India, May 1 -- This summer could be brutal, testing human capacity to cope with heat. The atmosphere is already warming rapidly. The year 2025 was the third-warmest on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). January and February this year were the fifth-warmest, says the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. This warming, driven by anthropogenic climate change, could be amplified this summer by a "super" El Niño.

El Niño is the warmer-than-normal phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which occurs in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. In an up-date on April 6, Climate Prediction Center (CPC) of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) put the chance of El Niño de...