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Earth's temperature nears million-year high

Earth may be close to the warmest it has been in the last million years.
James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, says this does not necessarily mean there will be more frequent El Ninos, which can disrupt normal weather around the world.
But he says it could well mean that these wild patterns will be stronger when they occur.
The El Nino phenomenon is an important factor in monitoring global warming, according to a paper by Mr Hansen and colleagues published in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[They blame this phenomenon on global warming that is affecting the surface of the western Pacific before it affects the deeper water. ]