Climate frontier

The World Meteorological Organization warns that the planet is being pushed into “truly uncharted territory,” with the record global warmth measured last year now extending into 2017.

A new report from the U.N. agency says that the unprecedented heat of 2016 was “substantially influenced” by a waning El Niño, which contributed 0.1 to 0.2 degrees Celsius on top of the longer-term warming driven by fossil fuel emissions.

And even though those emissions have been flat for the past three years, atmospheric carbon dioxide still rose faster than at any other point in recorded history.

That’s because El Niño weakened the tropical ocean’s ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide.