theSIGNAL SCIENCE
3 September 2026
"The planet does not negotiate with calendars or economies."
NEWSBUSINESSTECHNOLOGYWORLDSCIENCECULTUREENVIRONMENTSPORT
Science

Strongest El Niño in 75 Years Is Rewriting the Rules

Scientists warn that sea surface temperatures could hit 4°C above average, making this El Niño the most powerful since records began in 1950.

Picture southern Brazil in 2024: streets turned to rivers, hillsides collapsing, families wading through what used to be neighbourhoods. That was El Niño doing what El Niño does — only louder, faster, and more destructively than almost anyone alive has seen before. Now the World Meteorological Organization has confirmed the worst suspicion: this event could be the strongest in at least 70 years, and it may not release its grip until February 2027. So what exactly is happening out in the Pacific?

El Niño begins when trade winds weaken and a vast tongue of warm water spreads eastward across the tropical ocean. That warm water breathes heat into the atmosphere, and the ripple effects reach almost every continent. Some regions bake in drought. Others are battered by intensified typhoons or floods.

In the key monitoring zone of the central and eastern tropical Pacific, surface temperatures have already been sitting more than 2°C above average. Forecasters now believe monthly readings could approach 4°C above average — a margin that would shatter the records set in 1950, potentially by a wide gap. What makes this event truly alarming is its timing. It is arriving on top of a planet that has already been warmed by decades of human-caused climate change.

Floodwaters swamped entire neighbourhoods in southern Brazil as El Niño drove record rainfall in 2024.
Discuss
  • Why might El Niño's effects feel very different in Brazil compared to Australia?
  • Is it fair to blame human-caused climate change when El Niño is a natural phenomenon? Explain your reasoning.
  • What responsibilities do wealthier nations have when El Niño devastates poorer, more vulnerable countries?
Science

Doctors Unite to Fill Vaccine Advice Gap

Six months old. That is all it takes to qualify for a flu shot, according to four major US medical groups who joined forces this week — because someone has to. The CDC has gone quiet, and the Trump administration's shifting stance has left patients genuinely bewildered. So the American Academy of Pediatrics and its allies launched SpreadTheFacts.org. It pools safety data and clear seasonal guidelines for flu, Covid-19, and RSV. Analysis published in JAMA found flu vaccines cut older adults' hospitalizations by 31%.…
  • Should medical groups replace government agencies in setting public health guidelines?
∞
El Niño is being supersized before our eyes, the science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up.
António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General
Science

Pacific Islands Face Tuna Crisis at 1.8°C

At a leaders' summit in Palau, scientists delivered a striking number: 1.8°C. That is how high global temperatures are now projected to peak — overshooting the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target, according to a new UNEP report. The consequences for Pacific island nations are strikingly concrete. Tuna stocks will migrate eastward, costing governments $90 million in fishing licence fees — roughly 13% of regional revenue. Coastal fishers could lose 65% of their catch, which Andrew Jones of The Pacific Community described as "two meals per family per week." Rising seas will also push saltwater into freshwater supplies, making some islands increasingly difficult to inhabit.…
  • Should wealthy coal-exporting nations pay directly for Pacific climate losses?
GLOBAL · Science
'A giant leap forward': Nasa launches powerful new space telescope
WORLD · Science
Many space missions are searching for life beyond Earth, but are we prepared for the fallout if they succeed?
AMERICAS · Science
NPR spent 2 years tracking deaths from heat. We found a staggering hidden toll
OCEANIA · Science
Hundreds of hidden earthquakes found at Antarctica’s Doomsday Glacier
theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
uncharted waterspre-positioned
shatter the recordsscrambledbewildered
overshootstriking
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Modal verbs — deduction and speculation (must have, cannot have, might have)
Use 'must have + past participle' for strong deduction about the past, 'cannot have + past participle' for certainty that something did not happen, and 'might have + past participle' for weak possibility about the past.
must have · cannot have · might have · been · expected · reached · caused
  1. Scientists say the 2024 floods in southern Brazil must have ___ shocked residents who had never seen destruction on that scale before.
  2. Ocean temperatures in the central Pacific might have ___ already reached 4°C above average by the time the WMO published its findings.
  3. Governments that pre-positioned medical teams cannot have ___ ignored the severity of the warnings issued by the WMO.
  4. The current El Niño must have ___ been building for months before its full impact became visible to forecasters.
  5. Without early warning systems, many vulnerable communities might have ___ received no alert at all before extreme weather struck.
  6. Pacific island governments cannot have ___ anticipated such a dramatic eastward migration of tuna stocks when they first signed fishing agreements.
3IDIOMS
Define each idiom in your own words. Then write one sentence of your own using any one of them.
  1. rewriting the rules (headline)
  2. release its grip (paragraph 1)
  3. put it bluntly (paragraph 3)
  4. in uncharted waters (paragraph 3)
  5. gone quiet (Doctors article)
4CRITICAL THINKING
The Pacific Islands article ends with a rhetorical question: 'When the fish move and the water turns salty, what exactly is left to negotiate?' What does this question imply about the limits of international diplomacy when climate impacts become physically irreversible? Do you think framing the crisis this way helps or hinders productive debate?
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the El Niño story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
The articles describe scientists, doctors, and Pacific leaders all stepping into spaces where governments have either failed to act or sent mixed messages. Choose one of these groups and argue whether civil society can realistically fill the gap left by political inaction, or whether there are limits to what non-governmental actors can achieve.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong using words from the articles.
  • wet→→
  • warm→→
  • unusual→→
  • concerned→→
  • weakened→→
  • reduced→→
8SPEAKING
  1. Can scientific consensus survive when governments go politically silent?
  2. If tuna disappear, which Pacific industries might replace lost income?
  3. How should fishing licence revenue losses change international climate negotiations?
  4. Would you trust a website launched by doctors over official government advice?