The 1997-98 El Niño wiped $5.7 trillion from global GDP over five years. The next one arrives on a hotter baseline — and the nations that fund early-warning systems are cutting their budgets.
Jangmi spawned inside a vast, slow-spinning monsoonal gyre over the Philippine Sea — a formation pattern that gives storms broad wind fields and heavy rain without the compact eye of a typical typhoon.
2025 saw the second-lowest global burned area since 2002 — and some of the worst wildfire destruction in modern memory. The fires aren't getting bigger. They're getting closer.
Temperatures have run 5-8°C above seasonal norms since mid-April. Climate change made this heatwave roughly three times more likely. The monsoon is still weeks away.
Angoulême hit 37.8°C — the highest May temperature ever recorded in France. Paris saw eight consecutive days above 32°C, a streak matched only three times in recorded history, all in midsummer.
Kew Gardens hit 35.1°C — in May. France confirmed seven heat deaths. Records fell across three countries, and summer hasn't started yet.
A tank of methyl methacrylate is warming by roughly one degree an hour in Orange County. The pressure relief valves are broken. No one can say when it blows.
The UK's all-time May temperature record has stood since 1944. Forecasters say it will not survive the weekend — and Monday could beat it by a full degree.
The Scottish Highlands and Irish uplands were once defined by rain, peat and mist. The 2025 wildfire season — Europe's worst on record — suggests that's no longer true.
First Nations fought to protect the Peel watershed from mining. Now permafrost thaw is replicating mine-scale pollution across hundreds of Arctic streams — no permits, no tailings dam, no off switch.
The resolution passed 141-8. But provisions for a fossil fuel phase-out and a climate damage registry were stripped under pressure from the US, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. The legal scaffolding that remains is already showing up in courtrooms worldwide.
A May wildfire has forced 17,000 from their homes in Ventura County — months before Southern California's traditional fire season. The calendar says spring. The hills say otherwise.
Honduras broke its May heat record twice in the same week. Siberia got 31cm of snow. Egg-sized hail battered eastern China. All in the space of days.
Fifty-seven countries agreed to develop voluntary plans for winding down fossil fuel production. The four nations responsible for 45% of global emissions weren't invited.
A 481-meter wave — taller than any building on Earth — tore through an Alaskan fjord last August. The cruise ships were hours away. The monitoring systems saw nothing coming.
Pollution from coal plants wiped out 111 terawatt-hours of solar generation in 2023 — the output of 18 coal plants. The vicious cycle is most acute in China, where both industries are expanding side by side.
Enough solar electricity to power London for a year will be curtailed this summer because Europe's grids can't handle the output. The panels went up; the wires didn't keep up.
Drought covers 62.78% of the Lower 48 states — the highest spring coverage in 26 years of records. Parts of the Southeast need 20 inches of rain just to break even. Summer hasn't started.
Deforestation in Brazil's Atlantic Forest fell to 8,658 hectares in 2025 — a 40-year low. A new law stripping federal oversight and a Bolsonaro candidacy could erase those gains before the trend hardens into recovery.
Twice the size of Texas, already scorched — and that's before Pacific waters forecast to hit 3°C above average unleash what scientists say could be the worst fire season in modern history.
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Rae Carlsen