The mother of all climate feedbacks?

“Just like this year, last year the heat wave extended from parts of India to Bangladesh and Myanmar, and all the way to Thailand. This year it went further east, into the Philippines. So, it’s the same pattern,” said professor Krishna AchutaRao of the Indian Institute of Technology. “I do not particularly buy into this idea that El Niño is the cause.”

That is the burning question, not just for South and Southeast Asia but for the entire world. A heat wave is a random phenomenon that comes...