February was cooler in 2025 than in 2024 — but the long-term trend is still warming

January 2025 was the hottest January on record. This was surprising because the world recently transitioned from El Niño (which tends to increase global temperatures) to La Niña (which tends to cool them). We might have expected this cooling to be reflected in January’s temperatures. It was not.

But February did not follow this same pattern.

The chart tracks monthly temperature anomalies, comparing current temperatures to historical averages. Each dot represents a February anomaly, with El Niño (warmer) years in orange and red and La Niña (cooler) years in blue.

As expected, February 2025 cooled compared to February 2024, following the usual pattern where La Niña years tend to be cooler than the El Niño years before them.

However, this doesn’t mean global warming has slowed. Recent La Niña years are still warmer than El Niño years from just a few decades ago, showing that even natural climate fluctuations don’t reverse the long-term warming trend.

We update this data monthly so you can track how these patterns evolve.

Read our recent article that explains in more detail how the world is warming despite natural fluctuations from the El Niño cycle →

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Our World in Data. “February was cooler in 2025 than in 2024 — but the long-term trend is still warming” by Veronika Samborska, published by Our World in Data under CC BY 4.0. Changed here: set as a page, its interactive charts shown as pictures. Data from third parties keeps its own licence.

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