to gauge the state of Earth’s health. These indicators build on a framework introduced in 2020 by Ripple and colleagues, who issued a global climate emergency declaration now backed by nearly 15,800 scientists worldwide.

“We are now seeing vital signs breaking their records by extraordinary margins — surface temperature, ocean heat content, sea ice loss and fire-related tree cover loss,” said Johan Rockström, director of PIK and co-author of the study published in the journal BioScience.

The planet’s global surface temperature in 2024 exceeded any level seen since the last interglacial period, roughly 125,000 years ago. The decade from 2015 to 2024 is now the hottest 10-year stretch on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

By mid-2025, the global surface temperature anomaly was 1.54°C above the historical average and at the second-highest level on record. This confirmed that the long-term warming trend is intensifying, keeping the world well within the hottest period in human history. Rising levels of greenhouse gases, intensified by fossil fuel dependence, remain the driving force behind this increase, noted the authors of the study.

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide were all at record-high levels again in 2025. In May 2025, the average carbon dioxide concentration at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii exceeded 430 parts per million — a level likely not seen in millions of years.

The number of days when maximum temperatures exceeded the historical average also surged to record levels last year. The incidence of extreme heat, based on the proportion of days when the maximum temperature exceeded the 90th percentile for the baseline period 1961–1990, reached a record high in 2024.

Ocean heat content reached a record high in 2024, contributing to the largest coral bleaching event ever recorded, affecting about 84 per cent of the world’s reefs between January 2023 and May 2025. Warm-water coral systems that are vital for fisheries and coastal livelihoods have crossed a critical tipping point, risking irreversible collapse, warned the landmark report released on 12 October 2025. Global fire-related tree cover loss reached an all-time high, with fires in tropical primary forests up 370 per cent over 2023, fuelling emissions and biodiversity loss.

Arctic and Antarctic ice are melting at alarming rates, the report flagged. In 2024, the minimum Arctic sea ice shrank to 4.28 million square kilometres, among the lowest levels on record. Greenland lost 5,540 gigatonnes of ice, while Antarctica shed 2,660 gigatonnes — a massive depletion of the planet’s frozen reserves.

Glaciers worldwide continued to thin, adding to rising sea levels. Data in the report indicate that the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets may be passing tipping points, potentially committing the planet to metres of sea-level rise. Symptoms of a warming world are now clearly visible across the globe, including in oceans and polar regions.

Despite strong growth in renewable energy, the world remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels. In 2024, coal, oil and gas use each reached record highs, pushing energy-related emissions to 40.8 gigatonnes of CO₂ equivalent, which is an all-time high.

While solar and wind energy use rose by 16.4 per cent in 2024, fossil fuel consumption was still 31 times greater. The top five emitters — China (30.7 per cent), the United States (12.5 per cent), India (8 per cent), the European Union (6.1 per cent) and Russia (5.5 per cent) — accounted for nearly two-thirds of total global emissions.

Under such a scenario, the report warned that the planet is dangerously close to crossing multiple climate tipping points. These are irreversible thresholds in systems such as ice sheets, permafrost and tropical forests. Once crossed, these can set off self-reinforcing feedback loops that further accelerate warming, potentially pushing Earth into a “hothouse” state.

In the past 50 years, global temperatures have risen faster than at any time in the last 2,000 years. Under current policies, the planet could warm by up to 3.1°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100, according to the UN Environment Programme.

“The accelerating climate crisis threatens the planet’s essential operating systems — from ocean currents to global water resources,” said Rockström. “But our report also shows that decisive action can still stabilise the Earth system.”

Lead author William Ripple of Oregon State University stressed that the window for effective climate action is closing fast. “Climate mitigation strategies are available, cost-effective and urgently needed. Every fraction of a degree of avoided warming matters for human and ecological well-being.”

Each additional tenth of a degree of global warming leads to a disproportionately greater rise in extreme weather events and more people facing intolerable heat stress. The past year saw a surge in devastating climate-related disasters around the world, including the catastrophic flash flood in Central Texas in July 2025, the heatwave in India and Pakistan in April 2025 and Cyclone Chido, which caused extensive damage in Southeast Africa in December 2024.

The authors advocated for a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, large-scale investment in renewables and protection of natural carbon sinks such as forests and wetlands.

If scaled up, renewables could supply 70 per cent of global electricity by 2050, they estimate. But delaying action, the report warns, will lock in higher costs, more severe weather and irreversible impacts.