We regularly hear about this or that year being the “hottest” ever or having the worst weather ever, and we often contest how researchers claim to know such things and what they think “ever” even means. But one thing they do know, though the media somehow failed to mention it, is that 2025 was the greenest year ever, with “ever” here defined as “in the satellite record since the 1980s”. Which is also how we claim to know: satellite scans. They say Earth has more leaf coverage, largely because of rising CO2 levels, and in 2025 greenness surged to a record high, according to a recent study published in a Nature-related journal (paywalled, alas). Around the world 60 percent of forests, 72 percent of grasslands and 78 percent of croplands are greening. One of the few regions showing browning was eastern Siberia, due to, in the authors words, “anomalously cold growing season temperatures”. Hmm. CO2 good, cold bad. Egad. What will science discover next?

The data used for the study are from two satellite systems, MODIS and VIIRS. The satellite readings are gathered into something called the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the results since 2000 look like this:

The 2025 surge was, according to the authors, helped by the 2024-25 La Nina conditions which brought extra precipitation and slightly cooler conditions to many continental areas. Although, as noted, cooling worked against greening in eastern Siberia.

If 2026 and 2027 involve a flip to El Nino conditions, perhaps by 2028 the greening will have dropped back below trend. But since rising CO2 is such a strong driver of greening, as long as we avoid doing something dumb like going to Net Zero we can expect God’s green Earth to continue greening in the years ahead.