“There’s a pretty dramatic jump in temperature that started in mid-2023, and it has really persisted through the present,” says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist with the group Berkeley Earth. The persistence, he says, has surprised many climate scientists and caused them to wonder if climate change may have begun to push Earth’s oceans and atmosphere into new, potentially unforeseen behaviors.

— Alejandra Borunda / “January wasn’t expected to break global temperature records. But it did.” / NPR