Photo by Melissa Bradley
The world has entered a new climate era that threatens the fabric of civilization because it’s the reverse of the climate system that society was built upon. As it happens, the biosphere is starting to unravel as the world’s long-standing normal climate system shows clear signs of breaking down while planetary heat throws scientists a curve ball. The normal climate system behavior 0ver the decades is gone.
According to the World Meteorological Organization (which Trump cannot cripple like NOAA) on a global basis the past year was the hottest in the 175-year observational record with record-setting ocean heat and record-setting sea-level rise. Ninety percent (90%) of global warming is hidden from society absorbed by the oceans. Remarkably, the world’s oceans broke temperature records every single day for 12-months-running. (BBC). Now it’s gotten so excessive that scientists are worried about “payback.”
Everything is on the line, major ecosystems like Antarctica and the Amazon rainforest are regurgitating years of abuse; only recently, West Antarctica was rushed to Red Alert status by freaked-out polar scientists, and large swaths of the Amazon rainforest emit CO2 in competition with cars, trains and planes for the first time in human history, as rainfall at Summit Station (10500’ elevation) has been a strange eerie twist for Greenland. This is climate breakdown in full living color.
A recent article in Science/Alert d/d April 9, 2025 is filled with examples warning of climate breakdown: ‘Exceptional’ – Ongoing Global Heat Defies Climate Predictions.
Weird stuff that never happened thoroughout human history is happening to the climate system. For example, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service, since July 2023, the world has sustained a near-unbroken streak of record-breaking temperatures by the month every month, e.g. March 2025 was the hottest March ever recorded for the European Continent. And every month for the past 21 months has exceeded the dreaded 1.5C upper limit, to wit: “March was 1.6C above pre-industrial times, extending an anomaly so unusual that scientists are still trying to fully explain it. That we’re still at 1.6 °C above preindustrial is indeed remarkable,’ said Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London.” (Science/Alert)
It wasn’t so long ago when climate scientists thought exceeding global 1.5C above pre-industrial, labeled as the “danger zone” by the IPCC, would take decades. Guess what? It’s early!
Repercussions of Climate Breakdown – Worldwide
Anomalous/abnormal climate behavior is now the new normal. Extraordinary climate events from all corners of the world recently happened within a tight window of only 30 days of each other, events classified as either the worst ever or all-time record or unprecedented or once in 100 years, etc. Today, the planet is like a movie script entitled Climate Breakdown with climate disasters all happening all at the same time regardless of location or season. It’s a whacky script with people on the run, searching for a safe place.
In real life, evidence of this gonzo climate system is everywhere to be found, e.g., in March 2025 different parts of the European Continent experienced “the driest March on record” as other parts of the Continent experienced “the wettest March on record.” At the same time as Europeans didn’t know which end was up, climate change hit India, enduring record-setting scorching heat as Australia was swamped by all-time-record-smashing floods whilst Asia and South America hit new all-time records of devasting heat. This weird global climate system is off its rocker in synchronized fashion. Why is this happening? Human-generated burning of fossil fuels is at the heart of far too many concurrent global climate disasters to ignore any longer the necessity of sharp reductions in burning fossil fuels or suffer an explosive planet. Nothing is normal any longer. Get over it!
The following headlines are evidence of simultaneous, happening within 30 days of each other, record-breaking climate events across the globe (of note: not including Antarctica, which is clearly, and frighteningly, starting to breakdown in an “emergency mode” as is the world-famous Amazon rainforest and Arctic permafrost and Greenland:
Bigger Than Texas: The True Size of Australian’s Devasting Floods, The Guardian, April 4, 2025 “The extent of flood waters that have engulfed Queensland over the past fortnight is so widespread it has covered an area more than four times the size of the United Kingdom. The inundation is larger than France and Germany combined – and is even bigger than Texas.”
Dry Topsoil Across Germany Could Impact Crop Yields Following March Dry Spell, Clean Energy Wire, April 11, 2025.
Floods Batter Italy after Florence Sees a Month’s Rainfall in One Day, The Watchers, March 16, 2025. “Red alerts were in effect across Italy, including Florence and Pisa, following an extreme flooding event that triggered multiple landslides and caused widespread damage.”
Heavy Rains Hit Spain for Third Consecutive Week, Reuters, March 18, 2025. “Spaniards are still on edge after torrential rains four months ago in the eastern Valencia region led to the country’s deadliest natural disaster in decades.”
Record-breaking March Heat Reminds Us That Adaptation Cannot Wait, The Indian Express, March 20, 2025.
Record Heatwaves Hits South America: Urgent Call for Climate Action, Green.org, March 5, 2025. “This year has witnessed South America endure its hottest recorded temperatures, with some regions experiencing heat levels never seen before. Countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay are reporting temperatures soaring above 40°C (104°F). This isn’t just uncomfortable—it poses serious health risks and disrupts daily life.”
Extraordinary March Heatwave in Central Asia up to 10° C Hotter in Warming Climate, World Weather Attribution, April 4, 2025. “In March 2025, Central Asia experienced an unusually intense heatwave, with temperatures reaching record highs across the region.”
In the U.S, tornadoes in March were more than double the monthly average and three separate outbreaks produced more than 200 tornadoes. (National Centers for Environmental Information, March 2025) More to the point, from March 13th to 16th, 2025 the tornado outbreak was the largest on record for the month of March. Meanwhile, wildfires spread across southern Appalachia, exacerbated by additional fuel available from downed trees following Hurricane Helene (est. costs up to $250 billion). It’s a fact: Warmer ocean waters, a direct result of climate change, fuel stronger hurricanes with higher wind speeds, heavier rainfall, and more destructive storm surges. Hmm.
As stated in Science/Alert by Bill McGuire, climate scientist, University College London, the contrasting extremes “shows clearly how a destabilized climate means more and bigger weather extremes… As climate breakdown progresses, more broken records are only to be expected.” (Science/Alert)
Therefore, it’s fair to pose a nagging proposition of what happens when more all-time records continue to pile up one after another to what end? What is that end? And what can be done to stop the relentless pounding of harmful climate extremes. Maybe world leaders need to confront this reality by summoning climate scientists. But will Trump summon climate scientists for advice on how the US can help slow down the biggest, fiercest freight train in all human history barreling down the mountainside?
And what’s to stop this madness?
The post Synchronized Global Climate Breakdown appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Robert Hunziker.