Tens of millions of Americans sweltered under furnace-like temperatures as central and eastern American cities hunkered down for a heat wave. Over the last four years, more than 200,000 people have died in the E.U. due to extreme heat.

Figures from France’s Public Health Agency show that deaths rose 29% in the last week of June compared to one year before. The country recorded its hottest day ever on 24 June, with temperatures hitting 41C (105.8F) in Paris and half the nation was placed under a red heat alert.

The urgent signals coming from our planet include rising seas, raging wildfires, heat waves and melting glaciers. The years 2015 to 2025 were the 11 warmest on record. Global mean near-surface temperatures in 2025 stood at about 1.43 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial baseline, ranking it as the second or third warmest year since records began. The signals coming from Earth include rising seas, raging wildfires, heat waves and melting glaciers

Climate change impacts manifest across regions, disproportionately burdening populations with limited adaptive capacity, which include rising seas, raging wildfires, heat waves and melting glaciers.The scientific consensus is in reports from the World Meteorological Organization, NASA, the Copernicus Climate Change Service and other authoritative bodies, paints an image of accelerating climate disruption.

Long-term warming trends, compounded by potential El Nino influences, mean that 2026 will likely rank among the warmest years, potentially challenging recent records. Sea-level rise also continues unabated. The global average sea level has risen between 21 cm and 24 cm since 1880, with acceleration driven by thermal expansion and loss from glaciers and ice sheets. In 2025, levels remained close to the record highs observed in 2024.

And, glacial melt and Arctic amplification are proceeding rapidly. There have been profound changes, with record-low Arctic sea ice in early 2026 and accelerated Greenland and Antarctic ice loss contributing to sea-levels. Extreme weather events have also intensified. The frequency, severity and duration of heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and tropical cyclones have increased markedly.

Europe is warming at twice the global average rate. The 2025 European heat waves caused thousands of excess deaths, with estimates ranging from 4,700 to more than 16,000. Wildfires ravaged parts of the Iberian Peninsula, with more than 670,000 hectares burned across Portugal and Spain last year.

The 2025 Los Angeles wildfires were the costliest on record, destroying thousands of structures, displacing more than 50,000 people and causing damage exceeding $135 billion.

An El Nino event essentially redistributes heat on Planet Earth. Currently, the subsurface heat in the Pacific is moving east across the ocean and ascending to the surface from the deep waters, the initial stages of El Nino. The Global Seasonal Climate Update showed that sea-surface temperatures are rising rapidly.

For half the world’s population, the water in their drinking glasses comes from groundwater, which also supplies 40% of global irrigation projects. Alarmingly, more than a third of the planet’s aquifers, or groundwater basins, are dropping down. The Middle East is among the driest regions in the world, with water availability about 10 times lower than the global average said the World Bank. Arctic sea ice hits lowest winter level, as heat records are shattered worldwide.

A report published on March 20, 2026 found that heat waves in the US West have increased in intensity by more than 7 degrees Fahrenheit because of climate change, and that this event was 800 times more likely than it would have been in a world without global warming. The 11 hottest years ever recorded were all between 2015 and 2025, the United Nations’ weather and climate agency confirmed in its Global Climate annual report.

In Biblical days these natural catastrophes were blamed on human sins and God’s punishments of the sinners and their victims. The mysterious New Testament book of Revelation uses the word Armageddon, although it does not appear in the Hebrew Bible, and appears only once in the Greek New Testament, in Revelation 16:16 which makes no mention of armies being predicted to one........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)