The year 2015 will be one for history books, said the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) yesterday in its annual report. Departing from its typically conservative style, the WMO used “very strong” language to describe unprecedented greenhouse gas emissions, record-topping temperatures, intense heatwaves, exceptional rainfall and extensive Arctic sea ice melt in 2015, Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, climate scientist at the University of New South Wales, told The Guardian. With record warming down to 700m and 2,000m, the oceans are the real signifiers of global warming, says New Scientist, The Independent, Climate Home and Climate Central all covering the agency’s stark warnings.

It’s a name that might better suit a rubber ducky than an extremely expensive, state-of-the-art research vessel designed to explore the coldest regions on Earth, says AP. By a quirk of digital democracy, Boaty McBoatface is the name comfortably topping a public poll by the Natural Environment Research Council asking what it should name its new polar research ship. Ex-First Sea Lord, Lord West, said that while he was proud “silly names” had been suggested, he hoped none were chosen, reports BBC News. This is what you get when you let the internet decide, says The New York Times. The Conversation has a comment piece from a scientist on what life is like aboard a polar research ship.

Veteran climate scientist and former head of NASA-Giss, Dr James Hansen, has published a new paper warning of irreparable harm from climate change. The research – the final version of a draft released last year – says “several meters” of sea level rise over the coming century would render most of the world’s coastal cities uninhabitable. The New York Times quotes Penn State scientist Prof Mike Mann, who says some of the claims “conflict with the mainstream understanding” in the severity of sea level rise projected.

Higher temperatures in France are producing exceptional vintages but the run will come to an end if global warming continues at the current rate, according to new research. Records dating back more than 500 years show that wine grapes are now being harvested two weeks earlier on average than they were in the past. The Times looks on the bright side, saying the research points to a “brief golden period in which we get the best vintages from the established regions before vineyards are forced to move to higher latitudes”. Carbon Brief spoke to the authors about what they’re conclusions mean for wine production.

The rate at which human activity is releasing carbon to the atmosphere is pushing Earth’s climate into ‘uncharted territory’, according to new research. The paper finds the current pace of carbon emissions is ‘unprecedented’ in the past 66 million years, a rate unprecedented since at least the age of the dinosaurs, says BBC News. The Washington Post and Reuters have more on the story.

New research by scientists at the Oxford Martin School finds that shifting to a mostly vegetarian diet would make a large dent in greenhouse gases, bringing down emissions by 63%. Even cutting meat consumption by enough to adhere to health guidelines could cut global food-related emissions by nearly a third by 2050, the paper adds, while shifting to veganism would see food-related emissions fall by 70%. The Washington Post, The Guardian and Climate Central all have the story while The Conversation has a commentary from one of the authors explaining his research.

After seven years with the Obama administration, climate change envoy Todd Stern will step down from his post on April 1st, the US government announced yesterday. Stern helped lead efforts to address one of the greatest challenges facing the world today, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement. Climate Home bids farewell to the “leading architect of 2015 Paris deal”, adding that his replacement is expected to be veteran US diplomat and energy expert Jonathan Pershing. The Hill and Reuters have more, looking back at some of on Stern’s achievements.

Up to 3 gigawatts of electricity demand could be shifted away from peak times, reports the Financial Times. This would avoid the need to build extra gas-fired power plants, saving £1bn, according to a report from demand-shifting company Open Energi, the FT says. National Grid tells the paper it is “fully behind this shift to innovative demand-side solutions”.

Trump dislikes hair spray regulations and is dismissive of global warming but the rest of his energy policies seem unclear, writes Evan Lehmann. The Republican front-runner has has expressed support for fracking and made suggestions that domestic oil and natural gas production could be increased, he writes, but doesn’t seem to have anyone advising him on energy policy.

The current rate at which carbon is being released into the atmosphere is unprecedented in at least the last 66m years, a new study says. The researchers investigated carbon emissions during a period around 55m years ago, known as the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which scientists had thought to be the closest match to the rate of emissions seen today. Their analysis showed that emissions during the PETM were actually 10 times slower than they are in modern times, meaning current emissions are faster now than at any time in the last 66m years.

The social cost of carbon – the expected economic cost of the damage each tonne of CO2 emissions will cause – should be around eight times higher than previous studies suggest, new research says. The authors modelled the effects of five interacting tipping points, such as melting of the Greenland ice sheet and dieback of the Amazon rainforest, on the global economy. Their findings suggest the risks of triggering these future tipping points has been underestimated. This should prompt an “immediate, massive effort to control CO2 emissions” in order to “stabilise climate change at less than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the paper says.

A global switch to diets that rely less on meat and more on fruit and vegetables could reduce global mortality by up to 10% and food-related greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70% by 2050, a new study suggests. Researchers modelled the regional impact of adopting a ‘healthy global diet’, vegetarianism or veganism on emissions, public health and the economy. Elsewhere, another paper, published in Nature Climate Change, identifies a series of ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from raising livestock.