Matt McGrath is an environment correspondent.
According to a new analysis, the likelihood of crossing a key global warming threshold has risen.
According to the UK Met Office, there is a 50% chance that the world will warm by more than 1.5C over the next five years.
Researchers are concerned about the direction of the temperatures.
They say it is almost certain that the year will be the warmest on record.
The UK has a national meteorological service called the Met Office.
Global temperatures have risen in step over the past three decades as levels of warming gases in the atmosphere have accrued rapidly.
In 2015, the world's average temperature went 1C above the pre-industrial levels, which are generally thought of as the temperatures recorded in the middle of the 19th century.
The year that political leaders signed the Paris climate agreement was also the year that the world agreed to keep global temperatures under 1.5C.
At the 26th Conference of the Parties in Glasgow last November, governments renewed their commitment to keep 1.5C alive.
For the past seven years, global temperatures have stayed around the 1C mark, with 2016 and 2020 being the warmest years on record.
The world is already experiencing significant impacts such as the unprecedented wildfires seen in North America last year, or the drastic heatwaves currently hitting India and Pakistan.
The UK Met Office carried out an update from the World Meteorological Organisation that said the chances of a temporary rise in temperature to 1.5C in one of the next five years have never been higher.
According to the study, temperatures will be between 1.1C and 1.7C higher than they were before.
The Met Office predicts that the chance of breaching the 1.5C level is close to 50% for any one year in the period.
The lead author of the report said that the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are slowly creeping up.
I think people are already concerned about climate change and it is worrying, it shows that we continue to warm the planet and we are getting closer to the first threshold that was set in the Paris agreement - and we need to continue doing everything we can to cut."
A sustained rise where temperatures don't fall below this figure isn't the same as going over 1.5C for a year. If it is exceeded in the next five years, it will fall below 1.5C again. There isn't much room for arrogance anymore.
For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise, according to Prof. Taalas.
Our weather will become more extreme, our oceans will become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, and sea level will continue to rise.
According to the study, the impact of warming in the north will be greater than in the rest of the world over the next five years. According to the researchers, the difference in temperatures from the long-term average will be three times larger in these areas.
The researchers think that one of the coming years will break the 2016 and 2020 record for warmest year.
That is most likely to happen in an El Ni year.
That is a natural meteorological phenomenon associated with an unusual warming of the surface waters of the eastern Pacific ocean that can impact weather all over the world.
The year we do exceed 1.5 degrees will probably be an El Ni year, according to Dr. Hermanson from the Met Office.
It is on top of climate change and the next record year will probably be an El Ni year, like 2016 was.
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