Each year, the world’s leading climate scientists evaluate the most critical evidence on how our planet is changing. Their assessments draw heavily on data from Earth-observing satellites—and the latest report delivers a stark warning: the planet’s energy balance is drifting further out of alignment, ocean warming is now accelerating, and the land’s capacity to absorb carbon is declining, along with other troubling trends.
Global climate indicators show growing cause for alarm. The World Meteorological Organization confirmed that 2024 was the warmest year on record. This warming coincided with record ocean temperatures and sea-level rise, rapid glacier loss, low Antarctic sea ice, and more frequent extreme weather.
Against this backdrop of intensifying change, scientists are racing not only to document what is happening, but to understand the implications and communicate them to decision-makers.
Each year, Future Earth, the Earth League and the World Climate Research Program bring together leading researchers from around the world to assess the most urgent advances in climate research. Their mission is to curate and synthesize key messages across diverse fields of climate-change research, based on the latest relevant peer-reviewed literature to produce “10 New Insights in Climate Science.”
The 2025 edition, released as both an academic paper published in Global Sustainability and a science–policy report, draws on research published between January 2024 and June 2025.
This new easy-to-read guide reflects the collective effort of more than 70 researchers, incorporating input from more than 150 experts worldwide—distilling the latest findings into clear, policy-relevant insights designed to support the timely uptake of new scientific evidence in decision-making through 2026 and beyond.
Sophie Hebden, ESA Climate Applications Scientist, said, “These findings are based on robust empirical data published in leading scientific journals, including data generated through ESA’s Climate Change Initiative—a major research and development program that produces long-term global satellite data records to monitor key components of Earth’s climate system, known as Essential Climate Variables.
“Through the initiative, we transform satellite observations into high-quality data products to assess the state of the climate and know where we currently stand, to validate and improve climate models so we know where we’re heading, and to support ESA Member States with transparent information to help track progress in climate action and Paris Agreement reporting.
“Satellite datasets are a major source of information for climate scientists from around the world, with authoritative scientific assessments published periodically by the UNFCCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and annually in the ’10 New Insights in Climate Science’ report.”
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