Continue readingScientists sound alarm as ocean temperatures hit new record
Tag: climate impact
It’s lost 73% of its water and is unable to sustain some wildlife – and could soon negatively affect human health.Continue reading‘Last nail in the coffin’: Utah’s Great Salt Lake on verge of collapse
Without global heating, such warm temperatures would be expected only once every five centuries, Met Office says.Continue readingUK’s record hot 2022 made 160 times more likely by climate crisis
Half of the world’s glaciers – frozen reservoirs supplying three-quarters of the global water supply – could “disappear” by the end of the century under 1.5˚C of warming, a study concludes.…Continue readingHalf of world’s glaciers to ‘disappear’ with 1.5˚C of global warming
A minimal [sea level] rise of another 2 feet (0.6 metres) is projected from now through 2100, though the Federal Emergency Management Agency uses an intermediate rise of 4.65 feet (1.4…Continue readingClimate change is coming for the Jersey Shore, retiring coastal expert warns
Researchers say there has been a dramatic drop in particular in the number of female bears and cubs in Hudson Bay.Continue readingCanada polar bears declining at alarming rate, study finds
Vast tracts of countryside transformed into barren wasteland, decimated crops and animal herds and children dying of starvation. The grim reality confronting drought-stricken east Africa is a frightening portent of what…Continue readingHorror of a hotter world on stark display in parched East Africa
The Arctic is getting wetter and rainier Arctic precipitation is on the rise across all seasons, and these seasons are shifting. As sea ice rapidly declines, more open water is exposed,…Continue readingArctic Report Card
It was when the US Bureau of Indian Affairs built schools in Alaska, as part of an effort to assimilate Indigenous peoples into white culture, that the community was forced to…Continue readingAlaska Native community relocates as climate crisis ravages homes
Devastating floods this [northern hemisphere] summer and fall [autumn] displaced 1.5 million Nigerians and killed 612. In all of West Africa, more than 800 people died. Researchers have determined that human-caused…Continue readingClimate change made deadly floods in West Africa 80 times more likely
Illegal and unsustainable fishing, fossil fuel exploration, the climate crisis and disease are pushing marine species to the brink of extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)…Continue readingMarine life hit by ‘perfect storm’ as red list reveals species close to extinction
“At the moment,” writes Warren Hern, “we are the most misnamed species on the planet: Homo sapiens sapiens—’wise, wise man.’ Not.” Hern, 84, physician and adjunct professor of anthropology at the…Continue readingHumanity devouring itself and the planet
More and more scientists are now admitting publicly that they are scared by the recent climate extremes, such as the floods in Pakistan and west Africa, the droughts and heatwaves in…Continue readingWhy scientists are using the word scary over the climate crisis
The stresses of warming temperatures and forest losses are driving dozens of species of monkeys and lemurs that normally shelter and feed high in the tree canopy to spend more time…Continue readingAnthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions driving monkeys and lemurs from trees to the ground
Severe to exceptional drought conditions remain common in the West, which has been battling its driest period in the past 1,200 years. But the drought is now far more widespread, with…Continue readingNearly 82% of the U.S. is facing troubling drought conditions
“We are getting hotter, drier summers and wetter winters and that is making trees more susceptible to disease. Climate change is already having some really significant effects”, said Rob Stoneman, director…Continue readingDisease ravages UK’s fragile woodlands
More than 90% of the heat caused by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels is taken up by the ocean. 15 scientists carried out a review which…Continue readingOcean heat found to be accelerating and fuelling extreme weather
Human-driven climate change made the droughts that gripped large swaths of Europe, China and North America this year at least 20 times more likely, an international group of scientists has concluded.…Continue reading2022 droughts ‘virtually impossible without climate change’, study finds
Despite decades of social and environmental campaigns aimed at protecting the Amazon, the threats now are greater than they have ever been, thanks to the relentless expansion of activities such as…Continue readingLast stand in the Amazon
As Hurricane Ian barreled toward Florida this week, it did what six other storms did over the past six years as they approached the United States: It intensified, quickly. Since 2017,…Continue readingHow climate change is rapidly fueling super hurricanes
It was the river that is said to have watered the biblical Garden of Eden and helped give birth to civilisation itself. The Tigris’s course through Iraq begins in the mountains…Continue readingCradle of civilisation dying
Sprawling coastal cities in South and Southeast Asia are sinking faster than elsewhere in the world, leaving tens of millions of people more vulnerable to rising sea levels. Vietnam’s most-populous urban…Continue readingAsian coastal cities sinking fast
This summer, heat waves struck Europe, North Africa, the U.S. and Asia with temperatures reaching over 40°C in places—breaking many long-standing records. Images from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission show the scale…Continue readingImage: UK heat wave
A humanitarian disaster is unfolding in the Horn of Africa, which is in the grip of its worst drought in at least four decades. More than 20 million people in Somalia,…Continue readingWhy East Africa’s Facing Its Worst Famine in Decades
Caption for figure above: Grid-cell specific rankings of 22-yr negative soil moisture anomalies (drought rank) in 2000–2021 compared to the driest 22-yr period in each previous drought event back to year…Continue readingMegadrought in the American south-west: a climate disaster unseen in 1,200 years
Higher high tides, supercharged by rising sea levels, could flood all or parts of an estimated $34 billion worth of real estate along the nation’s coasts within just 30 years, a…Continue readingRising seas fueled by climate change to swamp $34 billion in US real estate in just 30 years
The latest assessment by risk company Verisk Maplecroft brings those two threats together to calculate that heat stress already poses an “extreme risk” to agriculture in 20 countries, including agricultural giant…Continue readingCountries growing 70% of world’s food face ‘extreme’ heat risk by 2045
Smoke from hundreds of wildfires has darkened skies over the Alaskan interior this summer with the state experiencing its fastest start to the fire season on record amid hot and dry…Continue reading‘Nothing left to burn’: Wildfires blaze through the Arctic
The climate crisis has driven the world to the brink of multiple “disastrous” tipping points, according to a major study. It shows five dangerous tipping points may already have been passed…Continue readingWorld on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points
Amid blistering heat waves, brutal drought and widespread wildfires, Europe just notched its hottest summer in recorded history, new data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service shows. It was the second…Continue readingEurope just had its hottest summer on record
The heat wave that’s been gripping California and other parts of the West for 10 days and counting is the most severe ever recorded in September, weather experts have said —…Continue readingNo September on record in the U.S. West has seen a heat wave like this
China recorded its highest temperatures and one of its lowest levels of rainfall in 61 years during a two-month summer heatwave. The average national temperature in August, 22.4˚C, was 1.2˚C higher…Continue readingChina reports ‘most severe’ heatwave and third driest summer on record
Unprecedented and societally disruptive extreme weather events, including heat waves, droughts, dust storms and torrential rains, will soon become a reality unless immediate, ambitious, and transboundary climate action is taken, warns…Continue readingWarming of up to 5°C in this century projected for the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East
The UN describes Iraq as the fifth-most-vulnerable country to climate change. Temperatures have increased by 1.8˚C (3.2˚F) in three decades, well above the global average, and in the summers, the mercury…Continue readingClimate migrants flee Iraq’s parched rural south, but cities offer no refuge
Chad’s heaviest seasonal rainfall in more than 30 years has left parts of the capital N’Djamena navigable only by boat and forced thousands to flee their flooded homes over the past…Continue readingChad’s heaviest rains in 30 years leads to ‘catastrophic’ floods
The rice fields are washed away. The coconut trees and chilli plants, flooded with salt water, are all dead. The farmers’ fish ponds fail, the water so high that the fish…Continue readingThe Indonesians living in flooded villages
Pakistan is experiencing its worst floods this century. At least one-third of the country is under water. Scientists say several factors have contributed to the extreme event, which has displaced some…Continue readingWhy are Pakistan’s floods so extreme this year?
Major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now inevitable, scientists have found, even if the fossil fuel burning that is driving the climate crisis were to…Continue readingMajor sea-level rise is ‘now inevitable’
Flash floods, which have intensified in recent days, have swept away villages, roads, bridges, people, livestock and crops across all four provinces. Pakistan has appealed for international help as soldiers and…Continue readingPakistan declares floods a ‘climate catastrophe’ as death toll tops 1,000
The number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon hit a nearly 15-year high this week, according to official figures that provided the latest warning on the advancing destruction of the…Continue readingBrazil records worst day for Amazon fires in 15 years
Iraq is known in Arabic as the Land of the Two Rivers, but it has seen water levels on the once mighty Tigris and Euphrates plummet. The Euphrates, which passes through…Continue readingBoiling heat and no water: taps run dry in southern Iraq
Researchers found that a typical forest fire season now burns 3 million more hectares (7.4 million more acres) than in 2001. Forest fires accounted for a quarter of global tree loss…Continue readingForest fires burn twice as many trees as two decades ago
The reputed home of the biblical Garden of Eden, Iraq’s swamplands have been battered by 3 years of drought and low rainfall, as well as reduced water flows along rivers and…Continue readingIraq’s Garden of Eden now ‘like a desert’
Heavy rains in Iran have set off flash floods and landslides in 21 of the country’s 31 provinces, killing at least 53 people, heavily damaging hundreds of villages, cutting off access…Continue readingHeavy Rain Causes Deadly Flooding Across Iran
Illegal ivory poaching once posed a significant threat to Kenya’s elephants. But now the giants of the animal kingdom are facing an even bigger risk: climate change. As Kenya battles its…Continue readingClimate change is killing more elephants than poaching
The health of Australia’s environment is poor and has deteriorated over the past five years due to pressures of climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and mining. The state of…Continue readingAustralia State of the Environment Report
In its State of the Climate report for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) for 2021, the WMO said ecosystems, food and water, human health and welfare were all taking a…Continue readingBattered by climate change, Latin America must brace for worse
Italy faced the hottest day of the current heatwave Friday with red extreme heat warnings issued for 16 cities across the country, as firefighters battled blazes up and down the country.…Continue readingItaly heatwave peaks with 16 cities on red alert as Tuscany burns
Wildfires and heatwaves wreaking havoc across swathes of the globe show humanity facing “collective suicide”, the UN secretary general has warned. António Guterres told ministers from 40 countries meeting to discuss…Continue readingHumanity faces ‘collective suicide’
As dawn breaks over Javed Rahi’s mountain village, a loud boom shatters the silence and a torrent of water comes cascading down from the melting glacier nearby, followed by a thick…Continue readingConcerns as Pakistan glaciers melt
Kenya’s remote Marsabit County, in the far north near the border with Ethiopia, is the land of pastoralists. The region has been dubbed the “Cradle of Mankind” – Kenya has more…Continue reading‘Everything is dry’- The droughts putting Kenya’s herding cultures at risk
In the years ahead, sea level rise, more intense storm surge and jacked-up tropical storms will be visiting many of the world’s roughly 3,800 ports. Most of those ports are coastal;…Continue readingRising Seas Are the Next Crisis for the World’s Ports
No organism on Earth is known to live as long as the Great Basin bristlecone pine. The oldest documented tree, a well-hidden specimen nicknamed “Methuselah,” after the long-lived biblical patriarch, was…Continue readingScientists rush to save 1,000-year-old trees on the brink of death
France, Portugal and Spain are among the European countries particularly affected, with temperatures of more than 45˚C (113˚F) recorded during a heatwave that is also sweeping the UK. France: 3,000 firefighters,…Continue readingFirefighters tackle southern Europe wildfires as heatwave passes 45˚C
While 425 square kilometres of land lie within the probable maximum flood in the Hawkesbury-Nepean valley, it has also long been identified as fertile for property development amid rising house prices…Continue reading‘Stark raving, barking mad’: experts question the building of homes below ‘worst-case’ flood levels in western Sydney
Salmon famously travel hundreds of miles upstream to reach their home waters to spawn, but climate change is shrinking their destination. A new study offers high-resolution details on how Chinook salmon…Continue readingClimate change is shrinking and fragmenting salmon habitat
A potent weather system near Australia’s east coast has unloaded tremendous rainfall in the state of New South Wales for days, putting Sydney on track for its wettest year on record.…Continue readingAustralia flood, boosted by climate change, making history in Sydney
Italy is facing an unusually early heatwave and a lack of rainfall, particularly in the northern agricultural Po valley, which has been hit by its worst drought in decades. The drought…Continue readingItaly declares state of emergency in five regions over drought
Almost a quarter of the world’s population are exposed to significant flood risks, according to new research published Tuesday, which warned those in poorer countries were more vulnerable. 1.81 billion people—or…Continue readingNearly 1 in 4 globally at risk from severe flooding
One of the world’s biggest gliding mammals – the once common greater glider – has been pushed closer to extinction and is now officially endangered. The nocturnal marsupials, which are unique…Continue readingGreater glider now endangered as logging, bushfires and global heating hit numbers
Unless urgent action is taken, emissions are expected to cause the planet to continue heating rapidly over the next few decades, prompting the global average temperature to overshoot the Paris agreement’s…Continue readingEven temporarily overshooting 2°C would cause permanent damage to Earth’s species
Millions in Assam have been affected by the floods since heavy pre-monsoon rains first hit the region last month, inundating large parts of the valley. After the initial deluge in May,…Continue reading‘All is lost’: Floods in India’s Assam leave trail of destruction
Most rain on the Iberian peninsula (most of Spain and Portugal, as well as a small area of Southern France, Andorra, and Gibraltar) falls in winter as wet, low-pressure systems blow…Continue readingSpain and Portugal suffering driest climate for 1,200 years
Scientists have been able quickly to prove that record-breaking temperatures are no natural occurrence. A study published last month showed that the south Asian heatwave was made 30 times more likely…Continue readingBurning planet
Scientists estimate that Australia’s east coast estuaries are warming four times faster than anywhere else in the world. Prof Maria Byrne from the Sydney Institute of Marine Science says south coast…Continue readingExperts warn the NSW South Coast marine environment is undergoing a ‘dynamic state of change’
When the U.S. Forest Service started an intentional fire in the Santa Fe National Forest in early April, the aim was to reduce the risk of a destructive blaze. But the…Continue readingForest Service says it failed to account for climate change in New Mexico blaze
In a study just released in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, Dr. Armineh Barkhordarian confirms that this systematic warming pool is not the result of natural climatic variations—but of human…Continue readingSystematic warming pool discovered in the Pacific due to human activities
Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in southern China, according to state media, amid floods and landslides triggered by the heaviest rainfall the region has seen…Continue readingHundreds of thousands evacuated in China amid heavy rains, floods
Experts say the catastrophic rain-triggered floods, which submerged large part of the country’s northern and northeastern areas, are an outcome of climate change. Saiful Islam, director of the Institute of Water…Continue readingBangladesh floods: Experts say climate crisis worsening situation
Floodwaters have inundated more of Bangladesh and northeast India, officials say, as authorities struggle to reach more than 9.5 million people stranded with little food and drinking water after days of…Continue readingBangladesh, India floods kill over 100; millions in need of aid
Niger is on the frontline of the climate crisis. Increasingly erratic rainfall and longer dry seasons mean that many parts of the country have not had a good harvest in a…Continue readingNiger is in the eye of the climate crisis – and children are starving
Firefighters in Spain and Germany are struggling to contain wildfires amid a heatwave in Western Europe, unusual for this time of year. The worst damage in Spain has been in the…Continue readingSpain, Germany battle wildfires amid unusual heatwave in Europe
In just more than two decades, the continent has experienced its five hottest summers since 1500. 2021: Hottest ever Last year was Europe’s hottest summer on record. Greece endured what Prime…Continue readingEurope’s five hottest summers since 1500
In the shallow waters and seagrass meadow of Spain’s Ebro delta, there are almost no solid surfaces for creatures to latch on to. That’s where the fan mussel (Pinna nobilis) comes…Continue readingMollusc mass mortality event
The historic drought in the western United States is about to get worse. Much of the West is already experiencing severe to exceptional drought, but scorching summer temperatures will dry out…Continue readingThese maps illustrate the seriousness of the western drought in the U.S.
Antarctic ice sheets are melting, the continent’s climate is changing, and the Southern Ocean is warming, becoming more acidic and losing oxygen. Locally, changing climates are already affecting the region’s iconic…Continue readingAntarctic is changing dramatically, with global consequences
Sea level rise will force the abandonment of about 200,000 coastal properties in England within 30 years, new data suggests, as the climate crisis takes hold. These are the homes that…Continue readingSea level rise in England will force 200,000 to abandon homes
Iraq temporarily closed Baghdad airport Monday as choking clouds of dust blanketed the capital, the latest crippling sandstorm in a country that has warned climate change poses an “existential threat”. It…Continue readingIraq swept by tenth sandstorm in weeks
Climate change is slowing down the conveyor belt of ocean currents that brings warm water from the tropics up to the North Atlantic. Our research, published today in Nature Climate Change,…Continue readingA huge Atlantic ocean current is slowing down—if it collapses, La Niña could become the norm for Australia
Almost the whole of Portugal was in severe drought at the end of May. The month of May was the hottest in the southern European country for the last 92 years.…Continue reading97% of Portugal in severe drought
Fueled by abnormally dry, warm conditions and spread by strong winds, wildfires have burned more than 600,000 acres across New Mexico this spring — making it one of the worst fire…Continue readingA ‘Perfect Recipe for Extreme Wildfire’:
New Mexico’s Record-Breaking, Early Fire Season
Muhammad Akbar, 40, sells dried chickpeas on a wheelbarrow in Jacobabad, and has suffered heatstroke three times in his life. But now, he says, the heat is getting worse. “In those…Continue reading‘It seems this heat will take our lives’: Pakistan city fearful after hitting 51˚C (124˚F)
Basra, Iraq – Southern Iraq was once known as the “black land” – the vast swaths of palm trees blocking out everything else, and providing food, shelter, and shade. But the…Continue readingClimate change ravages Iraq as palm trees make way for desert
The summer monsoon, which typically arrives in June and continues till September, is life and livelihood. More than 75% of India’s annual rainfall occurs during this period. Monsoon rains are critical…Continue readingIn India, waiting for the monsoon
In their effort to provide decision makers with insight into the consequences of climate change, climate researchers are bringing order to the large number of sea level projections. Aimée Slangen is…Continue readingBringing order to the chaos of sea level projections