Climate Threat Global Challenges

The oceans are at record highs – and could get warmer with El Niño

The oceans are warmer than ever before at this time of year, according to data from the EU's climate service Copernicus. On June 21, the average global sea surface temperature between the 60th latitudes was 20.86 degrees, writes CNN. That's just above the June record recorded in 2024.

The heat has been driven by the weather phenomenon El Niño, which is characterized, among other things, by unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean around the equator. Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo warns that the new heat records could be the beginning of a new phase "that once again leads us into uncharted territory."

- With sea temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we are likely to see more temperature records broken in the coming months, he says.

Scientists to Save Coffee from Climate Change

The world's coffee beans are threatened by climate change, and scientists are currently working to secure access to the black gold, writes Nature.

- Coffee is seriously threatened by climate change, says Kassahun Tesfaye, a plant geneticist at Addis Ababa University.

The problem is that the two plant species that generate almost all of the annual consumption, about 10 million tons of coffee beans, both have their limitations. Arabica is temperature-sensitive, while robusta requires very large amounts of water.

Several possible solutions are being explored, from making the two most important coffee species more resistant to experiments with other species within the coffee genus.