The undiscovered country awaits

The coastal promenade in Trabzon, Turkey, on June 27, 2026, just days after the record-setting ocean temps were recorded on June 21. Ertugrul Bastan/Anadolu/Getty Images

The great unraveling begins. Global warming's entering the phase transition where everything begins to break, quickly, as phase transitions, when they arrive, as my loyal readers know, are never linear. This is now becoming existential, something most untoward, something never seen by man until now and remember, this is just the beginning.

The ocean's heating up ...

Higher-than-normal sea surfaces (red) are visible in the central and eastern Pacific on June 8, 2026, a few days before El Niño was declared. Data for the map were acquired by the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite and processed by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin 

Temperatures on the ocean surface have hit a record high, raising fears of another burst of extreme heat this summer.

On June 21, temperatures outside the polar regions exceeded the extraordinary highs observed at the same time in 2023 and 2024, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Wednesday.

It warned the new peak would probably bring “consequences for weather patterns, global climate and marine ecosystems,” not least because it would coincide with the earliest phases of an El Niño event they forecast to be the strongest in decades.

When the previous ocean record for June was set in 2023, scientists described the trends as “worrying,” “terrifying,” and “bonkers,” because they were so far outside their expectations. That presaged an El Niño and a period of devastating global heatwaves, floods, and storms.

That 2023 record has now been surpassed, and much of the world is once again seeing an alarming rise in temperatures. Last month, the UK and many other countries in Europe sweltered amid new heat records, while Antarctica experienced unprecedentedly balmy winter conditions.

Although the focus is usually on land temperatures, oceans give a fuller picture of how much the climate is being pushed out of balance by human-caused warming.

In closing

Beyond the devastating effects of an El Niño event, the rising temperatures serve as a warning sign that human-caused climate change is really starting to rear its ugly head. The Earth is rapidly losing its ability to dump heat thanks to a major surge in greenhouse gases we’re pumping into the atmosphere.

The undiscovered country awaits.