In a recent public event, US President Donald Trump reiterated claims suggesting that the Earth is experiencing a cooling trend, reigniting public and political interest in the president’s claims.
Historically, these assertions have been sporadically made during many moments of his presidency and have produced renewed public and political responses.
In the present moment, these claims create discordant evidence recorded by agencies monitoring the conditions of weather globally. The scientific community continues to note that the continued pace and direction of global temperature increases is a continuous and accelerating warming trend, and that it is inappropriate to take one or two days of localised temporary weather conditions and use them to create a conclusion on global weather.
Donald Trump defies temperature records
The President’s recent remarks disputing the reality of climate change correspond to solid data compiled by NOAA. The National Centres for Environmental Information reports that March 2026 recorded significant heating, with a global average surface temperature at 2.36 degrees Fahrenheit (1.31 degree Celcius) compared to the long-term (20th century) average. As a result, March 2026 is tied with 2024 as the second-warmest March globally since 1850.
According to NOAA, all ten of the highest monthly anomalies from the long-term average for March have occurred in the past decade. This evidence clearly illustrates an ongoing and persistent trend of rising global temperatures that contradicts claims that the globe is cooling.
The reality of current global temperatures
In support of NOAA’s findings, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) analysed the status of global surface air temperatures and found that in March 2026, global surface air temperature anomaly was 1.48 degree Celcius compared to the pre-industrial average (1850-1900).
The C3S data also show that sea surface temperature anomalies for March were the second highest recorded, reflecting an ongoing increase in thermal energy of the world’s oceans.
Independent scientific organisations also agree that understanding the difference between daily fluctuations in the weather and longer-term climatic trends is absolutely essential for understanding how global temperatures are changing.
The collision of politics and climate science
The President is known for employing social media and public interviews in expressing a trend against scientific consensus regarding the relationship between climate change and cold weather events. Although there is no determination of any significant public occurrences in March 2026 tied to any one of the President’s so-called ‘cooling’ speeches or statements, the current administration’s public declaration regarding an ongoing and growing scepticism of reports about global climate change has been a continuous and daily objective through early 2026.
The response from many scientific organisations has echoed the sentiment that short-term events, such as cold spells or a series of cold events, cannot constitute evidence to refute the pre-established elevated global mean temperature trend directly associated with rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases.
