Last month was the warmest January on record, according to new data.

The finding has baffled scientists, who had expected changes in ocean currents in the Pacific to take the edge off rising global temperatures.

Figures released by the European Copernicus climate service show average temperatures around the world in January were 1.75C warmer than before greenhouse gas emissions started to rise significantly in the industrial revolution around 150 years ago.

That’s 0.1C above the record set last January. And it comes after a year in which temperatures topped 1.5C, the target for climate negotiations, for the first time.

Dr Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, warned that the rising pace of climate change would increase the risk of extreme weather and its consequences.

“This January is the hottest on record because countries are still burning huge amounts of oil, gas and coal,” she said.

“The Los Angeles wildfires were a stark reminder that we have already reached an incredibly dangerous level of warming. We’ll see many more unprecedented extreme weather events in 2025.”

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January had been expected to be slightly cooler than last year because of a natural shift in weather patterns and ocean currents in the Pacific, called La Nina.

But that hasn’t been enough to slow the upward trend in temperatures.

‘Frankly terrifying’

Bill McGuire, emeritus professor of geophysical & climate hazards at UCL, said: “The fact that the latest robust Copernicus data reveals the January just gone was the hottest on record – despite an emerging La Nina, which typically has a cooling effect – is both astonishing and, frankly terrifying.

“Having crashed through the 1.5C limit in 2024, the climate is showing no signs of wanting to dip under it again, reflected by the fact that this is the 18th of the last 19 months to see the global temperature rise since pre-industrial times top 1.5C.

“On the basis of the Valencia floods and apocalyptic LA wildfires, I don’t think there can be any doubt that dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown has arrived.”

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The consequences of a warming atmosphere are also being directly felt in the UK, with more intense rainfall increasing the risk of surface flooding.

The Environment Agency released figures in December showing 4.6 million properties in England are at risk from flooding as drainage systems are overwhelmed by rainfall. That’s a 43% increase on previous estimates.

But adapting to a climate change is hugely expensive.

The government on Wednesday announced it would spend £2.65bn over two years to shore up existing flood defences and protect an extra 52,000 homes and businesses – a tiny fraction of the number at risk.

Ancient scrolls charred by a volcanic eruption 2,000 years ago may finally be starting to reveal their secrets.

UK scientists say they have made a historic breakthrough in their efforts to decipher the artefacts – with the assistance of AI.

Hundreds of papyrus scrolls were found in the 1750s in the remains of a lavish villa at the Roman town of Herculaneum, which along with nearby Pompeii was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD.

While the heat and ash from the volcano was catastrophic for the town, it preserved the scrolls – though in an unreadable state.

Scholars and scientists have been working for more than 250 years on ways to decipher the scrolls, which are too fragile to be unrolled physically.

In 2023, several tech executives sponsored the “Vesuvius Challenge” competition, offering cash prizes for efforts to decipher the scrolls with technology.

On Wednesday, the challenge announced a “historic breakthrough,” saying researchers had managed to generate the first image of the inside of one of the three scrolls held at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library.

University of Kentucky computer scientist Brent Seales, co-founder of the challenge, said the organisers were “thrilled with the successful imaging of this scroll”, saying it “contains more recoverable text than we have ever seen in a scanned Herculaneum scroll”.

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The scroll was scanned by Diamond Light Source, a lab in Harwell, near Oxford, by using a particle accelerator known as a synchrotron to create an intensely powerful X-ray.

AI was then used to piece together the images, searching for ink that reveals where writing is located. A 3D image of the scroll can then be formulated that allows experts to unroll it virtually.

Little of the text has been deciphered so far. One of the few words that has been made out is the ancient Greek for “disgust”.

Peter Toth, a curator at the Bodleian Library, said: “We need better images, and they are very positive and very, very confident that they can still improve the image quality and the legibility of the text.

“And then don’t forget that there is like 1,000 more scrolls in Naples.”

A man has been arrested in Tokyo on suspicion of killing a pigeon that he reportedly filmed himself abusing.

Hiroshi Tsuji, a 49-year-old taxi driver from Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, allegedly captured the bird on the side of a river in the Japanese capital sometime between April and June 2024, local media outlets reported.

He is accused of beating and whipping the animal before killing it at some point between June and August, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported.

It is alleged he killed the pigeon by decapitating it using scissors.

Tsuji was quoted telling police before his arrest that he had “purged the pigeon” because it was “unfriendly to him”, Kyodo reported, citing Japanese authorities.

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The suspect is believed to have posted multiple videos of animal abuse on social media platform X since May 2023.

Police had received more than 100 reports about his behaviour and several animal welfare groups filed complaints.

He was previously arrested on 26 January for allegedly using a false name when purchasing a small bird at a pet shop in November 2024, according to Kyodo.