“Highly unusual,” “disturbing,” “frightening,” and “unprecedented”; the reactions of senior scientists to the sharp rise in surface temperatures in the North Atlantic over the past three months raise the question of whether the world’s climate has entered a more unstable and dangerous phase with the onset of an El Niño event at the peak of global human-caused global warming. Since April, warming appears to have entered a new trajectory. Meanwhile, the extent of global sea ice has shrunk by more than 1 million square kilometers below its previous low. (Jonathan Watts, Julian Amani, Paul Scruton and Lucy Swan, the Guardian)