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Models are converging on prediction of an El Nino beginning this year, peaking in early 2027. After overlooking the possibility of an El Nino this year, some reporting is jumping on a “Super El Nino” bandwagon. El Nino strength and frequency are important, especially the issue of whether these are modified by global warming. However, the more important knowledge that needs to be extracted from near-term global warming concerns interpretation of ongoing, extraordinary, acceleration of ocean surface warming. Impacts of this ocean warming include a factor of two greater warming over land, increased extreme precipitation, and poleward movement of subtropical conditions.

El Niño could fuel extreme weather and raise temperatures to record highs this year, but how sure can we be that it will return?

Welcome to the Global Climate Highlights 2025 report, compiled by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). The Global Climate Highlights 2025 report provides authoritative climate data and concise insight on a global scale about 2025's climate conditions, covering surface and sea surface temperature, heat stress, sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic, among others.

2024 was the hottest year on record [1], with global temperatures exceeding 1.5 °C above preindustrial climate conditions for the first time and records broken across large parts of Earth’s surface. Among the widespread impacts of exceptional heat, rising food prices are beginning to play a prominent role in public perception, now the second most frequently cited impact of climate change experienced globally, following only extreme heat itself [2]. Recent econometric analysis confirms that abnormally high temperatures directly cause higher food prices, as impacts on agricultural production [3] translate into supply shortages and food price inflation [4, 5]. These analyses track changes in overall price aggregates which are typically slow-moving, but specific food goods can also experience much stronger short-term price spikes in response to extreme heat.

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is the world's strongest ocean current and plays a disproportionate role in the climate system due to its role as a conduit for major ocean basins. This current system is linked to the ocean's vertical overturning circulation, and is thus pivotal to the uptake of heat and CO2 in the ocean. The strength of the ACC has varied substantially across warm and cold climates in Earth's past, but the exact dynamical drivers of this change remain elusive. This is in part because ocean models have historically been unable to adequately resolve the small-scale processes that control current strength. Here, we assess a global ocean model simulation which resolves such processes to diagnose the impact of changing thermal, haline and wind conditions on the strength of the ACC. Our results show that, by 2050, the strength of the ACC declines by ∼20% for a high-emissions scenario. This decline is driven by meltwater from ice shelves around Antarctica, which is exported to lower latit

Temperatures south Asians dread each year arrive early as experts talk of ever shorter transition to summer-like heat

Human-caused climate change increased the likelihood and intensity of the hot, dry and windy conditions that fanned the flames of the recent devastating Southern California wildfires, a scientific study found. But the myriad of causes that go into the still smoldering fires are complex, so the level of global warming's fingerprints on weeks of burning appears relatively small compared to previous studies of killer heat waves, floods and droughts by the international team at World Weather Attribution. Tuesday's report, too rapid for peer-review yet, found global warming boosted the likelihood of high fire weather conditions in this month's fires by 35% and its intensity by 6%.

As Earth’s climate warms, incidences of extreme heat and humidity are rising, with significant consequences for human health. Climate scientists are tracking a key measure of heat stress that can warn us of harmful conditions.

The rapid collapses of two ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula over the past quarter-century were most likely triggered by the arrival of huge plumes of warm, moisture-laden air that created extreme conditions and destabilized the ice, researchers said Thursday.

Meeting human needs at sustainable levels of energy use is fundamental for avoiding catastrophic climate change and securing the well-being of all people. In the current political-economic regime, no country does so. Here, we assess which socio-economic conditions might enable societies to satisfy human needs at low energy use, to reconcile human well-being with climate mitigation.

Only a decade or two ago it was widely thought that tropical forests and intact natural environments teeming with exotic wildlife threatened humans by harboring the viruses and pathogens that lead to new diseases in humans like Ebola, HIV and dengue. But a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases like COVID-19, the viral disease that emerged in China in December 2019,

Sand dunes have declined by 16% between 1970 and 2013, said PC Moharana, principal scientist in natural resource division, Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), who has extensively studied the changing environmental conditions in the desert regions. He clarified that the area under the habitat has turned the barren land into a cropped area with stabilisation of sand dunes as old as 10,000 years old while it will create to have an adverse impact on the unhabituated area — flora and fauna.