India, April 19 -- There is good reason for asking this question. Of the six global temperature datasets tracked by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), five have published their data up to March for 2025. Despite the cooling effect of a La Nina, a cyclical cooling in equatorial Pacific that cools global average temperature, all five average more than 1.5degC warming relative to the pre-industrial average so far. Does this mean that 2025 will be another year of 1.5degC warming after 2024? The average so far does suggest this as a possibility, but the probability of this happening will become clearer later in the year. Here is why.

The WMO tracks six global temperature datasets. These are the datasets published by National Oceanic...