Global warming doesn’t mean everywhere is warming at the same rate, here’s why

Global warming has been occurring for decades^[1]. This is not a subject of debate, but rather a conclusion overwhelmingly supported by scientific evidence. That being said, there are still misconceptions about what global warming actually means. 

One misconception is that global warming means everywhere on Earth warms at the same rate. Although average global temperatures have been rising for decades^[1], not every location on Earth experiences the same temperature rise over a certain period. 

However, this misconception is perpetuated by climate misinformers who claim that temperature data from one region can overwrite well-established conclusions from climate scientists – like the connection between atmospheric CO₂ and global temperature rise^[1] – that scientists have identified in data from around the world. 

To clear these misconceptions, below we will explore what ‘global warming’ really means at a regional vs. global scale. 

Global warming does not mean that everywhere warms at the same pace

When scientific terms are adopted by the general public, misunderstandings are inevitable and can lead to confusion about what’s happening on our planet. This is worsened by climate misinformation, which relies on these misunderstandings to push climate denialism. 

In the past, we addressed misconceptions about the term ‘climate change’ by highlighting the differences between climate and weather – climate change occurs over decades, while weather fluctuates over days to weeks. And recently we covered why cold snaps and cold weather can persist during global warming. But another interesting question is how does global warming affect different locations on Earth?

At face value, the term ‘global warming’ may sound like every location on Earth is warming at the same rate. But this is not the case. Although most places on Earth are currently warming^[1], certain locations are warming faster than others.

To learn more about this, Science Feedback reached out to an expert in climate variability, Dr. Adam Scaife. Scaife, who is a Professor at the University of Exeter and Head of Monthly to Decadal Prediction at the UK Met Office, explained the following in email to Science Feedback:

Scaife points out that just because the global average temperature goes up a certain amount, that does not mean every region will warm by that amount. Some regions will warm more slowly or even cool in that same time period. Simply put, that’s how averages work: if most temperatures are going up, that will bring your average, even if some places remain somewhat stable or, in a rare few places, become colder. 

But the patterns are not completely random. Most land regions are warming faster than the global average, while oceans are warming more slowly^[2], for example. However, warming rates can also vary within land and ocean regions themselves. 

As shown in Figure 1, the temperature changes on Earth over roughly a century (1900-2012) were different from region to region. In fact, some places (south of Greenland, for example) show little change over that time period, despite an overall increase in global average temperature. 

This variability shows why it can be problematic to arbitrarily choose one location on Earth to assess how the planet as a whole has warmed. Choosing an area that has remained cooler than average would produce an underestimate of global warming, and vice versa for an area that has warmed more quickly. 

The Arctic is a great example, as research has shown that it has been warming four times faster than the global average since 1979^[6]. As the UK Met Office explained in an email to Science Feedback:

“Some parts of the planet, such as the Arctic, warm more quickly than other places. At the poles, glaciers and ice sheets reflect energy from the sun into space. So, when there is less ice, less energy from the sun is reflected away. The area then heats even more quickly, causing even more ice to melt. This is known as a positive feedback loop.”

The variability of warming between different regions is why climate scientists assess global warming by looking at average temperature changes from around the planet – not just those from one region. This allows scientists to see through the variability and identify a global trend. In doing so, they have found unequivocally that the Earth is warming^[1]. 

• Learn how Earth warms through the greenhouse effect

  Recent global warming has mainly been driven by greenhouse gas emissions from human activities^[1] which, through the greenhouse effect, trap excess energy in Earth’s climate system and raise global temperatures^[4](see figure below). 

  Figure: Illustration of the incoming and outgoing energy as affected by the natural greenhouse effect (left) and the enhanced greenhouse effect (right). Water vapor (H₂O) plays an important role in maintaining the natural greenhouse effect, while rising CO₂ is driving the human-enhanced greenhouse effect. After incoming solar radiation (shortwave radiation) – shown as yellow arrows – is absorbed by Earth’s surface, it is re-emitted as longwave radiation – shown as orange arrows. This longwave radiation can then be absorbed and re-emitted by CO₂ in Earth’s atmosphere, trapping heat in Earth’s climate system. Source: Climate change: Strategies for mitigation and adaptation^[5]

Despite robust evidence of global warming, climate misinformers continue to cherry-pick data from single locations or regions – often misinterpreting what the data shows – to claim that climate scientist’s conclusions about global warming are wrong. 

A recent example of this came from a group called ‘CO₂ Coalition’, who have long spread climate misinformation (as we’ve shown several times in the past). 

The ‘CO₂ Coalition’ shared a video on Facebook on 18 March 2025 that gained 39,000 views in one day and claimed that ‘CO₂ is not correlated with temperature’ relying on temperature data from only one region (Central England). This claim is far from the first of its kind, and undoubtedly will not be the last. 

We explained above why it can be misleading to choose one location on Earth to represent global change. In addition, the CO₂ coalition misleads the viewers in another way by comparing that data to annual CO₂ emissions, as we explain below 

Total CO₂ concentration in Earth’s atmosphere drives temperature increases – looking at annual emissions alone can be misleading

Increases in annual emissions of CO₂ can lead to a faster buildup of CO₂ in Earth’s atmosphere. However, the most important relationship between global temperature and CO₂ is the actual amount of CO₂ in Earth’s atmosphere. As Scaife explained to Science Feedback:

The UK Met Office echoed this idea, explaining:

“they [CO₂ coalition] are using CO₂ emissions in their graph, rather than atmospheric CO₂ concentration […] concentration is what drives global warming, so the plot in the video is misleading from that point of view too”

Although this may seem like a subtle distinction, it is important because not all CO₂ that is emitted stays in Earth’s atmosphere. There are processes on Earth that store CO₂ in other places, such as in Earth’s oceans and forests. 

So correlating annual CO₂ emissions – rather than the actual buildup of atmospheric CO₂ – to temperature changes is misleading. In addition, the UK Met Office explained to Science Feedback that the UK’s temperatures can naturally vary on yearly and decadal scales (see squiggly nature of the blue line in Figure 2). 

As explained in a 2024 paper published in the International Journal of Climatology, the UK’s temperatures vary more at yearly scales than global temperatures because “the UK covers only a small fraction (~1/2000) of the Earth’s surface.”^[3]

These local variations can make the connection between atmospheric CO₂ concentrations and local temperature change seem a bit hazier. As Scaife explained to Science feedback:

However, as we noted earlier, it is already well-established that rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are driving global temperature rise^[1]. There is no reason to cherry-pick one location or region – introducing more variability and thus less clarity in trends – when far more robust and scientifically rigorous studies have shown a clear connection. 

As shown in Figure 3 below, scientists found that in modern times, greenhouse gases overall cause the most global warming of all the climate change drivers, and CO₂ causes the most global warming of all the greenhouse gases. 

Questions from Science Feedback:

1. If global warming does not heat the Earth at the same rate everywhere, what are some of the factors that contribute to variable warming rates?

2. Do anthropogenic CO₂ emissions correlate well with temperature data for single locations (rather than global average temperature data)? 

UK Met Office:

“1. One example of why regions are warming at different rates is that water warms more slowly than land. This means that on average central land masses are expected to warm more than regions close to oceans. Other factors such as topography and latitude also have a role. Some parts of the planet, such as the Arctic, warm more quickly than other places. At the poles, glaciers and ice sheets reflect energy from the sun into space. So, when there is less ice, less energy from the sun is reflected away. The area then heats even more quickly, causing even more ice to melt. This is known as a positive feedback loop. These changes in temperature also have an impact on rainfall distribution and rates of change around the globe.

2. The following pages will provide some information for this question. One thing to note is the way the CET data is displayed in the video. If the data is displayed as an anomaly you can see the correlation between CO₂ and CET temperature.

Information about CO₂ and climate change: https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/climate-change-questions

Information about CET including graph showing closer alignment to CO₂ concentrations https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/cet-series

Met Office Climate Dashboard with lots of data and graphics that show the relationship between CO₂ and temperature https://climate.metoffice.cloud/

This video on the basics of climate change has an experiment showing the impact of CO₂ on temperature https://youtu.be/d9MYUUt8cK0?si=Zah_lxqS31aKiOrg&t=113“

Additional question to the UK Met Office:

SF: Is it appropriate to use temperature data from one location (e.g., the HadCET dataset from Central England) to draw conclusions about overall global warming? If not, why?

UK Met Office: “Global warming is by its very nature a global issue and while we can observe our changing climate at regional levels, taking a global view is a more robust way to look at overall trends. Some regions such as the arctic are warming much faster than other regions of the world for example. From a UK perspective though, there’s a plot in the UK State of the Climate 2023 report that is relevant, comparing UK to global land and combined land-ocean temperatures over a more recent period than CET. For the HadCRUT5 global dataset mentioned below, almost 8,000 land-based weather stations contribute to this data set.”

“Globally, warming is greater across high latitudes compared with the equator, and over land compared with the ocean (IPCC, 2021, Blunden and Boyer, 2022). The most recent decade 2014–2023 has been 1.25°C warmer than 1961–1990 for the UK, compared with 0.85°C for global mean surface temperature and 1.15°C for global land only. The UK’s climate is subject to natural multi-annual to multi-decadal modes of variability which will super-impose on any longer-term trend. Taking this factor into consideration, the underlying warming observed for the UK is consistent with that observed globally over land.”^[3]

References

• 1 – IPCC (2021) Sixth Assessment Report.
• 2 – IPCC (2018) Global Warming of 1.5°C.
  3 – Kendon et al. (2024) State of the UK Climate 2023. International Journal of Climatology. 
• 4 – Zhong and Haigh (2013) The greenhouse effect and carbon dioxide. Royal Meteorological Society Weather.
• 5 – Wang et al. (2023) Climate change: Strategies for mitigation and adaptation. The Innovation Geoscience.
• 6 – Rantanen et al. (2022) The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979. Nature Communications Earth & Environment.