Record-breaking news time! The big watery areas that churn and froth around Ireland and the UK’s coasts have hit all-time temperature highs, spelling trouble for the lifeforms that subsist in them.

According to the Met Office and its busy analysis, sea surface temperatures are 3-4C above what’s considered normal, leading the weather-watching outfit’s chief scientist, Prof Stephen Belcher, to exclaim: “The North Atlantic is experiencing record-breaking temperatures at present.

“May 2023 has seen the highest temperatures of any May since 1850. But it doesn’t stop here. It has also been the highest month above average compared with any individual month in the series.”

Bad news all round – nearly! Those at odds with climate science can take some solace in the Met Office’s belief that the worrying temperature rise is only partly due to anthropogenic global warming, with some of the blame being apportioned to poorly-understood, mysterious factors.

Either way, rattled scientists have warned that the balmy currents have the capacity to kill vast amounts of sea life.

And there’s more! This month’s first 11 days have been the hottest recorded worldwide for June – FURTHERMORE, experts are predicting that 2024 will be the hottest ever year that we ever did see (what about 2023? We’re only half way through that!).

But I’m sure everything will be all right in the end.

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BUT! If things don’t turn out to be all right in the end, are us Brits prepared for the messy meteorological mayhem heading our way? Nope, not all of us – that’s according to a new survey.

The National Trust spoke to over 2,000 adults about adapting to a rapidly mutating climate and found that 45% are ‘not at all prepared’.

Meanwhile, 25% said they were already personally affected by climate change and a third said they anticipated that our unravelling weather systems will make their existences difficult in the next 10 years.

Keith Jones, the NT’s climate change advisor, foreboded: “We need a frank conversation but also urgent action to address the level of risk we face, what we’re prepared to live with, and ambitious targets that can be measured and monitored.

“This isn’t just an environmental issue – it’s a whole society problem that the government must fully address in its upcoming strategy. Right now, it’s in the ‘too difficult’ pile and that’s not acceptable.”

BUT! The NT is apparently a ‘woke’ organisation with sinister agendas, at least according to some, so maybe we can discount all of this and return to my previous point, I’m sure everything will be all right in the end?

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I’m going to try and end on some good news: remote penguin stronghold Antarctica is transforming at “a pace that we’ve never seen before”, with something on the continent called the ‘doomsday glacier’ likely to push sea levels up three metres should it collapse, which it very well might do.

Ok, that really isn’t good news at all, is it? Oh well, let’s trudge on.

Dr Dominic Hodgson is head of the ice sheets and climate change team at the British Antarctic Survey, and this is what he thinks:

“There’s this common perception of sea level changes a few millimetres a year, and therefore we all relaxed thinking what are a few millimetres? But when we look back at the historical record, we can see that in the past when ice sheets melted, they do in very non-linear jumps.

“There are periods of meltwater pulses, where essentially an ice sheet collapses and the sea level rises by several metres in the 100 years or so. It’s really rapid.”

So much for the ‘doomsday glacier’ – maybe glaciers elsewhere on our spluttering planet are faring better? Not a chance.

Glaciers across the Himalayas are dissolving at unheard of speeds – and could be heading for an 80% loss of mass over the next 75 years.

A report out today from something called the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development warns that avalanches and flash flooding will probably become more common in the region as the gigantic icy features fall to pieces.

As has been pointed out before in various other CC-afflicted hotspots around the globe, those likely to suffer most from the forecast disaster are those who’ve done the least to bring the dire situation about.

Amina Maharjan, one of the report’s authors, said: “The people living in these mountains who have contributed next to nothing to global warming are at high risk due to climate change. Current adaptation efforts are wholly insufficient, and we are extremely concerned that without greater support, these communities will be unable to cope.”

What can be done to stop this hellish future? Massively reduce greenhouse emissions says the report, which I’ve definitely heard somewhere before.

So, boiling seas, record-smashing temperatures and doomed glaciers – and I didn’t even get round to telling you about the invasive alien ants! Tune in next time for some good news, which I’m convinced is only round the corner.