Also: What extreme heat can do to your heart
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Hello, and welcome back to our weekly climate newsletter!
The world’s oceans are the hottest on record for June, pushing past records set during the 2023/2024 El Niño years.
A prolonged marine heatwave also affecting UK waters is poised to intensify to extreme levels next week, forecasters have warned.
Right now, the average sea surface temperature is just under 21C across the world’s tropical and temperate oceans. Before widespread industrialisation in 1870, the temperature was about 19.6C.
That may not sound like a big difference. But heating the world’s oceans this much requires a truly enormous amount of energy. Of all the extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases from burning coal, gas and oil, more than 90 per cent has gone into the world’s oceans.
As a result, the oceans are getting rapidly warmer. In 2025, the heat added was the equivalent of about 12 Hiroshima-scale nuclear bombs exploding every second of every day.
But the heat in the ocean doesn’t just stay there. Hotter oceans fuel stronger cyclones, a more humid atmosphere, more intense rainfall and more heat in air masses over the seas, which can in turn make heatwaves over land more likely and more intense.
This summer has already been brutal across Europe, the UK and the US. Multi-day warnings of extreme heat were issued in New York, Boston and Philadelphia this week as sultry weather pushed east just ahead of Fourth of July celebrations in a region that revels in its role as a historic hub of U.S. independence.
The El Niño forming in the tropical Pacific right now is likely to be a big, or "super" one. As it develops, we can expect to see warmer temperatures and extreme events such as marine heatwaves in the western Indian, tropical Atlantic and eastern Pacific Oceans.
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People at a beach amid UK heatwave (AFP/Getty)
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The island in Pakistan where 45C heat puts pregnant women and babies in danger |
For the inhabitants of Baba Island, which lies just off the coast of the Pakistan’s capital and megacity of Karachi, life is becoming tougher every year that passes.
Some 25,000 people are packed into a single square kilometre of tightly-packed concrete, with little greenery, unreliable electricity, and few options for work beyond fishing. At sea, however, the catch is shrinking as overfishing, environmental degradation, and increasing sea temperatures transform the waters they depend on.
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Delhi offers car owners $1,000 to scrap old vehicles – but will it solve the smog nightmare? |
An ambitious policy finalised by Delhi aims to phase out petrol scooters, motorbikes and autorickshaws within two years and offer residents cash incentives to switch from older vehicles to electric ones in an attempt to tackle some of the worst air pollution levels in the world.
The policy, brought in by the government of India’s national capital territory, carries an outlay of Rs150bn (£1.27bn) over four years to incentivise buyers of electric two-wheelers, cars and small trucks, as well as fund the installation of EV charging infrastructure.
The government hopes the measures will see at least 30 per cent of the capital's vehicle fleet electrified by 2030. But is it enough to tackle the city's choking pollution?
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That's how much area – in hectares – that wildfires in France have burnt through as a heatwave there persists
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