Heat and more heat dominated headlines again this week as concerns rise about the strengthening El Niño and mounting wildfire damage.
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to the latest stories about climate, energy and the environment. I’m Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent with USA TODAY.
Scientists continue finding new ways to describe what they’re seeing on the satellites that report sea surface temperatures in the El Niño region along the equator in the Pacific Ocean. They say the chances continue to increase that this El Niño could be the strongest on record. Temperatures in the region remained high this week, hovering about 0.4 degrees Celsius below the highest ever reported in the region.
Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather recently labeled it “mind-boggling,” USA TODAY reported. Hausfather and others say El Niño’s effects on global temperatures increase the chances for the Earth logging another warmest year on record, as El Niño’s additional heat piles on top of climate change.
A ‘double whammy’
In California, ocean scientists are becoming increasingly worried about the combination of effects from a lingering marine heat wave off the coast and the added heat from the looming El Niño. Couple that with the warming driven by climate change and they fear it’s a recipe for disaster. “It’s going to be a double whammy,” said Douglas McCauley, director of the Benioff Ocean Science Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara. With El Niño stacking new heat on top of the warmth already present from the heat wave and climate change, it’s likely to reveal more about how consequential the pattern could be in a warming world.
However, a strong El Niño is also of science interest because of the surprising visitors that can pop up offshore, such as hammerhead sharks and venomous yellow sea snakes. “We get this whole different ocean,” said Chris Lowe, a professor of marine biology and director of the Shark Lab at Long Beach State University.
A World Cup analysis
Climate Central published a climate-related World Cup summary this week. Among its conclusions were the following points, based on observations from the weather station nearest each stadium:
- In Miami, the average daily high temperature on each of the seven match days was 93.4 degrees, and the average temperature at kickoff was 86.9, based on observations from the nearest weather station.
- The hottest match of the tournament was Paraguay vs. France on July 4, 2026. The high temperature that day at the closest monitoring station was 101 degrees, and was made twice as likely by climate change.
- France was the most climate-exposed team, playing more matches in non-climate-controlled stadiums with daily highs above 82.4°F than any other team.
‘Climate alarm blaring’
“The climate alarm is blaring, from every direction,” said Simon Stiell, the United Nations Climate Change executive secretary, in a statement released this week. “These spiraling disasters are now the lived reality for billions in a world getting rapidly hotter, as humanity moves too slowly from fossil fuels to clean energy and to protect forests.”
More than 617,000 acres have burned in Europe this summer as record-breaking wildfires plague France, Spain and other parts of Europe. In North Africa, temperatures are approaching 120 degrees Fahrenheit, putting lives and livelihoods in grave jeopardy, and putting hospitals and power systems under severe strain, Stiell stated.
Summer days featuring conditions that promote wildfire ignition, intensity, and spread have more than doubled across large parts of the Iberian Peninsula, France, Italy, and Greece since 1981, according to a study released on July 30 in Scientific Reports. “We found that fire weather has severely intensified across the region,” the international team of researchers wrote. Summer days featuring extreme fire-prone conditions in the region have more than doubled between 1981 and 2025. “This intensification is consistent with broader changes in temperature and precipitation patterns,” the study stated.
July heat in the U.S.
July faded away in the United States with a continued streak of record-breaking warm temperatures, especially at night. More than 80 new all-time records for warmest nighttime temperature were set in the United States in July, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. All-time records for maximum daytime high temperatures were set at least 100 times. In Randolph, Utah, the town set new all-time records for warmest overnight low temperature on four occasions, topping a temperature set earlier in July three times.
In South Carolina, the maximum heat index at Bennetts Point reached 119, according to the National Weather Service in Charleston. The heat index – a computation of actual temperature and humidity – is what the temperature feels like in the shade.
Wildfire record nears
The number of acres burned by Oregon wildfires this summer is nearing a new modern record for the state with more than 1.78 million acres burned as of July 29. That’s just short of the 1.93-million-acre record set in 2024, according to data from the Northwest Coordination Center. Zach Urness at the Salem Statesman Journal has closely followed the Oregon fires, including a story on why the fires have run wild. The fires have burned 21 homes and racked up costs of more than $240 million in firefighting costs.
Nationwide more than 43,000 wildfires have burned this year, over almost 4.7 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. It’s the highest number of fires year to date in more than a decade.
Weather caucus formed
Two U.S. congressmen have launched a bipartisan Weather Enterprise Caucus. They want to focus congressional attention on the economic, societal, and national security value of sustaining and improving the accuracy of weather forecasts, according to Rep. Mike Flood, a Nebraska Republican.
The caucus aims to encourage Congress to “recognize the importance of weather science, innovation and the work being done every day to keep Americans safe,” said Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-IL), a meteorologist. The executive directors of the newly launched American Weather Enterprise Association were among the speakers at the kickoff event.
Critter Corner
Fans of Jackie, the bald eagle at Big Bear Lake, learned this week that she is on the mend and had been moved from the intensive care unit at the Ojai Raptor Center, in Mira Monte, California.
In Martha’s Vineyard, a tiny, 11-day-old piping plover chick had to be euthanized after being found inside its protected nesting area with two broken legs. Federal officials are investigating.
In Florida, a state investigation alleged two businessmen spread an estimated $60 worth of mothballs on the beach in St. Petersburg to prevent shorebirds from nesting.
Read on for more, including a graphics story about shark movement. If someone forwarded you this newsletter, we invite you to subscribe.