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Rapid wetland loss and ‘real estate boom’ increasing flood risk in Lagos
In July, following relentless bursts of rainfall, flash floods covered pockets of Lagos, disrupting commerce and traffic in Nigeria’s commercial capital. Experts have found that the city now faces increased flood risk due to human-induced climate change. Other recent studies have identified another common factor exacerbating flooding risk in Lagos: rapid urbanization. In a study […]
Climate change parches Puerto Rico and Jamaica in rare early wet season drought
A severe drought that has parched the Caribbean since May 2026 was fueled by human-induced climate change, according to a recent study. The rapid analysis was released by World Weather Attribution (WWA), a global network of researchers who analyze the influence of climate change in extreme weather events. In the Caribbean, the wet season runs […]
Six things to know about Asia’s heatwave and the health impacts
- This year’s extreme weather has been linked to El Niño, which, according to weather experts, could be one of the strongest ever recorded.
- Record-breaking temperatures were recorded in South Korea and Hong Kong, and mercury exceeded 40°C in Japan and China.
- Apart from heatstroke risks, higher temperatures during El Niño can accelerate the life cycle of Aedes mosquitoes, which transmit dengue, and shorten the time for the virus to replicate, experts warn.
Climate change drove extreme July heat in European seas, study finds
European coastal waters recorded unprecedented sea surface temperatures in July 2026. A new study has found that human-induced climate change primarily drove the temperature surge, pushing marine ecosystems past their limits. The rapid analysis was conducted by World Weather Attribution (WWA), a global network of researchers who analyze the influence of climate change in extreme […]
Infrastructure and land use behind devastating India monsoon floods
Widespread flooding in northeastern India that affected more than 500,000 people and claimed at least 99 lives between June and August 2026 was primarily driven by human factors like rapid urbanization, deforestation, and destruction of wetlands, new research says. It also points to structural failures rather than climate change. The findings were published by World […]
Urban heat islands have solutions; many tropical cities can’t afford them
- In tropical cities, urban heat islands (UHIs) exacerbate an already challenging hot-humid heat burden for residents. UHIs are formed by urban artificial surfaces like concrete and asphalt that retain heat by day and slowly release it at night, never giving cities a chance to cool.
- Natural and infrastructure solutions can be implemented to combat the UHI effect and cool cities. These include creating shade by planting trees or extending roofs; inducing wind to blow down urban streets; constructing green roofs and walls; painting roofs light colors; and changing social practices to avoid midday heat.
- But sufficient funding is needed to implement many of these changes. Wealthy cities, like Singapore, have an advantage over cities with less funding. Many tropical mega-cities, including Lagos, Mumbai, Manila, Jakarta and São Paulo, are working to reduce UHI effects, but struggle to afford full implementation.
- The 2026-2027 El Niño is now growing in strength and expected to bring record temperatures to the tropics. These extreme temperatures, combined with UHI effects and urban poverty, could prove deadly for vulnerable residents, which include the poor, young, old, those with disabilities, and those working outdoors.
Climate change boosted Spain wildfire risk 20-fold, research shows
Human-induced climate change drastically fueled the weather behind recent devastating wildfires in France and Spain, according to a new rapid analysis by researchers studying the role of climate change on today’s extreme weather. In its report, the World Weather Attribution (WWA), a global network of researchers, noted that severe blazes scorched 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres) […]
Study suggests the threat of mold-associated illnesses may be underappreciated
NEW YORK (AP) — A first-of-its-kind U.S. study suggests invasive mold infections may be an underappreciated — and potentially deadly — threat. The researchers detected about 450 cases in Atlanta-area hospitals over five years. About a third of the patients died in the hospital. The findings, published this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and […]
Scaling up offshore wind requires overcoming global and local challenges
- Offshore wind has great potential as a renewable source of energy, experts say, but remains underutilized; its pace of development is slower than needed to meet set climate goals.
- As a sector, offshore wind is buffeted by global economic factors, such as inflation and supply chain constraints. That’s led to failed auctions and canceled projects in recent years.
- Other challenges at the national level, such as ensuring timely grid connections and ship and port capacity, have also emerged.
- These must be overcome if offshore wind is to scale, according to experts.
Extreme weather dampens breeding success for marine predators in Tasmania: study
- A recent study found that extreme weather events like storms, heat waves and floods can interfere with the breeding success of marine predators like seals, shearwaters and albatross that raise their young along the coasts of the Australian state of Tasmania.
- While some colonies appeared unaffected by extreme weather, others saw offspring swept away by powerful waves and storm surges, hypothermia during unusually wet episodes, and deadly overheating during periods of high temperatures.
- The researchers noted that these extremes are among many challenges seals, seabirds and other marine predators face, including pollution, disease and declining food supplies, which can also be influenced by extreme weather events.
Vietnam’s coffee boom fueled by decades of deforestation, report finds
Decades of unchecked deforestation for coffee production has devastated Vietnam’s Central Highland forests, according to a new investigation by the Berlin-headquartered watchdog group Coffee Watch. Vietnam is currently the world’s second largest coffee producer, supplying nearly 40% of the world’s exports of Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora). The investigation, which analyzed satellite data and government records, […]
Amazon tree rings reveal more intense drought and rainfall in the rainforest
Tree rings from the Amazon show that the world’s largest rainforest has developed wetter wet seasons and drier dry seasons over the past four decades. The findings point to intense seasonal swings that can cause significant harm to biodiversity and suggest that widespread drying out across the entire Amazon basin is unlikely. Researchers collected tree […]
Extreme heat is eroding health, productivity and incomes of Dhaka’s informal workers
- Nearly 75% of migrants in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, reported being negatively affected by rising temperatures, while 100% reported being affected by extreme weather events.
- Bangladesh’s maximum temperature has increased by 1.1°C since 1980, while the country’s “feels-like” temperature has risen by 4.5°C.
- In 2024 alone, heat-related illnesses and productivity losses contributed to the loss of 250 million workdays, costing Bangladesh an estimated $1.78 billion, equivalent to 0.4% of GDP.
- Bangladesh’s informal economy employs approximately 85% of the national workforce, nearly 60 million people making heat stress not only a public health issue but also a major economic concern.
What living in one of the world’s hottest towns feels like
BANDA, India (AP) — The northern Indian town of Banda has endured weeks of extreme heat, with daytime temperatures repeatedly reaching 115 Fahrenheit and nighttime lows staying above 93 F. Banda has repeatedly ranked among India’s hottest cities, with temperatures peaking at 118 F. Climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera also said Banda was the […]
Australia’s seagrass meadows under pressure as climate change turns up the heat
- Australia is a global stronghold for seagrasses, the flowering plants that grow in coastal waters and bays.
- Seagrasses are unsung but vital ecosystem engineers: They stabilize sediments, provide habitat and food for marine species, help cleanse the water column of pollutants and sequester vast amounts of carbon dioxide.
- Across Australia’s waters, these undersea meadows are suffering as coasts are developed, seas are polluted and climate change continues to raise water temperatures.
- Conservationists are working to restore seagrasses and build resilience to preserve these vital marine ecosystems.
A possible strong El Niño fuels fears for fires across Indonesian tropical peatlands
- Meteorologists say emergence of a strong El Niño climate phenomenon is increasingly likely this year, as ocean temperatures in June reached a record high.
- Indonesian environmental groups fear the drier El Niño conditions could trigger renewed peatland fires in Borneo and Sumatra, particularly on land converted for rice cultivation under the government food estate projects announced in 2020.
- In the 1990s, President Suharto launched an ambitious scheme to convert vast areas of Borneo’s peatlands into rice fields. The project failed, and much of the drained landscape burned during the strong 1997–98 El Niño.
Wildlife’s unpredictable movements make climate-change planning difficult
- Ecologists expected many species to shift northward or upslope in response to warming temperatures, but only about half of observed range shifts so far align with their projections.
- Species responses are likely shaped by multiple factors — changing habitat, rainfall and food availability — not just temperature. Some species may be unable to move, trapped within a fragmented habitat.
- Research shows animals that move toward higher latitudes don’t necessarily fare better.
- These mismatches between predictions and reality create more uncertainty for conservation planning and how best to support species adaptation through corridors.
Trump admin persists in quixotic quest against wind power despite legal defeat
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is continuing its campaign to end wind energy development through a series of executive orders, lawsuits, and lease buybacks. This is despite a recent court defeat and its own Department of Energy estimating the country could be powered by wind alone. Trump has made no secret of his disdain for […]
Bangladesh’s lightning death toll persists as years of gov’t safeguards fail
- Lightning strikes continue to claim lives, mostly farmers’, in Bangladesh, especially across its northeastern region.
- Despite several measures by the Bangladeshi government, including palm tree plantation and installation of lightning arresters, all efforts so far have largely failed to protect lives.
- Experts suggest building public awareness about thunderstorms and thunder clouds to reduce deaths from lightning strikes.
South America’s farms depend, in part, on a healthy Amazon
- The Amazon is not only a carbon store; it is also a major source of atmospheric moisture that helps sustain rainfall across much of South America.
- A new Nature study finds that deforestation lowers the warming threshold at which large parts of the Amazon could lose stability.
- Recent droughts, El Niño conditions, and fire risk show why degraded forests are less able to withstand climate stress and recover afterward.
- Protecting intact forests, restoring degraded areas, and reducing fire are increasingly important for climate resilience, biodiversity, and South America’s food system.
El Nino is here and scientists fear it’ll be big, bad and costly with heat, floods, droughts, fires
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. meteorologists say an El Nino has formed. That’s the natural warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather around the globe. It is likely to a major factor in extreme and deadly weather across the planet for the next year or so. The one announced Thursday is expected to rival […]
Sri Lanka’s recent drowning deaths linked to aftermath of extreme weather events
- Sri Lanka recorded more than 50 drowning deaths in the first five months this year.
- Faster currents on the outer banks of rivers can pull swimmers off balance, especially during the monsoon season when river discharge increases, researchers say.
- Experts observe multiple factors including flash rains, more silt and eroding riverbanks that impact the river flow.
- A 2020 study recorded how curvatures of critical meandering bends in Deduru Oya have increased between 1989 and 2021.
Indonesia’s grassroots farmers face increased unpredictability, experts say
The intersection of environmental breakdown, climate change and economic instability has emerged as a primary threat to the resilience of smallholder farmers in Indonesia, according to researchers and local entrepreneurs who spoke at a recent convention. During the 2026 Asia Grassroots Forum, held in Jakarta on June 3 and 4, Alex Arnall, an associate professor […]
‘Slumping’ afflicted soft corals around a South Korean island in 2024. Will it return this year?
- In 2024, scientists and conservationists documented a soft coral “slumping” event along the southern coast of South Korea’s Jeju Island, which led soft corals to lose their shape, droop, and even die in vast numbers.
- The event coincided with record heat and rainfall, which has led scientists to surmise, in a new paper, that the “slumping” resulted from a combination of thermal stress and changes to salinity and water quality.
- However, further research and testing is needed to determine the actual cause, researchers say.
- Scientists and conservationists say that while widespread slumping did not occur during 2025 or so far in 2026, the “Super El Niño” predicted for later this year could impact Jeju’s soft corals in a similar way.
From the wreckage of Super Typhoon Sinlaku, Pacific Islanders slowly recover
- More than one month after Typhoon Sinlaku, the strongest storm on Earth so far this year, people in the Western Pacific are slowly picking up the pieces of the wreckage.
- Officials are counting the number of people displaced, families are fishing to put food on the table, some schools are out, many remain without stable housing and electricity and thousands are applying for aid as recovery remains uncertain.
- In Chuuk State, the part of the Federated States of Micronesia hardest hit by the typhoon, emergency officials estimate that the storm destroyed or severely damaged more than 7,000 homes in Chuuk and Yap and displaced more than 13,000 people. The regionwide death toll has ticked up to 17, making Sinlaku the deadliest storm in the Micronesian region of the Pacific since 2002.
- A meteorologist said Sinlaku’s sudden escalation happened over ocean waters 0.6°Celsius warmer than average — temperatures made 70-100 times more likely due to climate change.
Intense heat during Mecca’s spring threatens millions of Hajj pilgrims
As millions of Muslims gather for the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, a new scientific analysis warned the “safe window” for the event is shrinking, with increased risk of heat exhaustion and heat stroke due to human-induced climate change. The report was released by the World Weather Attribution (WWA), an initiative that analyses the […]
Parts of Europe swelter in record May heat as deaths at amateur sports events spur warnings
PARIS (AP) — Europe is baking under unseasonal heat that is shattering temperature records, including in the United Kingdom on Monday, and prompting government warnings after deaths were reported at amateur sports events in France. The French sports minister, Marina Ferrari, posted condolences to the loved ones of a runner who died Sunday in a […]
The most underfunded climate opportunities may be at sea
- At the Philanthropy Asia Summit’s “Sea Change” panel on ocean-climate solutions in Asia, speakers highlighted a mismatch between the ocean’s importance to the climate transition and the tiny share of philanthropic funding directed to ocean-climate work.
- Ocean philanthropy has long focused on conservation, fisheries, and coastal livelihoods, but climate change is now threatening many of those gains while also making the ocean central to mitigation through offshore wind, cleaner shipping, blue carbon, and coastal resilience.
- Philanthropy cannot finance offshore wind farms or the decarbonization of global shipping, but it can play a catalytic role by funding policy design, marine spatial planning, community engagement, technical research, coordination, and local capacity.
- Some of the strongest opportunities for funders lie in Asia, where offshore wind, ports, shipbuilding, shipping routes, and coastal communities converge, and where early philanthropic support can help make large-scale transitions faster, more inclusive, and more credible.
Climate change triples chance of deadly 2026 South Asia pre-monsoon heatwave: Report
From mid-April through May 2026, India and Pakistan were gripped by a heatwave that saw daily maximum temperatures soar above 46° Celsius (114.8° Fahrenheit) in numerous cities. This ongoing period of intense heat has resulted in at least 10 reported deaths in Karachi, Pakistan and 6 reported cases of deaths from heat stroke in India, […]
FIFA’s World Cup heat measures may not go far enough, expert warns
Measures proposed by organizers of the upcoming FIFA World Cup won’t be sufficient to protect players and fans from the significantly higher risk of extreme heat and humidity expected at this year’s tournament, a medical expert warns. In December 2025, FIFA announced there would be three-minute hydration breaks for players in each half of every […]
Zambian prodigy draws on theoretical physics to improve weather prediction
- A weather prediction model by a teen prodigy from Zambian is one of five shortlisted projects from Africa for the Earth Prize this year.
- The prize is awarded to youths between 13 and 19 who have come up with innovations that aim to solve pressing environmental challenges.
- Recognizing the need for weather prediction models that work in the sub-Saharan African context, Prosper Chanda, now 18, developed a model that aims to complement existing ones built largely with data from the U.S. and Europe.
- A scientific paper he authored focusing on the physics behind the model is currently undergoing peer review ahead of publication.
After quinoa’s boom, Bolivian farmers face degraded soils and climate stress
- Quinoa, a pseudocereal, has been grown in the Andes since pre-Hispanic times. The 2010-2014 quinoa boom benefited some farmers in the region, but intensified production also brought soil depletion, increased erosion and social conflicts.
- Climate change and shifts in regional weather patterns have also brought more frequent and irregular frosts, rains and heat, making quinoa production more difficult.
- Most of the Bolivian quinoa that’s exported is smuggled through Peru and sold as Peruvian, experts say, complicating efforts by Bolivian producers to benefit from using higher-quality seeds.
- Growers in Bolivia’s southern Altiplano, the Andean Plateau, are cultivating a premium variant of the crop in an effort to bypass middlemen and benefit from a price premium, but lack governmental support and direct access to markets.
Long dubbed a ‘climate refuge,’ warming Tasmanian forests need our help
- Tasmania has long been considered a global “climate refuge,” where cool, ocean-influenced conditions allow species like the giant freshwater crayfish to persist as mainland Australia warms.
- But new research shows that the world’s climate refuges are not immune to threats: shifting rainfall, warming waters, sediment runoff, land-use change and other impacts are eroding the ecological conditions that sustain numerous species.
- In Tasmania, emerging pressures are impacting the island’s biodiversity, ranging from warming and sedimentation in forest streams affecting sensitive crayfish habitat, to declining oxygen levels putting the endemic Maugean skate at risk.
- Scientists say protecting climate refuges now requires active coordinated management between federal, state and local partners, with multimillion-dollar investments in watershed restoration and ongoing conservation efforts.
In Nepal’s plains, traditional bins help keep food safe from heat, floods
- In Nepal’s southern plains, Indigenous communities such as the Tharu and Yadav use traditional earthen storage bins (dehari) to safely store grains and seeds, relying on knowledge passed down through generations.
- Made from locally available materials such as clay, husk and dung, the bins naturally regulate temperature and moisture, helping protect crops from extreme heat, pests and seasonal flooding without electricity.
- Experts say these traditional storage systems are climate-adaptive, environmentally friendly and crucial for preserving local seed diversity and sustaining smallholder farming systems.
- While durable and effective, dehari have limitations such as vulnerability to moisture, pests and floods requiring careful placement, regular monitoring and adaptation to changing climate conditions.
Offshore wind’s clean energy potential remains largely untapped, say experts
- Offshore wind has enormous clean energy potential across the globe. Though the sector has expanded in recent years that potential remains largely untapped.
- Today, China and European nations lead the way in developing offshore wind farms, with the U.S. hampered by the Trump administration, and other nations just beginning to tap into the potential of marine wind.
- Currently, about 80 gigawatts of power is generated by existing marine wind farms. According to some estimates, more than 2,000 GW of offshore wind is needed to meet climate goals, requiring a huge expansion including in deeper waters using floating platforms.
Heat, fires and agribusiness squeeze traditional Amazon açaí harvesters
- Intensive farming of the popular açaí berry grew by 70% since 2015, while community cooperatives reported losses of 35% or more during recent heat waves and fires.
- Industrial açaí crops often rely on artificial irrigation and nonnative honeybees, adapting the Amazon to intensive methods rather than benefiting from the biome’s own systems.
- Market analysis indicates increasing international demand and rising prices, a trend that pushes for high-yield commercial monocultures over forest-based extraction.
In Pakistan’s deadly heat, low-cost cooling tools offer a lifeline for pregnant women
Canvas canopies, hand fans, damp cloths and solar reflective paint may not sound like elaborate medical interventions. But in Pakistan’s hottest neighborhoods, they can act as a lifeline for pregnant women and newborns from low-income households. In a recent trial of affordable cooling solutions led by researchers at Pakistan’s Aga Khan University, low-tech interventions were […]
Tropics take the brunt as hotter oceans drive large-scale humid heat waves: Study
- It’s well known that hotter temperatures due to climate change are dangerous to human health. But when paired with high humidity, this intense heat can be especially deadly. These extreme weather events, known as humid heat waves, are rapidly intensifying and increasing in frequency as the world warms.
- A recent study found a strong causal link between hotter coastal ocean temperatures and large-scale humid heat waves. Rising sea surface temperatures are driving 50-64% of the increase in large-scale humid heat waves, researchers found, especially in the tropics, and raising the risk of heat-related fatalities.
- These events do not remain localized. The researchers found that coastal humid heat waves can move far inland, and have a 90% chance of occurring even 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away from where they originated over the ocean.
- Humid heat waves now pose a serious risk to people in tropical regions, though such events are forecast to worsen in temperate zones too as the world warms. Adding to threats in the tropics is insufficient air-conditioning to safeguard populations against such events. Humid heat waves also make outdoor work unsafe, impacting local economies.
Novel research finds unexpected climate resilience in up to 36% of Amazon forest
- In recent decades, the Amazon Rainforest has repeatedly and increasingly been struck by devastating drought along with record heat due to climate change. Add to this record wildfires, rapid deforestation and land conversion for agriculture.
- Numerous field studies and modeling have found that these extreme changes are pushing the Amazon toward a tipping point and collapse of the biome — an ecological disaster that would release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
- But one research team, in a recently published study, offered up some hope: They found that little-studied low water table wetland Amazon forests — constituting up to 36% of Amazon trees — have stood up well to, and even thrived, during major droughts, with an increase in aboveground biomass.
- Those findings, the research team says, put the inevitability of an Amazon tipping point and collapse in some doubt, with the possibility that low water table forests could serve as a refugia for biodiversity. They also urge that these areas become a priority for protection and conservation as a hedge against future climate change.
‘Sharing is off the table’ as drought reshapes the culture of Ethiopia’s pastoralists
- Pastoralists in Ethiopia’s Somali region say that worsening drought is eroding traditional systems of sharing that once helped communities survive.
- A recent study finds rainfall patterns have grown increasingly unpredictable, making it harder for pastoralists to plan and sustain their herds.
- Indigenous systems such as Gergar — a form of social insurance — and communal grazing are weakening as households struggle to sustain their own herds.
- As climate pressures grow, pastoralists are turning to alternative livelihoods, while assistance struggles to keep up with the scale of the problem.
Sri Lanka sweats in scorching heat, but reasons ‘unlikely due to El Niño’
- Warm temperatures across Sri Lanka are likely to prevail till mid-May, with the heat index showing temperatures between 39° Celsius and 45°C, officials say.
- The Department of Meteorology has issued an “amber alert,” cautioning people to brace for warmer temperatures and to take adequate safeguards.
- Experts argue that prevailing warm temperatures in Sri Lanka are unlikely due to El Niño events.
Global warming already impacts daily lives around the globe, study finds
- Recent research finds that limitations to people’s daily lives imposed by climate change are already widespread and likely to continue growing as global temperatures rise. Older people are the most impacted.
- The researchers used a “physiologically grounded” heat model to analyze 75 years of global climate data.
- The global average number of hours per year that people are exposed to heat that severely limits their activity was found to have doubled for younger adults since the 1950s, while for older adults, it went from about 600 hours per year to about 900 hours.
- Parts of Southwest and South Asia, South America and Australia already experience what the study researchers call “extreme livability limitations,” which is even true for younger adults.
Study finds deforestation accounts for major Amazon rainfall decline
- A study looking at land and atmosphere interactions in the Amazon Basin across four decades found that 52-72% of the rainfall decline in the southern Amazon is due to large-scale deforestation.
- Between 1980 and 2019, annual precipitation in the southern Amazon declined by 8-11%, with most of the region losing on average 7.7% of its forest cover over largely the same period.
- The research also indicates that climate models might underestimate the contribution of deforestation to precipitation reduction by as much as 50%, which could mean that rainfall thresholds in the Amazon could be crossed earlier than expected.
French company stops US offshore wind projects in $1B deal with Trump administration
The Department of Interior says a French energy company has agreed to give up two U.S. offshore wind leases and invest in fossil fuel projects instead. The department said Monday that TotalEnergies committed to invest approximately $1 billion in oil and natural gas production in the United States. That is the amount the company paid […]
Climate change drives uneven shifts in tree diversity across Amazon and Andes
- A team of researchers looked at changes in tree richness across the lowland and montane forests of the Andes and Amazon over the last four decades.
- While their results didn’t show an overall shift in any one direction, they found that tree richness changed significantly across the six subregions: forests in the central Andes, Guyana Shield and central-eastern Amazon have been losing species, while the northern Andes and western Amazon showed increased tree richness.
- Changes in the seasonality of precipitation, total rainfall, temperature, as well as the degree of forest fragmentation are key drivers for tree richness: forests that warmed more since 1971 lost species faster than those moderately warming; but regionally, precipitation plays a bigger role than temperature in richness changes.
- Forests with a higher number of trees and landscape integrity gain species, so limiting deforestation across the Andes–Amazon ecosystems can protect tree richness, in particular the northern Andes, which could serve as a key refuge for species that can no longer survive the warming Amazon.
The Amazon’s most valuable export isn’t timber — it’s rain
- Tropical forests actively generate rainfall by releasing moisture into the atmosphere, with each square meter producing hundreds of liters of rain annually across surrounding regions. Clearing even small portions can measurably reduce precipitation, especially during dry seasons.
- Much of the rain that falls far inland originates from forests through long-distance moisture transport known as “flying rivers,” meaning farms, cities, and reservoirs may depend on ecosystems located hundreds or thousands of kilometers away.
- Reduced rainfall from deforestation can undermine agriculture, river flows, and hydropower, revealing forests as a form of natural water infrastructure that supports food production, energy systems, and economic stability.
- By assigning a monetary value to forest-generated rainfall, researchers estimate the service in the Amazon alone is worth on the order of tens of billions of dollars annually, underscoring that forest loss threatens not only biodiversity and carbon storage but regional climate systems themselves.
Floods linked to climate change hit nearly 1 million in Southern Africa
- A rapid analysis of heavy floods that occurred between December 2025 and January 2026 in Southern Africa finds that climate change has exacerbated extreme rainfall events.
- Scientists found that rainfall events in the region seem to be becoming more intense, and the likelihood of extreme precipitation occurring is higher in a warmer world.
- Despite limitations of climate models in the African context, scientists say they’re confident that weather patterns are shifting due to climate change.
- The study also revealed that the impacts were heightened due to structural and social vulnerabilities in the affected countries, with Mozambique being the hardest hit.
Forests don’t just store carbon. They keep people alive, scientists say
- Forests influence climate not only by storing carbon but by cooling the air, moderating extreme temperatures, and regulating water flows in ways that directly affect human well-being, concludes an academic review published this week in the journal Science.
- These effects are strongest at the local level: intact forests can make surrounding areas markedly cooler, stabilize rainfall, and create microclimates that support agriculture, health, and daily life.
- When forests are cleared, those protections can disappear quickly, often producing hotter, drier conditions and exposing large populations to increased heat stress and associated health risks.
- The greatest climate benefits occur where forests are native, underscoring that protecting and restoring natural ecosystems can be as important for adaptation to climate change as for reducing emissions, argues the paper.
NOAA’s satellites capture extreme cold in striking detail
When an Arctic blast pushed deep into the southeastern United States last weekend, it left behind more than freeze warnings and broken records. Over the Atlantic, the cold air reorganized the lower atmosphere into long, parallel cloud bands—patterns that meteorologists recognize as a signature of intense cold moving over warmer water—captured in striking detail by […]
Thailand’s Hat Yai picks up the pieces in wake of devastating floods (analysis)
- Despite a history of flooding and forecasts of heavy La Niña rains, the Thai city of Hat Yai received little effective warning before floodwaters surged last November to devastating levels.
- Power, communications and access were cut, and rescue services struggled to reach flooded areas, leaving residents to survive by sheltering with neighbors under extreme conditions.
- Many lost everything, and government compensation is limited, while decades of poor urban planning raise doubts about Hat Yai’s ability to withstand future extreme weather events under a changing climate.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Seminarian-turned-fire-agent preaches new tactics to fight Amazon’s burn crisis
- Lacking trucks and gear, a civil servant once destined for the priesthood now uses WhatsApp groups to direct volunteers who must manually carry river water through dense forest to tackle record blazes deep in an Amazonian town five times the size of New York City.
- Once rare, record-breaking wildfires destroyed millions of hectares across the Brazilian Amazon in recent years, leaving surviving forests increasingly fragile and susceptible to recurring blazes.
- Only 16% of Amazonian municipalities in Brazil have operational military fire brigades, forcing rural towns to rely on underfunded local offices and unpaid volunteers to defend the rainforest.
2025 was third-warmest year on record, research shows
2025 was the third-warmest year on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The warmest year on record is still 2024, with 2023 coming in second. The global average surface temperature for 2025 was estimated to be 1.44° Celsius (2.59° Fahrenheit) higher than preindustrial levels. The last 11 years have been the warmest 11 years […]
Study tracks fishing boats to see how heat waves affect fish distribution
- A new study suggests an early way to detect ecological shifts during marine heat waves: Use fishing vessel tracking data.
- The study found that tracking data could provide early detection of extreme northward and inshore shifts in albacore tuna and Pacific bluefin tuna distribution in response to heat waves and showed when such shifts weren’t happening despite high sea surface temperatures.
- The authors position fishers as “apex predators” and build on research that finds that predators are good ecosystem sentinels.
In California’s redwoods, scientists rebuild lost ecosystems high up in the canopy
- Roughly 95% of California’s old-growth redwood forests have been logged at least once, leaving mostly young trees and making the overall ecosystem less diverse.
- Fern mats — spongy masses of leather-leaf ferns and decomposed plant matter that build up high in the canopy — are an important part of that system, providing critical habitat for plants and animals in California’s redwood forests.
- Now, a pilot project is trying to restore fern mats to the canopies of particularly robust redwood trees.
- Scientists are finding that manually planting fern mats is also an effective buffer in a warming climate: they mitigate forest temperatures for salmon, birds and a host of other animals.
As Cyclone Ditwah battered land, Sri Lanka’s oceans absorbed a silent shock
- Following the tropical Cyclone Ditwah, unusual sea-foam appeared along parts of Sri Lanka’s northern coast, a natural phenomenon caused by storm-driven turbulence and organic compounds released by plankton, not marine pollution, scientists say.
- Extreme rainfall from Ditwah released an extraordinary volume of freshwater into the ocean, and researchers estimate that nearly 10% of Sri Lanka’s average annual rainfall was received in a single day and rapidly drained to sea through the island’s river network.
- Flood-driven sediments and sudden changes in salinity may stress coral reefs and coastal ecosystems, but Sri Lanka lacks systematic sediment monitoring at river mouths, leaving scientists with limited data on downstream impacts.
- The floods also swept plastics, debris and nutrients into coastal waters, potentially intensifying plankton blooms and fish aggregations while increasing the risk of algal blooms, oxygen depletion and long-term marine pollution.
As storms surge & the sea rises, Belgium builds dunes for protection
- Belgium is trialing “dune-by-dike” systems as a nature-based defense against storm surges and sea-level rise, using engineered sand dunes in front of existing dikes to create a double buffer along vulnerable stretches of coast.
- There are four dune-by-dike pilot sites in Belgium, including a 750-meter site in Raversijde, a neighborhood in the coastal city of Ostend, which Mongabay visited in late November.
- The Raversijde dune-by-dike project was established in 2021 with grids of vegetation that collected sand as the wind blew, helping build up the dunes.
- While experts said they believe dune-by-dike systems could protect large portions of the Belgian coast, they said building and maintaining the dunes relies on dredging sand from the sea to replenish adjacent beaches.
Warmer climate triggers pest infestations in Bangladesh, India tea estates
- A warmer climate triggers pest infestations across tropical tea estates in Bangladesh and India.
- Since traditional pesticides fail in pest control, the producers experience significant losses in terms of production as well as earning.
- Experts recommend comprehensive solutions with integrated pest management and improvement of soil health.
In wake of Cyclone Ditwah, Sri Lanka faces continuing disaster risks
- The devastating Cyclone Ditwah has left a trail of destruction over 25 districts in Sri Lanka and killed 474 people; among the hardest-hit are those inhabiting low-lying coastal areas and the tea growing Central Highlands.
- Increasing vulnerability to extreme weather events among littoral populations is exacerbated by high population density, experts say.
- More than one-third of the Sri Lankan population, or more than 4.5 million people, live along the coastline and population density is projected to reach 134 people per square kilometer by 2050.
- Nearly 34% of the island population lives in high-risk landslide-prone areas of the country, making the island’s central hills highly susceptible to disaster impacts.
‘The perfect ingredients’: WRI Africa deputy director shares vision for the continent’s energy transition
- Rebekah Shirley, the deputy director for Africa at the World Resources Institute (WRI), says that increasing energy access for Africans, 600 million of whom lack basic access to electricity, requires thinking about entire economies.
- In a conversation with Mongabay, Shirley notes that technological advances, especially for renewable energy, are no longer the hurdle they once were.
- Instead, bringing energy access to households, community services and industry will result from investment in manufacturing, commerce and industry that will support the expansion of universal household energy access, Shirley says.
- Mongabay spoke with Shirley in the lead-up to the 2025 U.N. climate conference, COP30, in Belém, Brazil.
What does the just energy transition mean for Africa?
- Around 600 million Africans lack even basic access to electricity.
- The challenges this deficit poses have led to a call for a “just” energy transition that brings access to energy from renewable sources without imposing undue costs on individuals, communities and countries.
- The rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are largely the result of fossil fuel burning in industrialized countries, and yet countries in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South are often on the frontlines of the impacts of climate change, including unbearable heat, droughts and flooding.
- The debate about how to facilitate a “just” transition includes questions around the continued use of fossil fuels, nations’ sovereignty, and mobilizing funding to finance the necessary changes.
Potential wind slowdown threatens renewable energy and fuels heat domes
Climate change may be causing long-term global wind speeds to slow down, a shift that will likely lead to a dangerous rise in local temperatures, worsening air pollution and disruption to renewable energy systems, Mongabay writer Sean Mowbray reported. A warming atmosphere is likely weakening the forces that govern wind speeds, leading to more frequent […]
Belém faces its social and natural demons as host to COP30
- Deforestation and the city’s historic shift from rivers to roads led to a massive influx of people into low-lying baixadas, where 57% of residents lack services, such as sewage, and are highly prone to flooding.
- The lack of trees in one of the Amazon’s most revered cities, especially in poor neighborhoods, contributes to projections that Belém will face 222 days of extreme heat by 2050.
- Experts argue that the infrastructure projects being implemented don’t offer sustainable solutions, reflecting a long-term failure to address Belém’s water and sewage crises.
Supercharged dust storms are exposing millions to deadly air pollution
More people are getting sick due to sand and dust storms that are now more intense and frequent, contributor Sean Mowbray reported for Mongabay. The intensifying storms have exposed many millions more people to dangerous levels of particulate pollution across the world. In some regions, it has also triggered outbreaks of respiratory and infectious diseases. […]
Guava yields in South Asia shrink due to unpredictable heat & rainfall
- Changing rainfall patterns due to climate change are posing threats to guava farming in South Asia, the global hub of the tropical fruit.
- In recent years, rising temperatures and delayed monsoons have been affecting the flowering and fruiting of even the drought-tolerant guava varieties.
- Experts in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have identified links to climate change with vulnerabilities in guava farming and suggest solutions.
Feel the heat: New app maps heat stress anywhere on Earth, 1940 to now
- The new Thermal Trace app allows users to explore thermal stress and related data from 1940 until five days before present, for anywhere in the world. The app, free for users, was developed by the European Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
- Thermal Trace combines a range of metrics including ambient temperature, humidity, wind speed and more to come up with a “feels like” temperature that reflects the impact of heat and cold on the human body.
- Both heat and cold are physiologically stressful, and prolonged exposure can cause short- and long-term health impacts. Building up a greater awareness and understanding of heat stress and the harm it can do is especially important in our globally warmed world.
- Researchers warn that as climate change impacts accelerate, heat-related health impacts will become more serious and of especially grave concern to the parts of the world that reach the limits to human heat stress adaptation.
Big Oil isn’t part of the clean energy push, despite its claims, study shows
A new study that mapped the portfolios of the world’s 250 biggest oil and gas companies found their deployment of renewable energy is paltry: they’re responsible for just 1.42% of the global renewable energy capacity in operation. Despite announcing ambitious plans to embrace renewables, a mere 0.1% of the primary energy they produce comes from […]
As Singapore heats up, pests are seeking refuge indoors
- In the past few years, previously spotless air-conditioned icons of Singapore such as Changi Airport and the Apple Store have experienced infestations and diseases on indoor greenery.
- Experts say the rise in extreme temperatures as the city-state loses forest cover explains the migration of flies, bees, butterflies and rats into cooler indoor environments.
- Singapore’s pest control industry is booming as a result, with the country’s National Environment Agency mandating tougher rules to curb vector-borne diseases.
- Methods used to control pest species are being challenged by animal welfare groups concerned over the growing use of glue traps, which catch protected as well as target species.
Fears of major locust swarms wane in the Sahel but agencies step up monitoring
- Fears of major desert locust swarms in the Sahel in 2025 are receding, as authorities in the region continue to monitor breeding sites.
- The FAO says control measures were carried out by teams in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria in response to earlier alerts.
- While field reporting has been hampered by limited resources and insecurity in many key parts of the region, improved remote surveillance and information-sharing tools have been strengthened.
Climate change is messing with global wind speeds, impacting planetary health
- Climate change is affecting global wind patterns in multiple ways, many of which have direct implications for human health.
- Worsening sand and dust storms, wildfires intensified by record-setting winds, and increasingly severe hurricanes, derechos, short-lived convective storms, and other extreme weather events are impacting people’s lives, health and property around the world.
- Conversely, some studies suggest escalating climate change will contribute to global declines in average wind speed and intensify “wind droughts” in some locales, which could concentrate toxic atmospheric pollutants, intensify heat domes, and have implications for renewable energy systems.
- Alterations to Earth’s high-altitude jet stream is making it “wavier,” and more likely to stall in place, contributing to longer and more severe droughts and destructive storms. In polar regions, changes in wind and storm patterns are affecting ice melt, with potentially troubling consequences for global weather.
Scientists weigh giant sea curtain to shield ‘Doomsday Glacier’ from melting
- Scientists have proposed using anchored seabed curtains to block warm ocean water from accelerating ice loss at Antarctica’s rapidly melting Thwaites Glacier — a possible climate fix that falls into the realm of geoengineering.
- Thwaites is losing 50 billion metric tons of ice annually and could raise sea levels by more than 60 cm (2 ft) if it collapses.
- Critics warn that a handful of proposed geoengineering projects in the world’s polar regions distract from decarbonization efforts, while supporters argue some geoengineering may be a necessary last-resort measure as governments fail to address rising greenhouse gas emissions.
- The curtain project could cost up to $80 billion, scientists estimate, but may prevent trillions in climate-related damages.
More deforestation leads to a drier dry season, Amazon study finds
- Between 2002 and 2015, forest loss in Brazil’s southern Amazon reduced the amount of rainfall during the dry season by more than 5%, a recent study found.
- Researchers studying how deforestation in the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso affected the atmospheric water cycle between 2002 and 2015 found that a reduction in forest cover reduced evapotranspiration and disrupted regional atmospheric systems.
- Lower rainfall during the dry season can compromise crops, boost wildfires, and reduce water supplies and river levels, sometimes leaving communities isolated.
Post-Blob, California’s kelp crisis isn’t going away
- Kelp forests function as major habitat for marine biodiversity, but are in rapid decline worldwide, largely because of climate impacts on the oceans.
- A 2013 marine heat wave known as “the Blob,” combined with the mass die-off of sea stars, caused a 95% loss of Northern California’s kelp forests.
- The loss of sea stars allowed the purple urchins that they thrive on to spread rapidly, converting lush kelp forests into “urchin barrens” in parts of California. There’s been very little recovery since.
- Restoration of kelp forests is extremely difficult and requires far more resources than are currently being committed.
Why is rainfall declining in the Amazon? New research says deforestation is the leading driver
- Deforestation in the Amazon has been identified as the main driver of declining rainfall, responsible for nearly three-quarters of the drop in dry-season precipitation since the mid-1980s.
- Between 1985 and 2020, dry-season rainfall fell by about 21mm annually, with 15.8mm linked to forest loss, while maximum daily temperatures rose by 2°C, about one-sixth of which was caused by deforestation.
- Amazonian trees generate more than 40% of the region’s rainfall through transpiration, and their removal disrupts local and regional weather, influencing monsoons and increasing drought risk far beyond the basin.
- If current deforestation trends persist, by 2035 the region could lose another 7mm of rainfall in the dry season and heat up by 0.6°C, pushing the Amazon toward a drier climate like the Cerrado or Caatinga.
Climate change intensified wildfire weather in Greece, Türkiye and Cyprus: Study
Hundreds of wildfires across Europe have burned at least 1 million hectares, or around 2.5 million acres, since the start of the year. That’s made 2025 the worst year for the continent since official wildfire records began in 2006. In Türkiye, Greece and Cyprus, which saw deadly fires peaking since June, weather conditions that drove […]
How science links extreme weather disasters to climate change: Interview with WWA’s Clair Barnes
- Scientifically attributing extreme weather events like floods or drought to climate change versus other natural processes or human activities is tricky.
- But since 2014, the World Weather Attribution, an international network of researchers, has pioneered methods that allow them to understand the role of human-induced climate change in current extreme weather events, if at all.
- Mongabay’s Kristine Sabillo recently spoke with WWA researcher and environmental statistician Clair Barnes to learn more about how WWA conducts its rapid analyses.
Escalation in tourism, climate change leaves Nepal’s Mustang in fragile state
- The completion of an all-weather road has transformed ‘lower’ Mustang, shifting from a remote trekking hub to a mass tourism destination. Visitor numbers has surged nearly 50% in one year, fueled largely by domestic and Indian Hindu pilgrims.
- Hotels and lodges have mushroomed along fragile riverbanks with weak zoning enforcement. Tourism water demands and usage have led to untreated sewage entering the Kali Gandaki River.
- Once arid, Mustang is now facing monsoon rains as Arabian Sea warming has started to push rain clouds farther north. The August 2023 flood devastated Kagbeni village, highlighting rising risks of flash floods and landslides.
- While tourism provides livelihoods and the energy is largely renewable, locals remain in the flux of economic opportunity and growing climate risks. Researchers call for urgent data, early warning systems and relocation from high-risk zones.
Respite, for now, for bird migration hotspot at heart of Sri Lanka’s wind power dispute
- Amid mounting protests from locals and environmentalists, Sri Lanka’s president has suspended a proposed wind farm in Mannar, in the island’s north for a month, pending a review of ecological concerns.
- Scientists warn additional wind farms in the area could further fragment habitats of the fragile Mannar Island ecosystem, an important stopover point for migratory birds on the Central Asian Flyway.
- The country’s energy minister has referred to Mannar as “stale land,” dismissing its biodiversity value, but environmentalists have countered this with research that shows more than 500 plant and animal species recorded there, including dozens found nowhere else on Earth.
- Activists urge the government to pursue sustainable development that protects Mannar’s globally important ecosystems while expanding clean energy following a balanced development pathway.
Belize project seeks out heat-resilient corals to protect its reefs
- An initiative called the Super Reefs program is setting out to identify the corals in Belize’s waters that have the highest chance of surviving warming waters amid climate change.
- Researchers with the program have discovered that corals that grow in the hottest areas are naturally more heat-resistant.
- Massive starlet coral (Siderastrea siderea) tends to be tolerant of warm water, whereas symmetrical brain coral (Pseudodiploria strigosa) is more sensitive.
- The team plans to use its findings, which are to be published by 2026, to inform the Belize government which coral communities in the country are best suited for protection and restoration.
Microbiomes may be corals’ secret weapon against climate change: Study
- Researchers compared how genetically similar populations of Pocillopora corals cope with heat stress in Panama’s Gulf of Panama and Gulf of Chiriquí, both on the Pacific coast.
- The team looked at the entire holobiont — the coral’s symbionts, microbiome and physiology — in addition to its genome and environment, finding that the holobiont may play an outsized role in boosting the corals’ ability to cope with heat extremes.
- The team found that corals exposed to upwelling in the Gulf of Panama were better able to withstand higher temperatures, thanks in part to their microbiomes.
- The work points to the importance of better understanding how symbiotic relationships and microbiomes interact with corals to increase their resilience.
Deadly monsoon rains in Pakistan made worse by climate change: Study
Unusually heavy monsoon rains that killed more than 300 people across Pakistan since late June were made 15% more intense by human-caused climate change, according to a new analysis. The study, by the international initiative World Weather Attribution (WWA), analyzed rainfall from June 24 to July 3 using observational data and climate models. It found […]
Power poop saves the day (cartoon)
The infamous stench of a penguin’s projectile poop isn’t its only superpower. New research suggests that the nitrogen in the droppings of Adélie penguins can react with atmospheric compounds to form thermoregulating clouds, which could potentially regulate the impacts of climate change!
Deadly landslide and flooding in Colombia and Venezuela linked to rapid urbanization
Heavy rainfall in Colombia and Venezuela caused deadly landslides and widespread flooding in June. A new analysis now points to rapid urbanization, deforestation, mining and overgrazing as having reduced the region’s climate resilience. “The rapid growth of population and informal settlements in areas prone to landslides, particularly in Colombia, puts people and infrastructure at risk,” […]
Tropical forest roots show strain as changes aboveground filter below
- Tropical forest plant roots have not received as much research attention as aboveground vegetation. This knowledge gap affects our understanding of how rainforests adapt to change, including their ability to capture and store atmospheric carbon.
- An emerging field of research is looking at how root systems respond to global change. New evidence dramatically underlines the outsized importance of tropical forests in the global carbon cycle. Tropical forests represent one of the world’s largest carbon sinks, largely thanks to plant roots, which add carbon to soils.
- Despite the challenge of studying tiny roots hidden underground, researchers are uncovering important insights. Some tropical forests send roots deeper into the soil under dry conditions, possibly seeking moisture, which may aid in drought tolerance. Others seem unable to do this, making them more vulnerable to climate change.
- Recent plant root studies are confirming the immense stress tropical rainforests are under, with conditions changing faster than roots belowground can adapt. Knowing more precisely which forests can, and can’t, tolerate escalating climate change and other stressors could better inform management and conservation decisions.
The world’s children suffer brunt of wildfire smoke health impacts
- Around 270,000 children under the age of 5 die every year from breathing wildfire smoke, with 99% of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), according to scientists.
- Despite a lack of extensive research on how wildfire smoke affects children’s health, recent studies have found a range of physical and mental impacts, starting in utero and continuing through adolescence. This research offers valuable evidence of a worsening global public health crisis driven by climate change-intensified wildfires.
- Researchers emphasize that children are especially susceptible to harm from wildfire smoke due to their physiology and tendency to spend more time outdoors. Also, not all smoke is the same. Combustion of different materials, ranging from plants to plastics, creates a complex mix of pollutants whose health impacts vary.
- Health experts stress that while smoke crosses borders, protections often don’t. More global research, better monitoring and action are urgently needed to protect children and other vulnerable populations from wildfire smoke.
Extreme heat kills at least 2,300 in European cities, study estimates
Around 2,300 people died in 12 European cities due to an extreme heat wave that hit the region from June 23 to July 2, a rapid scientific analysis has found. Researchers also estimated that roughly 1,500 of those deaths, or 65%, were attributable to anthropogenic climate change. “Climate change has made it significantly hotter than […]
Study links surge in lightning disasters in Bangladesh to transboundary air pollution
- Air pollution — especially from transboundary dust and sulfate particles — is intensifying lightning activity in Bangladesh, particularly during the pre-monsoon season. Studies show that these pollutants, mostly coming in from northern and western India, alter cloud dynamics and increase lightning frequency.
- Bangladesh records the highest lightning-related death density in South Asia, with over 4,000 deaths since 2010. Vulnerable rural populations with limited infrastructure and outdoor labor during harvest seasons are victims of these fatalities.
- Experts urge Bangladesh to strengthen early warning systems, improve air quality monitoring, and reduce both domestic and cross-border pollution through coordinated policies targeting traffic emissions, industrial sources and open burning.
Restoration, protection aim to save Belize’s coral reef from extreme heat and disease
- Charles Darwin described the Belize Barrier Reef, a complex system of coral reefs, atolls and cayes spanning 300 kilometers (186 miles) and cradling the nation’s coast, as “the most remarkable reef in the West Indies.”
- Today, unprecedented coral bleaching, a relatively new illness called stony coral tissue loss disease and other threats to corals are negatively impacting reef health across Belize, according to local organizations and a recent reef health assessment.
- The government is looking to identify 20% of the reef for full protection, part of an effort to roughly triple coral reef protection from 7% to 20%.
- Meanwhile nonprofit and scientific groups are doubling down on restoration and monitoring efforts.
Will temperate seas act as refuge for coral reefs? Not in time, study says
- Some scientists have held out hope that, given the threats tropical corals face from climate change, they could improve their viability by expanding their range — by finding refuge in more temperate seas.
- However, a new study found that coral reef decline will far outpace expansion into temperate waters. Most of the damage to corals will be done in the next 40 to 80 years, but expansion will take centuries.
- The severity of coral loss will depend on levels of greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades.
Agencies race to prevent new food crisis as locusts return to northern Africa
- Swarms of desert locusts are moving across parts of North Africa following ideal breeding conditions in late 2024 and early 2025, raising fears of major locust infestations moving south into the Sahel later this year.
- The Commission for Controlling the Desert Locust in the Western Region (CLCPRO) has conducted joint surveys and provided equipment and vehicles to strengthen ground response in countries like Libya and Tunisia.
- Mobile apps are helping to integrate Indigenous knowledge and local observations with enhanced satellite and remote monitoring of areas where desert locusts breed.
- These and other efforts are working to keep up with climate change, which has enhanced conditions that spur desert locust outbreaks, and regional insecurity which undermines already patchy monitoring of outbreaks on the ground.
When heat waves hit, clownfish shrink to survive, study finds
- Clown anemonefish (Amphiprion percula) have a surprising survival strategy: they shrink in length — not just lose weight — to survive marine heat waves and avoid social conflicts, boosting their heat wave survival odds by up to 78%, a new study finds.
- Researchers tracked 67 breeding pairs of clownfish in Papua New Guinea through a severe marine heat wave, measuring fish size repeatedly and finding that synchronized shrinking between mates helps maintain social hierarchies and improves survival chances.
- The study raises bigger questions about whether this shrink-to-survive mechanism is widespread among fish, potentially explaining global trends of shrinking fish sizes amid climate change, and calls for controlled lab experiments to uncover the physiological causes.
Climate futures: What’s ahead for our world beyond 1.5°C of warming?
- This two-part Mongabay mini-series examines the current status of the climate emergency, how the global community is likely to respond and what lies ahead for Earth systems and humanity as the planet almost inevitably warms beyond the crucial 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) goal established in the Paris Agreement 10 years ago.
- For global average temperatures to stabilize at less than 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, humanity likely needs to achieve 43% greenhouse gas emissions cuts by 2030. But progress on climate action has stagnated in recent years, global GHG emissions are yet to peak and our remaining carbon budget is dwindling.
- Above 1.5°C of warming, we risk passing critical tipping points in natural Earth systems, triggering self-perpetuating changes that could shift the planet out of the habitable zone for humanity and life as we know it. Even with rapid, large-scale action on climate change, crossing some tipping points may now be unavoidable.
- However, analysts have identified positive social, technological and economic tipping points we can nurture to decarbonize far more rapidly. These include the decreasing cost of renewable energy, the rise of circular economy principles to reduce waste in industry and a societal shift to more plant-based diets.
Record-breaking heat wave due to climate change hits Iceland & Greenland: Scientists
In May, both Iceland and Greenland experienced record-breaking heat. A new rapid analysis has found that the heat wave in both regions was made worse and more likely in today’s warmer climate. The analysis was conducted by World Weather Attribution (WWA), a global network of researchers that evaluates the role of climate change in extreme […]
Climate futures: World leaders’ failure to act is pushing Earth past 1.5°C
- This two-part Mongabay mini-series examines the current status of the climate emergency; how world leaders, scientists and the global community are responding; and what may lie ahead as the world warms beyond the crucial 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) limit established in the Paris Agreement 10 years ago.
- The unprecedented warming that began in 2023, continued through 2024 and extended into 2025 has caused surprise and alarm. Scientists still don’t fully understand the cause, but some fear it signals the global climate is transitioning into a new state of accelerated warming.
- 2024 was the first full calendar year to exceed 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. A recent projection finds it likely Earth will see a 20-year average warming of 1.5°C by as early as 2029, exceeding a key Paris accord goal and which could trigger self-perpetuating changes pushing Earth’s climate into a less habitable state.
- In January, President Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement, signaling that the U.S. will not lead on climate action. To date, nearly all the world’s nations have fallen far short of what is needed to stay within 1.5°C. As countries submit new U.N. carbon commitments, some fear the U.S. reversal will ripple around the world.
Heavy rains inundate northeast India
Dozens of people are reported dead amid torrential rains over the past week in India’s northeastern region, local media reported. The most heavily affected states are Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. In Assam, more than 640,000 people have been affected as the Brahmaputra River and its tributaries overflowed beyond danger levels, flooding many areas. Around 40,000 […]
Hundreds die after flash floods tear through Nigerian market town
At least 200 people have been confirmed dead and 500 more remain missing after flash floods devastated a Nigerian market town, media reported. Torrential rain started early on May 29, and within just a few hours caused intense flooding in the town of Mokwa, Niger state, a major trading hub for northern farmers selling beans, […]
Is rising CO2 really bad for the world’s drylands? Mongabay podcast probes
Increased carbon dioxide emissions since industrialization have accelerated climate change, and its widespread negative impacts have been reported worldwide. But the rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are also making some parts of our planet greener in what’s called the CO2 fertilization effect. Some politicians claim this effect means more atmospheric CO2 is doing […]
Heavy rainfall in Vietnam & China causes flash floods, landslides
Several people have died following landslides in northern Vietnam caused by heavy rainfall and flash floods over the weekend, media reported. A local government official was quoted saying that an explosion-like noise was first heard on May 19 from the top of a mountain in rural Ba Bể district in Bắc Kạn, a province north […]
Even in intact Amazon forests, climate change affects bird populations: Study
- A recent study analyzed the behavior of birds that feed on insects in parts of the Amazon that have not yet been altered by human activity. Of the 29 species studied, 24 have gone through a reduction in population.
- The results point to climate change as the cause: Less rainfall and more severe droughts seem to be affecting the number of insects there, resulting in less food for the birds, which seem to be reacting by reproducing less in order to save energy.
- According to the study, an increase of just 1° C (1.8° F) in average dry season temperature in the Amazon would result in a 63% drop in the bird community’s average survival rate.
In Côte d’Ivoire a changing climate hits farmers and markets alike
- Towns across Côte d’Ivoire are facing shortages of staple foods like plantain and tomatoes, due to erratic weather.
- Prolonged drought and heavy rains have affected growers in towns like Soubré, who are struggling to maintain sufficient production to supply local markets.
- An expert says adapting to the new climate reality is key, and proposes training farmers in new agricultural techniques and improving natural resource management.
Science lays out framework to assess climate liability of fossil fuel majors
- In recent decades a growing number of lawsuits have been launched by states, cities and other government entities to hold fossil fuel companies financially liable for the climate harm caused by the greenhouse gas emissions their products produce.
- But those efforts often come up against challenging legal arguments made by the companies saying that their actions and emissions cannot be scientifically linked to specific climate change-driven extreme weather events.
- Now, fast-advancing attribution science is offering answers to those legal arguments. A new study has created a framework that connects the emissions over time of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies — BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Saudi Aramco and Gazprom — to rising temperatures and specific heat-related climate disasters.
- Researchers say that, in time, this framework for assigning attribution and financial damages could be extended to specific fossil fuel companies and a range of climate change-intensified extreme events such as hurricanes, flooding, sea-level rise and wildfires. The framework has yet to be tested in court.
Winter warming and rain extreme events pose overlooked threat to Arctic life
- Accelerated Arctic warming is reshaping the polar environment, but focusing only on the impacts of long-term annual temperature rise can miss key consequences of shorter-lived, but extreme, weather shifts coming as a result of climate change.
- A new meta-analysis highlights how extreme weather events in winter, such as rain-on-snow and temperature spikes, are increasing across the Arctic — though not every region gets the same extreme whiplash weather.
- Even short surges of wild winter weather — 24 hours of rainfall on snow-covered ground, for example — can decimate animal and plant populations and change an ecosystem for generations. One such rain-on-snow event in 2023 killed nearly 20,000 musk oxen in the Canadian Arctic.
- Better understanding of Arctic winter weather extremes (along with their immediate and long-term effects on flora and fauna), and factoring these into climate models, could help create more accurate, effective, region-specific conservation plans.
PHOTO ESSAY Wind-blown sand scouring life off a Southern African landscape
- Botany professor emeritus Timm Hoffman and his colleagues are seeing eddies of dune sand piling up around quiver trees at study sites in northwestern South Africa.
- Hoffman has been studying the iconic trees for 20 years — the sand, which in places has formed drifts up to 2 meters (6.6 feet) deep, is new.
- Five years ago, environmental scientists noted an increase in wind-blown sand plumes in the arid areas on both sides of the South Africa border for reasons that are not entirely clear.
- This spreading sand is killing off the succulent vegetation adapted to this climate, threatening this austerely beautiful region’s biodiversity and the livelihoods of shepherds and farmers who call it home.
Global warming hits hardest for those who can’t escape it
- The world’s most vulnerable people, including refugees, migrants and the poor, increasingly face threats related to climate change.
- Many lack the ability to move away from impacts like heat, flooding and landslides.
- A new study reveals a lack of data showing the causes of this involuntary immobility.
- Experts say governments and organizations can invest in low-cost interventions aimed at reducing suffering.
Elevator to extinction (cartoon)
As climate change pushes montane species upslope in a bid to escape warming temperatures, species, including birds, occupying the highest altitudes could be left with nowhere to go, making them the most prone to extinction.
Diverse forests and forest rewilding offer resilience against climate change
- Recent studies from two long-running planted forest experiments in China and Panama find that increasing tree diversity in reforestation efforts can boost resilience in the face of climate change, among other benefits.
- Researchers elsewhere propose a “rewilding-inspired forestry” approach that aims to restore biodiversity, aid climate mitigation and bolster forest ecosystems — an approach that requires a significant shift from current forestry practices.
- However, scientists underline that while reforestation and forest rewilding can contribute to curbing climate change, they have their limits and must be combined with deep carbon emissions cuts and conservation of existing forests.
Typhoon-strength winds sweep across northern China, killing cyclist
The strongest winds in decades triggered damage across northern and eastern China, killing a cyclist, grounding flights, shutting down tourist sites, and prompted emergency weather alerts across much of the country. The cyclist, a 55-year-old woman from Anhui province, was killed on April 12 when she was struck by a falling tree amid a series […]
Even the Gulf of Aqaba’s ‘supercorals’ bleached during 2024 heat wave
- Scientists have long considered the corals in the Gulf of Aqaba in the northern Red Sea to be uniquely resilient to extreme temperatures.
- For the first time on record, however, the heat wave of 2024 bleached some of these super-resilient corals in Israeli and Jordanian waters, according to scientists.
- Scientists studying the episode’s severity and extent estimate that perhaps 5% of the corals in their study area in Israeli waters bleached during the oppressive Northern Hemisphere summer; a small fraction died, but most recovered over the relatively cooler months that followed.
- Tackling threats like pollution that could reduce the corals’ ability to withstand extreme heat is the best way to protect them from rising marine temperatures, and scientists say an oil terminal that sits barely half a kilometer from some of the “supercorals” poses an imminent threat.
Heat wave scorches parts of India with record temperatures
Several cities across India saw temperatures top 40° Celsius, or 104° Fahrenheit, this past week, with some areas exceeding 46°C (114.8°F). Delhi experienced a heat wave for three consecutive days, recording its warmest April night in three years, with temperatures 5-6°C (9-10.8°F) above normal for the period. Many areas in the country’s northwest remain on […]
How is conservation preparing for a much hotter world? Experts share
- Fifty years from now, in 2075, the world will be considerably hotter, perhaps as much as 3-5° Celsius (4.5 to 9° Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial average.
- Experts say we need to focus on building greater resilience into ecosystems now to help species get through the next half century.
- We should be protecting large landscapes, including altitudinal gradients, according to experts.
- We should also be focusing on good management, community relations, rewilding and restoration.
122 companies responsible for a third of present day sea-level rise: Study
What’s new: Almost half of global average temperature rise and a third of sea-level rise can be attributed to the “carbon majors,” the world’s 122 largest fossil fuel and cement producers, a recent paper shows. What the study says: Research from U.S.-based science advocacy NGO Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) used climate-carbon cycle models, and […]
Colombian farmers switch from coffee to cacao as temperature and prices soar
- Due to rising temperatures and climate change, small-scale coffee farmers in Colombia are increasingly planting cacao.
- Cacao faces fewer immediate challenges compared to coffee, which is prone to pests and diseases, and can integrate well into agroforestry systems. However, agronomists warn that the switch to cacao can lead to clearing forests and increasing chemical inputs in order to expand existing plantations.
- Higher profits, the high prices of cacao in the market, and the increasing expenses needed to manage coffee crops are also factors pushing small-scale farmers towards the switch.
- Although coffee remains Colombia’s most important agricultural product, cacao is emerging not just as an alternative, but as a defining crop in Colombia’s evolving agricultural future, say agronomists.
Uttarakhand’s extreme weather wreaks havoc on crops, livelihoods & futures
- In Uttarakhand, extreme weather events like droughts, erratic rainfall and hailstorms have severely affected farming, leading to lower crop yields, increased pests and financial distress for farmers.
- Festivals and agricultural practices linked to seasonal changes are losing their significance due to shifting flowering and harvesting periods, affecting both cultural traditions and livelihoods.
- Reduced snowfall and irregular rainfall have led to water shortages, depleting natural aquifers and springs that local communities rely on for drinking water and irrigation, while forest fires, intensified by extreme heat, have caused loss of human life and biodiversity.
- Climate change is also impacting tourism and small businesses, with rising temperatures and unpredictable weather affecting visitor numbers and local economies.
Floods devastate normally arid parts of Australia’s Queensland
Intense flooding submerged usually dry areas of Queensland state in eastern Australia during the last week of March, forcing many people to evacuate and leave their livestock behind. David Crisafulli, the Queensland premier, called the floods “unprecedented” as several places in western Queensland recorded the worst floods in the last 50 years, CNN reported. Some […]
Ground-level ozone pollution poses growing threat to planetary health
- In the stratosphere, ozone acts as a protective layer. But in the troposphere, at ground level, this colorless gas is incredibly harmful to human health and the environment in ways scientists are still working to fully understand. The problem exists worldwide, but may become especially bad in tropical nations this century.
- Ground-level ozone is a major air pollutant that shortens human lives and kills thousands each year, resulting in major economic impacts. It is formed when methane, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (released from vehicles, industry, power plants and crops) react in the presence of sunlight.
- Climate change worsens tropospheric ozone, with higher temperatures accelerating the chemical reaction that creates it, and because stalled weather systems (especially heat domes) allow buildup of ozone in stagnant polluted air. Ozone pollution not only impacts urban area, but also rural agricultural areas.
- Ozone impacts on biodiversity are significant and growing — harming pollinators, reducing crop yields and limiting forest growth, with global implications for food security and humanity’s reliance on forests as carbon sinks. Effectively tackling climate change and reducing ozone precursors are major solutions.
Expedition links Antarctic glacial melting to climate catastrophe in Brazil
- A team led by Brazilian researchers carried out a 70-day expedition around Antarctica to understand the melting rate of glacial ice and to see how the region is reacting to global warming.
- The changes in the landscape that the researchers encountered were shocking, leading them to predict that Brazil’s climate will be increasingly affected by warming in Antarctica.
- In the shadow of the 2024 floods, the greatest climate tragedy it has seen in history, the state of Rio Grande do Sul should prepare itself for the same sort of event to happen again within the next 30 years, they warn.
Australia faces inflation, agriculture losses after Cyclone Alfred
The Australian government has warned of impacts to the country’s economy in the wake of Cyclone Alfred that caused massive losses to infrastructure, agriculture and the dairy industries when it struck in late February. The horticultural industry was among the worst hit, with strong winds toppling and damaging hundreds of orchard trees, and floodwaters inundating […]
A tale of two cities: What drove 2024’s Valencia and Porto Alegre floods?
- In 2024, catastrophic floods occurred in the cities of Porto Alegre, Brazil, and Valencia, Spain. These two record floods number among the thousands of extreme weather events that saw records for temperature, drought and deluge shattered across the globe. Such horrors have only continued in 2025, with the cataclysmic wildfires in Los Angeles.
- Scientists have clearly pegged these disasters to carbon emissions and intensifying climate change. But a closer look at Porto Alegre and Valencia shows that other causes contributed to the floods and droughts there, and elsewhere on the planet — problems requiring nuanced but Earth-wide changes in how people live and society develops.
- Researchers especially point to the drastic destabilization of the world’s water cycle, which is increasingly bringing far too little precipitation to many regions for far too long, only to suddenly switch to too much rain all at once — sometimes a year’s worth in a single day, as happened in Valencia when 445.5 mm (17.5 inches) fell in 24 hours.
- The problem isn’t only CO2 emissions, but also local deforestation and hardened urban infrastructure that promote flooding. But what may be seriously underestimated is how large-scale destruction of forest, marshland and other vegetation is dangerously altering rainfall patterns, a theory proposed decades ago by a little-known Spanish scientist.
Brazil communities accuse companies of ‘green grabbing’ for wind energy
- In Brazil, community residents say the Italian energy company Enel and the Brazilian Maestro Holding de Energia have stripped them of their territory in order to pursue renewable energy projects.
- Experts call this trend “green grabbing,” a process by which energy companies obtain access to large swaths of common land to produce clean renewable energy.
- A months long investigation uncovered multiple potential cases involving land-grabbing by companies that acquire public land used by residents, exploiting the fact that many people in these areas don’t have documents to prove they own a piece of land and don’t officially register the geographical boundaries of the territories they occupy or own.
- While no source interviewed by this investigation contested the importance of renewable energies, experts, Indigenous and traditional communities, policymakers and government officials all agreed that doing so must account for the social and political realities of local residents.
Indonesia families evicted for Jakarta PIK2 project flooded at relocation site
- The peak of the rainy season in Indonesia has caused damage across much of the archipelago, with major landslides in forested uplands.
- On the north coast of Jakarta’s greater metropolitan area, families displaced by an upscale property development were relocated to a site that later flooded.
- A landslide in January killed 26 people in one village in Central Java province, while a married couple were swept away last week in a flash flood in a nearby community.
- Research predicts annual rainfall could increase 10% in volume by 2050 in Indonesia, while incidents of extreme rain could become more frequent.
‘Misguided & lazy’ staff cuts at NOAA will hurt global science, experts warn
The Trump administration recently fired roughly 800 probationary employees from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Former NOAA workers warn that these cuts will have global repercussions, affecting nations and industries that rely on NOAA’s freely available data. NOAA collects and shares data, from the depths of the ocean to outer space and […]
Thousands affected as cyclone floods Réunion Island in Indian Ocean
At least four people were killed and hundreds of thousands were left without water or electricity as Cyclone Garance flooded parts of the island of Réunion, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, late last week, reports say. The cyclone made landfall on Feb. 28 on the northern side of the island, which lies east […]
Adjusting to temperature and providing water can help save Kenya farmers’ bees, study says
- Temperature can increase bee colony loss in dry, hot and wet seasons, and beekeepers practicing water supplementation experience up to 10% less decrease, a study says.
- Bees, particularly honeybees, are crucial for plant pollination and agricultural production, with the Western honeybee being the most preferred species globally, contributing significantly to economic growth.
- Honeybee production is affected by extended drought seasons, with dried-up water points and limited access to plants and fruits like mangoes, a beekeeper explains.
- An expert calls for the evaluation of the impact of beekeeping education on the adoption of climate adaptation practices, such as water supplementation.
After LA, fire crisis reaches Latin America — from Mexico to Argentina
- As the effects of climate change become increasingly evident, Latin American countries are facing complex circumstances when it comes to defending themselves against forest fires — and urban fires.
- In Argentinian Patagonia, fires have destroyed more than 10,100 hectares (24,958 acres) of native forests, including areas of Nahuel Huapi National Park. There are also active fires in Chile that have killed three firefighters.
- Mongabay Latam talked to specialists in order to understand what is happening in some of the territories that have been hit hardest by the fires.
- Experts agree that it is urgent for Latin American governments, which often have limited capacity, to double down on their prevention efforts and allocate sufficient resources to fire management strategies, taking timely action against forest fires.
Japan sees record snowfall as Australia braces for cyclone Zelia
Japan: Record-breaking snowfall wreaked havoc in northern Japan last week, leaving at least three people dead and 54 injured as of Feb. 10, according to Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Among the worst hit regions were Hokkaido, the country’s northernmost island, and the Japan Sea coast. The thick snow halted transportation in many areas […]
Brazil has seen a 460% increase in climate-related disasters since the 1990s
- An unprecedented study analyzed data from 1991 to 2023 and found that each 0.1°C increase in average global air temperature led to 360 new climate disaster events and damages in Brazil amounting to R$ 5.6 billion ($970 million).
- The global warming process has accelerated over the current decade, resulting in an average of 4,077 recorded climate-related disasters per year in Brazil, compared to 725 per year during the 1990s — an increase of 460%.
- The extreme events recorded over the period — totaling 64,280 — include droughts, floods and storms in 5,117 Brazilian municipalities; over 219 million people were affected, 78 million of whom during the last four years.
- Despite the increased number of disasters and the damage they caused, Brazil’s federal budget for risk and disaster management has been cut every year between 2012 and 2023 by an average of R$ 200 million ($34.6 million) per year.
January 2025 was warmest on record as climate change ‘overwhelms’ La Niña’s cooling
January 2025 was the warmest January on record, surpassing the previous record set by January 2024, according to satellite data from the EU’s Copernicus program. The findings were unexpected as ongoing La Niña conditions in the Pacific typically cool down global temperatures. The global average surface air temperature for the month reached 1.75° Celsius (3.15° […]
Australia reeling from floods in the north, bushfires in the south
Northeastern Australia, particularly the state of Queensland, has faced record-breaking rainfall of up to 2 meters, or 6.5 feet, since Feb. 1, reportedly leaving at least two people dead. Queensland Premier David Crisafulli called the damage “quite frankly incredible,” with the state experiencing nonstop rains, heavy flooding and power outages, BBC reported. He also called […]
Cyclone Elvis kills 5 in Madagascar as another storm approaches
Madagascar is bracing for Tropical Cyclone Faida to make landfall on its northern coast on Feb. 4, even as it deals with the aftermath of another recently dissipated storm, Elvis, that reportedly killed at least five people. Those killed during Elvis’s passage were involved in “lightning events” in Vohibato district in eastern Madagascar, according to […]
Explosive ‘bomb cyclone’ pummels Europe, hitting UK hardest
Back-to-back storms have ravaged the U.K. and neighboring Ireland and France, causing torrential rains, power outages and flooding the past several days and overall “wild weather,” the Associated Press reported. Storm Éowyn first struck the Britain and Ireland on Jan. 23, bringing with it heavy rains and strong winds, followed by Storm Herminia soon after. […]
Historic Arctic freeze for US South and record rain in Western Australia
The southern states of the U.S. are facing a winter storm this week that will bring heavy snow and ice to a region that rarely experiences such conditions. More than 220 million people are expected to be affected from Texas to South Carolina. Several states, including Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi, have each already […]
‘Unusual’ and weak La Niña confirmed, offers cooling respite after record El Niño
It’s official: a weak La Niña came into fruition in late December and is expected, with significant uncertainty, to last until sometime between February and April, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced. La Niña often brings wetter conditions to Southeast Asia and the Brazilian Amazon, while cooling global temperatures overall, potentially easing recent […]
Smart tags reveal migratory bats are storm-front surfers
What’s new: Some bats, like birds, migrate long distances. But these long-distance bat migrations have been somewhat of a mystery to researchers, especially since only a few species embark on them. Now, in a new study, researchers have mapped the odyssey of common noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) using innovative tiny trackers. And the results have […]
World’s record heat is worsening air pollution and health in Global South
- 2024 was the hottest year on record, producing intense, long-lasting heat waves. Climate change-intensified extreme events last year included the formation of vast heat domes — areas of high pressure that stalled and persisted above continental land masses in Asia, Africa, South and North America, and Europe.
- Heat domes intensify unhealthy air pollution from vehicles, industry, wildfires and dust storms. When a heat wave gripped New Delhi, India, last summer, temperatures soared, resulting in unhealthy concentrations of ground-level ozone — pollutants especially unhealthy for outdoor workers.
- When climate change-driven heat, drought and record wildfires occurred in the Brazilian Amazon last year, the fires produced massive amounts of wood smoke containing dangerous levels of toxic particulates that cause respiratory disease. Indigenous people living in remote areas had little defense against the smoke.
- Intense heat also impacted Nigeria in 2024, where major dust storms and rising temperatures created conditions that helped increased cases of meningitis — a sometimes deadly disease, especially in poor areas. Escalating climate change is expected to exacerbate pollution and worsen public health in the future.
Climate change fueled record extreme weather events in 2024
Climate change fueled some of the worst extreme weather events on record in 2024, according to a recent report. Researchers at the World Weather Attribution (WWA) and Climate Central reviewed heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms and floods that struck in 2024, and found that nearly every extreme weather event they studied was “made more intense […]
Philippines’ ‘extraordinary’ typhoon season was climate-fueled: Scientists
From late October to November this year, six consecutive tropical cyclones battered the Philippines, affecting 30 million people. Data analyses from two separate organizations now show they were intensified by human-induced climate change. International scientific collective World Weather Attribution (WWA) released a study on Dec. 12 showing that climate change has made conditions conducive to […]
India, U.K. deal with storms that are ‘symptom of our changing climate’
India is bracing for intense rainfall over the next few days as a deep depression over the Bay of Bengal is set to intensify into what will be called Cyclone Fengal by Nov. 29, according to local media reports. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the cyclone is likely to pass near the coast of […]
At least 146 dead in back-to-back tropical cyclones in Philippines
Two tropical cyclones recently struck the Philippines one after the other, leaving at least 146 people dead, according to government reports. The country first felt the peak intensity of Severe Tropical Storm Trami (local name Kristine) on Oct. 24. The storm maintained sustained winds of up to 95 kilometers per hour (59 miles per hour) […]
At least 94 dead as worst storm in decades hits Spain’s Valencia region
Torrential rains and flash floods have left at least 92 people dead and dozens missing in Spain’s Valencia region, in what is the region’s worst storm in nearly three decades, according to Spain’s Emergency Coordination Center. A man in Malaga and an elderly woman in the neighboring Cuenca region also died. On the evening of […]
Tropical cyclones pummel Philippines, India
Two tropical cyclones have barreled through Asia, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines and India. Severe tropical storm Trami (local name Kristine) triggered heavy rainfall as it made landfall in the Philippines in the early hours of Oct. 24. It caused widespread flooding and landslides as it rampaged through […]
The Amazon is ablaze again. What it means for us (commentary)
- The Amazon rainforest, devastated by over 70,000 wildfires in 2019, is once again ablaze, threatening even greater destruction of wildlife, human health, and ecosystems.
- Climate change is now a tangible global threat, with rising sea levels and extreme heat affecting entire regions, while indigenous communities, like the Kogi in Colombia, have long warned of these environmental dangers, argues Mark J. Plotkin, an ethnobotanist who co-founded the Amazon Conservation Team.
- The Amazon, which stores one-fifth of the world’s terrestrial carbon, plays a crucial role in regulating global climate, but continued deforestation risks releasing this carbon and disrupting weather patterns far beyond the region.
- This text is a commentary and does not necessarily represent the views of Mongabay.
Arctic sea ice hits summer minimum; Antarctic hovers at new winter lows
- The Antarctic winter sea ice maximum is on track to be the second lowest on record, at 17.15 million square km² (6.62 million mi²), close to the 2023 record low of 16.96 million km² (6.55 million mi²). Some scientists see this as anomalous. Others see it as a shift in the southern polar environment, maybe triggered by climate change.
- The Arctic summer sea ice minimum also stayed low this year, at 4.28 million km² (1.65 million mi²), making it the 7th lowest minimum in the satellite record. So far, 2012 saw the record minimum of 3.41 million km² (1.32 million mi²).
- Polar sea ice losses have global impacts. In one analysis, researchers estimated the planetary cooling effects of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice during 2016-2023 were about 20% and 12% less, respectively, than they were during 1980-1988, leading to almost 15% less cooling power for the planet.
- With about 12% declines of Arctic Ocean ice each decade, researchers predict a nearly ice-free Arctic summer by 2050, allowing more shipping through the Northwest Passage but threatening this unique polar ecosystem. Studies also show the Antarctic ice sheet to be increasingly at risk, particularly Western Antarctica.
Heavy rains in Lake Chad Basin leave hundreds dead across countries
At least 621 people have been killed and thousands more displaced by floods around Lake Chad, which sits at the border region of several countries in Central and West Africa. Since early September, parts of Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria have experienced some of their heaviest rains in decades. Heavy rains have overwhelmed local systems, Justin […]
Bats & bees help ni-Vanuatu predict storms — but will climate change interfere?
- In disaster-prone Vanuatu, Indigenous ni-Vanuatu people traditionally rely on plants and animal species as indicators that predict extreme weather events and help them prepare.
- But climate change is affecting weather patterns, and species’ behavior may impact the accuracy of this knowledge and predictions, elders say.
- Government, national organizations and scientists launched a national booklet and a mobile app to both document these traditional knowledge indicators and assess how climate change is impacting their accuracy.
- Researchers use a citizen science approach that encourages youth and community people’s hands-on participation in documenting species and changes.
Conserving & restoring waterways can mitigate extreme urban heat in Bangladesh
- Conserving existing wetlands and restoring urban waterways can be an effective way for urban planners to protect city residents from extreme heat.
- In Dhaka, as in other large cities, paved urban landscapes absorb heat and intensify the risk of heat waves. Areas of cities that are prone to such thermal intensity are known as “heat islands.”
- Urban sprawl frequently fills or covers wetlands and waterways as cities grow.
- Conserving green spaces is important to reducing urban heat and protecting people in cities from extreme heat, but conserving wetlands and waterways is even more effective.
Uttarakhand villagers thirst for water as tourism, temps & development rise
- An influx of tourists and new residents to Uttarakhand, driven by heat waves and work-from-home options, is straining local resources, particularly water.
- Nearly 12,000 natural springs reportedly have dried up in recent years, with 90% of Uttarakhand’s population depending on these vital water sources.
- Widespread construction for tourism disrupts aquifers and natural water percolation, exacerbating water scarcity and affecting water quality; water sources are further threatened by changing rainfall patterns and rising temperatures.
- Local residents, especially women and marginalized communities, face increased hardships in accessing water amid growing allegations of water diversion by hotels.
French court greenlights lawsuit against EDF over wind farm in Mexico
- After more than three years of legal wrangling, a court in Paris has ruled that a civil case brought by Indigenous communities in Mexico against French energy giant EDF can go ahead.
- The case was filed by Zapotec communities in Oaxaca state, who complain that EDF’s Gunaa Sicarú wind farm project violates their land rights and lacks reasonable consultation with communities.
- The case against EDF was filed under the recently approved French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law, designed to hold French companies accountable for abuses overseas.
- Projects that support the energy transition and climate change mitigation can stir local conflicts similar to those associated with fossil fuels if community rights are not properly considered, experts warn.
If forests truly drive wind and water cycles, what does it mean for the climate?
- Theoretical physicists Anastassia Makarieva and Viktor Gorshkov developed the controversial “biotic pump” theory more than a decade ago, which challenges traditional climate and hydrological science.
- The theory posits that forests drive moisture-laden air currents, thereby governing wind and rain and implying that further global forest loss could have unknown effects on weather and water supplies.
- While yet to be disproven or validated, some scientists say it’s vitally important to study and test this theory, and potentially include it in climate-modeling scenarios.
- Makarieva joins Mongabay’s podcast to discuss the theory and its implications for future climate modeling with co-host Rachel Donald.
From polling stations to weather stations, the heat is on in India (commentary)
- Parts of India are facing a heatwave, for which the heat in the state of Kerala is a curtain raiser. Kerala experienced its first recorded heatwave amid the ongoing election campaign.
- Heatwaves, droughts and floods do not distinguish along political lines. If the destruction is across board, the mitigating action also has to be across political lines, writes Mongabay-India’s Managing Editor, S. Gopikrishna Warrier, in this commentary.
- Climate change poses economic, social and political challenges, influencing election discourse and policy agendas.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Warming climate threatens to worsen air quality in already polluted Kathmandu
- In the period between winter and spring each year, Kathmandu faces severe air pollution that affects thousands of residents with health problems like burning eyes, respiratory discomfort, and even death.
- Local sources like vehicle emissions and construction dust, compounded by Kathmandu’s geography, are the main drivers of the pollution, and rising global temperatures threaten to worsen the situation.
- Changes in weather patterns, including reduced rainfall and prolonged dry periods are among the changes that could make air pollution an even more severe problem than it already is.
- Wildfires, both natural and human-induced, contribute significantly to air pollution in Kathmandu, especially during the transition period between weather systems, which could become longer due to rising temperatures.
Global coral bleaching now underway looks set to be largest on record
- Scientists say that coral reefs are currently undergoing a global bleaching event, with more than 54% of the world’s coral reef areas in the territorial waters of over 50 countries experiencing heat stress. According to one scientist, the percentage of areas dealing with bleaching-level heat stress “has been increasing by roughly 1% per week.”
- To assess the current bleaching event, scientists drew on satellite-derived sea surface temperature data and in-water measurements.
- Experts say the current El Niño, a phase in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern, in combination with rising global sea temperatures, is responsible for the extensive coral bleaching.
- Mongabay interviewed scientists most familiar with coral reef bleaching data, and experts attending the 9th Our Ocean Conference in Athens, taking place from April 15-17.
Climate change could drive mammal extinction in Brazil’s Caatinga, study warns
- According to a new study, 91.6% of terrestrial mammal communities in the Caatinga will lose species by 2060, with 87% of them being deprived of their habitats if the temperature in the region increases by at least 2°C.
- Small mammals will suffer the strongest impact, and some species may disappear from the biome, such as the giant anteater and the giant armadillo.
- In addition to more drought and rising temperatures, deforestation caused by wind farms also threatens some species, such as the jaguar.
- In a previous study, the same researchers had warned that 99% of plant communities in the Caatinga will lose species by 2060.
As fires ravaged Indonesia in 2023, some positive trends emerged, data show
- Indonesia’s 2023 fire season saw 1.16 million hectares (2.87 million acres) of land and forest go up in flames, and while this was five times higher than in 2022, experts highlight a positive trend.
- The fires were exacerbated by an intense El Niño weather system, unlike in 2022; the last time similar conditions prevailed, in 2019, the area affected by fires was much larger, suggesting fire mitigation efforts may be working.
- Most of the burning occurred in scrubland and areas of degraded forest rather than in intact forests, meaning greenhouse gas emissions from the burning were also much lower than in 2023.
- But a worrying trend highlighted by the numbers is that severe fires are now occurring in four-year cycles, intensified and exacerbated by the impacts of a changing climate.
Agroforestry project sows seeds of hope in drought-hit Honduras
- In response to longer and more intense droughts, Indigenous Tolupan farmers in Honduras are turning to agroforestry and agroecology strategies to adapt to the changing climate.
- The strategies include diversifying their crops, building water storage systems, introducing methods to better conserve water in the soil, and building up banks of native seeds.
- Although Honduras wasn’t among the 22 countries that declared a drought emergency in 2022 and 2023, severe heat waves and El Niño events are hitting harvests hard, leading to an exodus of young people out of rural areas.
- Locals participating in the adaptation initiative say it’s starting to bear fruit and give them hope — a precious resource in a dry land.
Rising temperatures threaten the tiny animals responsible for groundwater quality
- A new study compared temperatures inside 12 caves around the world with their respective surfaces, showing that average annual temperatures in underground systems tend to mirror those of the surface, but with far less variation.
- The researchers also found that while some caves follow outdoor temperatures with little or no delay, others have temperatures that are very asynchronous with the surface, being at their warmest when the world outside is at its coldest, and vice versa.
- Scientists also detected the existence of daily thermal cycles in the deepest sections of some caves, suggesting that such cycles might mark the circadian rhythms of cave-adapted organisms.
- The results indicate that underground fauna — with many species ill-adapted to handle large temperature variations — might be at threat due to climate change, and that their extinction might risk the water quality of aquifers worldwide.
Brazilian youngsters discuss how they are tackling the climate emergency
- Affected by drought, pollution, high waters and floods, young people from different Brazilian states describe how climate change is impacting their routines and causing illness, malnutrition, displacement and school disruption.
- According to a UNICEF report, 2 billion children and adolescents in the world are exposed to risks arising from the climate emergency; in Brazil, there are 40 million affected children and adolescents — 60% of Brazilians under 18.
- According to experts, the climate crisis is a crisis of the rights of children and adolescents, as it affects everything from the right to decent housing and health care to education and food, leading to problems in child development and learning abilities.
Studies still uncovering true extent of 2019-20 Australia wildfire catastrophe
- Australia’s 2019-20 bushfires burned with unprecedented intensity through a total of 24 million hectares (59 million acres), an area the size of the U.K.
- New research shows total costs incurred to the tourism industry from that single bushfire season may be 61% higher than previously calculated.
- Up to 1.5 billion wild animals may have perished in the fires, and new research is uncovering the cost to individual species as a result of the fires.
- One study published shows 15% of all known roost locations of the gray-headed flying fox, Australia’s largest bat species, may have been directly impacted by the fires.
Study on Brazilian heat wave deaths shows gender & racial disparities
- A new study estimates that the deaths of nearly 50,000 people in Brazil in recent decades could be attributed to the occurrence of heat waves, and it points out that these extreme events have become increasingly frequent.
- The paper reveals that Blacks, Browns, females, older adults and those with lower educational levels are the most affected population subgroups, suggesting that the impacts of heat waves are felt unevenly, thus exposing socioeconomic inequalities.
- The researchers analyzed data from 14 metropolitan regions with a population of 74 million people, representing nearly one-third of Brazil’s population.
- This research is important because it joins others in analyzing racial and gender dimensions of the populations most vulnerable to extreme events, the scientific coordinator at Iyaleta Research Association says.
Sumatra firefighters on alert as burning heralds start of Riau dry season
- On the northeast coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, the first of two annual dry seasons led to a spike in wildfires in some peatland areas in February.
- In the week ending March 2, Indonesian peatland NGO Pantau Gambut said 34 hotspots, possibly fires, were identified by satellite on peatlands in Riau province.
- Emergency services in the province have been concentrated to the east of the port city of Dumai, where a fire started in the concession of a palm oil company, according to local authorities.
‘Corals dying’ as yet more bleaching hits heat-stressed Great Barrier Reef
- Both aerial and in-water surveys have shown that the southern section of the Great Barrier Reef is undergoing extensive coral bleaching.
- Surveys have also shown “limited bleaching” in the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef.
- However, scientists and reef managers plan to conduct more air and in-water surveys to further assess the coral bleaching across all parts of the Great Barrier Reef.
- Scientists suspect but have not yet confirmed that a seventh mass bleaching event since 1998 is currently underway; the last mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef happened in 2022.
As lightning strike fatalities increase, Bangladesh still has no reliable preventive measures
- Between 2011 and 2020, lightning strikes claimed the lives of 2,164 people, or nearly four people every week, in Bangladesh, according to the country’s disaster management department. However, a Bangladeshi NGO reports at least a thousand more lightning related fatalities between 2010 and 2021.
- Researchers linked the increased frequency of lightning with climate change; as for the increased death toll, they blamed the government’s inefficient protection measures, including the lack of tall trees.
- To reduce the number of fatalities, the government has started working on long-term solutions, such as installing lightning arresters and growing palm trees. Nevertheless, a significant sum of money is being squandered and nothing functions as expected, say experts.
Java’s crumbling coastline and rising tide swamp jasmine flower trade
- Growers of jasmine flowers in lowland areas of Indonesia’s Central Java province are vulnerable to coastal erosion and rising sea levels.
- Research published in 2022 showed Central Java’s Semarang was among the fastest-sinking major cities in the world.
- Jasmine grower Sobirin has altered his home on three occasions since 2010, raising the floor to adapt to increasing tidal surges.
Salty wells and lost land: Climate and erosion take their toll in Sulawesi
- Coastal erosion on the west coast of Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island is so advanced that seawater has penetrated the groundwater supply that tens of thousands use for drinking water.
- The communities have yet to be served by utility water provision, so families are resorting to costly supplies of water from private distributors.
- Research shows that rising seas and more frequent and powerful storms will accelerate coastal abrasion, raising burdens shouldered by the world’s coastal communities.
Colombian wind farm end-of-life raises circularity and Indigenous questions
- Jepírachi, Colombia’s first wind farm, is waiting to be dismantled after reaching its end of life, but the process itself and the project’s legacy remain uncertain.
- Across the world, first-generation wind projects are becoming obsolete, and disposing of the equipment, especially of the wind blades, is challenging circularity goals; currently, most blades are used in cement factories.
- Three Wayuu communities depend on the desalination plant created by the wind farm company for their clean water, but now the communities question the future of their water security.
Climate refugees? As the sea warms, corals thrive in Japan’s cool waters
- As tropical and subtropical coral reefs succumb to bleaching due to climate change in many parts of the world, the idea that they could take refuge in cooler, temperate seas has offered cause for hope.
- For a while, this is exactly what researchers thought was happening in Japan, where corals are replacing seaweed as the dominant benthos in many places, shaking up both ecosystems and coastal economies.
- But the latest research has tempered those hopes, showing that it’s mainly Japan’s genetically distinct temperate corals that have been expanding their range and edging out seaweed.
- The long-term implications of this shift are unclear, but researchers say it could take tens of thousands of years for these new high-latitude coral communities to evolve the structures, niches and symbioses necessary to support biodiversity on par with the world’s current tropical reefs.
Record North Atlantic heat sees phytoplankton decline, fish shift to Arctic
- Scientists warn that record-high sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean this year are having consequences for sea life.
- As marine heat waves there have worsened over the years, populations of phytoplankton, the base of the oceanic food chain, have declined in the Eastern North Atlantic.
- With experts predicting more heat anomalies to come, North Atlantic fish species are moving northward into the Arctic Ocean in search of cooler waters, creating competition risks with Arctic endemic species and possibly destabilizing the entire marine food web in the region.
- Lengthening and intensifying marine heat waves around the globe are becoming a major concern for scientists, who warn that the world will see even greater disruptions to ocean food chains and vital fisheries, unless fossil fuel burning is curtailed.
An ‘aquatic moonshot’ in Vietnam aims to fight livestock methane with seaweed
- Scientists from the R&D company Greener Grazing aim to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by growing and marketing a red seaweed (Asparagopsis taxiformis) as an additive for livestock feed.
- Worldwide, some 3 billion cattle and sheep produce roughly 231 billion pounds of methane annually; researchers estimate some 100 million tons of A. taxiformis would be needed to eliminate 98% of those emissions, a figure that’s roughly three times current global production of all seaweeds.
- Greener Grazing is experimenting with growing A. taxiformis in central Vietnam’s Van Phong Bay, but there are challenges.
- Skeptics also say the benefits of seaweed are limited in both the amount of methane that can be reduced as well as the capacity for scaling production to meet the size of the problem.
Salinity hinders Bangladesh agriculture; groups respond with seeds & information
- Bangladesh is the fourth-highest rice-producing country in the world, but much of that production is threatened by salinity.
- More than 30% of the cultivable land in Bangladesh is in the coastal area; a comparative study of the salt-affected area showed that of 2.86 million hectares (7.1 million acres) of coastal and off-shore lands, about 1.056 million hectares (2.6 million acres) — an area roughly the size of Lebanon — of arable lands are affected by varying salinity, hampering agricultural production.
- In the coastal zones, farmers mainly cultivate low-yielding, traditional rice varieties during the wet season, while in the dry season (January- May), most of the land remains fallow because of soil salinity.
- To cope with the situation, government and nongovernmental organizations are introducing different types of saline and extreme weather-tolerant crop varieties to use the farmland yearly.
Climate change detectable in daily rainfall patterns, deep-learning model finds
- Researchers have developed a deep-learning AI model that predicts how global warming is affecting daily precipitation patterns around the world.
- Using the model, scientists found that every year since 2015 daily rainfall deviated from natural variability at least 50% of the time as a result of rising temperatures.
- Research has long focused on climate change’s long-term impacts such as annual temperature increase or precipitation rates.
- However, studies in recent years have observed how rising temperatures are altering daily weather patterns as well.
How hot are the desert tortoises getting? iButtons help find the answer
- Researchers are using a button-shaped device to gather data about desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) and their habitats in the Mojave Desert in Southern California.
- Using iButtons, the researchers are trying to understand how hot the tortoises get, and the temperatures that they prefer in the burrows where they spend most of their time.
- Identifying the critically endangered species’ temperature preferences is an urgent task: the tortoise faces threats to its survival from various quarters such as rising temperatures, habitat loss, and attacks by predators.
- With this research, scientists say they hope to find habitats that are safer and where the thermal conditions are suitable for the long-term survival of the tortoises.
Hope, but no free pass, as Pacific corals show tolerance to warming oceans
- New research suggests that coral reefs in the Pacific islands of Palau are becoming increasingly tolerant to thermal stress brought on by climate change.
- The study found that Palau’s coral reefs appeared to suffer less bleaching over three successive marine heat waves in 1998, 2010 and 2017.
- While the findings provide some hope for coral reefs, one expert says the study has some limitations in providing a clear picture of how corals respond to different heat events.
- Scientists also say that reducing carbon emissions is essential to safeguard coral reefs — and to secure the planet’s future.
Beach heat: Study shows increasing temperature extremes on Brazil’s coast
- By analyzing temperature patterns at five points along the Brazilian coast over the last 40 years, scientists confirmed the impacts of global warming on the country: hotter summers, more heat waves and greater thermal amplitude throughout the day.
- On the coast of Espírito Santo state, the frequency of daily occurrences of extreme temperatures and heat waves increased by 188% during the period studied; Rio Grande do Sul saw an increase of 100% and São Paulo, 84%.
- Such climate extremes impact the health of people, plants and animals directly and indirectly, including changes in viral cycles.
Drought cycles erode tropics’ ability to absorb CO₂, study finds
- A recent study finds that tropical carbon sinks have become increasingly vulnerable to water scarcity since 1960, and are consequently less able to absorb carbon dioxide.
- These findings suggest that tropical ecosystems are less resilient to climate change than previously thought.
- While the study doesn’t necessarily make projections for the future, the findings suggest that an acceleration of climate change, which is very likely to bring more drought, could further limit the ability of tropical ecosystems to absorb carbon dioxide, which, in turn, would worsen climate change.
With El Niño likely, Indonesia’s volunteer firefighters gear up — with new gear
- More than 11,000 community firefighters across Indonesia are readying for a likely El Niño year, better prepared than ever before.
- One community outfit of five volunteers in Sumatra’s province is monitoring the local peatland with the help of a drone procured from the village budget.
- Officials hope that a legal crackdown on farmers burning combined with improved community capacity can limit wildfires this year.
Death of rare male gharial in Nepal highlights conservation crisis
- A male gharial, a critically endangered crocodilian, was found dead in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, entangled in a fishing net and hook.
- Male gharials are vital for the survival of the species, which has a skewed sex ratio and faces threats from fishing, habitat loss, and poaching.
- Park officials are trying to boost the male population by incubating eggs at a certain temperature, but critics question the effectiveness and sustainability of this approach.
New hope in the Mediterranean: Scientists find deep corals withstand heat waves
- Over the past decade, the Mediterranean Sea has experienced frequent, destructive marine heat waves that have impacted a diversity of marine life, including red gorgonians (Paramuricea clavata).
- In 2022, researchers launched “Noah’s Ark of the Deep,” an expedition to study the gorgonians in the western Mediterranean Basin. In April, the second mission of the expedition explored gorgonians below 50 meters (164 feet).
- While the gorgonians in shallow waters suffered as temperatures rose, corals in deeper waters appeared untouched by the impacts of thermal stress.
- Researchers are currently trying to understand if these deeper gorgonians can help repopulate shallow populations if climate conditions allow them to regenerate.
Extreme temperatures and erratic weather disrupt Bangladesh’s famous Rajshahi silk industry
- Since the 13th century, Rajshahi, named “Silk City,” has been known for its finest silk, which local growers have produced.
- Earlier, the product was named Bengal silk or Ganges silk. Considering the prospects and reputation of the trade, the then-Pakistan government started producing silk officially. Consequently, it established a silk factory in Rajshahi in 1961, which washanded over to Bangladesh Sericulture Development Board in 1978.
- The silk sector in Rajshahi grew as farmers of the neighboring districts used to produce high-quality silk yarns by the larvae of moths fed on fresh mulberry leaves, which were later used for luxurious clothing items. There are three types of silk produced in Rajshahi: mulberry, endi and tassar, with mulberry silk being the finest and most expensive.
- However, Bangladesh’s once-famous silk industry has faced difficulties in recent years, including the excessive dependency on imported low-cost yarn and different bacterial and viral diseases triggered by constantly variable temperatures and humidity.
The climate is already changing in the Matopiba, Brazil’s new agricultural frontier
- Collecting data from the last 40 years, researchers have observed increased temperatures and more severe droughts in the Matopiba region, which encompasses parts of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia states.
- A transition zone between the Cerrado and the eastern Amazon, the Matopiba is the largest area of contact between forest and savanna in the tropics; in the last two decades it has become one of the main fronts for the expansion of grain cultivation in Brazil.
- According to the researchers, the increased frequency of hot and dry days in the region results from an interaction between global climate change and the advance of deforestation.
- In the near future, environmental changes can harm agribusiness itself, putting Brazilian food security at risk.
Protected areas store a year’s worth of CO₂ emissions, study reveals
- Researchers analyzed never-before-used satellite data to calculate how much carbon is stored in protected areas worldwide.
- The Amazon Rainforest’s protected areas accounted for the highest rate of carbon stock, according to the unprecedented study.
- The results can help policymakers and conservationists assess areas for protection to fight climate change — and not just forests.
Deforestation linked to less rainfall, study shows; El Niño could make it worse
- A new study shows concerning links between deforestation and reduced precipitation in tropical regions, which can in turn lead to reduced agricultural yields and food security issues.
- Now, researchers are concerned about the potential for another El Niño, which typically brings hotter, drier conditions to tropical regions, particularly in Southeast Asia, and can compound the effects of deforestation and reduced rainfall.
- The 2015-16 El Niño triggered crop losses, disease outbreaks, malnutrition and food insecurity, livestock deaths and other hardships that affected 60 million people globally; researchers say these trends signal the need for greater climate resilience in local communities.
In Indonesia, clouds form over East Java’s promising band of avocado growers
- Global avocado production is rising to meet demand from increasingly health-conscious consumers.
- South and Central American producers remain the world’s largest, but production in Indonesia is rising quickly.
- Farmers have found new ways to increase value, but research shows rising temperatures and increased rainfall threaten to undermine productivity.
Australia bushfires may have caused global climate phenomenon La Niña: Study
- The 2019-2020 Australian bushfires threw up so much ash into the atmosphere that it resulted in a cooling of the southern Pacific and hence a La Niña climate phenomenon, a new study says.
- Volcanic eruptions that send vast ash plumes into the atmosphere are thought to trigger La Niña events, but this is the first time a fire has been recorded as doing so.
- La Niña can produce ruinous weather conditions in contrasting ways, from additional hurricanes in North America and droughts in the Horn of Africa, to crop failures in South America.
- The study’s findings call into question the assumption in current climate models that biomass emissions — including from bushfires — will decrease over time.
‘Alarming’ heat wave threatens Bangladesh’s people and their food supply
- Temperatures across Bangladesh have hit record highs as the country swelters in the heat wave currently sweeping across much of Asia.
- Dhaka recorded its highest temperature in six decades this month, at 40.6°C (105.1°F), with meteorologists warning that heat waves like this are becoming more common.
- The heat also threatens the country’s all-important rice crop, with the government advising farmers to ensure sufficient irrigation to prevent heat shock to their plants.
- With the heat now easing, a new fear has emerged: Cooler temperatures signal the start of the monsoon, which, in the northeast region of Bangladesh often means floods that can also destroy rice crops.
Feathered forecast: Tech tools comb weather data for bird migrations
- Since its launch in 1999, the BirdCast project has used weather radar data to track and forecast bird migrations across the U.S.
- In recent years, technology such as cloud computing and machine learning have helped make the work of researchers in the project easier and more automated.
- Studying bird migrations is essential not only to help protect them, but to also analyze and understand environmental health.
- The BirdCast project is now working on integrating radar data with human observations and bioacoustics to help identify the bird species traversing the skies.
Southern atmospheric rivers drive irreversible melting of Arctic sea ice: Study
- Arctic sea ice extent has reached its winter maximum extent for 2023 at 14.62 million sq. km., the fifth lowest on record. Combined with this year’s unprecedentedly small Antarctic sea ice summer minimum extent, global sea ice coverage reached a record low in January.
- Arctic sea ice is not only receding, but also seriously thinning. New research has found that a huge melt in 2007 and associated ocean warming kicked off a “regime shift” to thinner, younger, more mobile and transient ice that may be “irreversible.”
- A big reason why Arctic sea ice is declining even in the frigid polar winter is that atmospheric rivers, which carry warmth and rainfall like the deluges seen in California recently, are surging up from the south and penetrating the Arctic more often.
Sagarmatha microbes may survive harsh conditions for decades
- Researchers have found microbes on Mount Everest that can survive harsh winds and conditions at some of the world’s highest elevations.
- The research comes at a time when scientists say melting glaciers and permafrost could reawaken viruses and bacteria as the climate warms.
- However, the microbes found on Mount Everest, which were possibly transported by humans through their coughing and sneezing, are unlikely to grow and reproduce, said University of Colorado Boulder scientist Steve Schmidt, a co-author of a new study on the team’s findings.
Amazon deforestation linked to reduced Tibetan snows, Antarctic ice loss: Study
- Earth’s climate is controlled by a complex network of interactions between the atmosphere, oceans, lands, ice and biosphere. Many elements in this system are now being pushed toward tipping points, beyond which changes become self-sustaining, with the whole Earth system potentially shifting to a new steady state.
- A recent study analyzed 40 years of air temperature measurements at more than 65,000 locations to investigate how changes in one region rippled through the climate system to affect temperatures in other parts of the globe. Computer models then simulated how these links may be affected by future climate change.
- Researchers identified a strong correlation between high temperatures in the Amazon Rainforest and on the Tibetan Plateau. They found a similar relationship between temperatures in the Amazon and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
- Deforestation in the Amazon likely influences the Tibetan Plateau via a convoluted 20,000-kilometer (12,400-mile) pathway driven by atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. The study suggests that a healthy, functioning Amazon is crucial not only for the regional climate in Brazil, but for the whole Earth system.
Carbon uptake in tropical forests withers in drier future: Study
- A new study incorporating satellite data on organic material, or biomass, in tropical forests with experimental data about the effects of temperature and precipitation suggests that forests may lose substantial amounts of carbon by the end of the 21st century.
- Even with low continued carbon emissions, tropical forests, especially those in the southern Amazon, could lose between 6.8 and 12% of their aboveground carbon. With higher emissions, they could lose 13.3 to 20.1% of their carbon stores.
- The results highlight the need to reduce global temperatures rapidly to maintain the healthy forests best able to sequester carbon from the atmosphere.
- The team reported their findings Feb. 6 in the journal Nature Climate Change.
‘Not a good sign’: Study shows Greenland temperatures at 1,000-year high
- New research shows that north-central Greenland experienced the highest temperatures between 2001 and 2011 over a 1,000-year period.
- Scientists came to this conclusion after reconstructing climate conditions over the last millennium by analyzing ice cores from the Greenland ice sheet.
- This study can provide a foundation for future studies on ice melt and sea level rise, the authors say.
Forest modeling misses the water for the carbon: Q&A with Antonio Nobre & Anastassia Makarieva
- An expanded understanding of forests’ role in moisture transport and heat regulation raises the stakes on the health of the Amazon Rainforest and the need to stop cutting trees.
- The biotic pump theory, conceived by scientists Anastassia Makarieva and the late Victor Gorshkov, suggests that forests’ impact on hydrology and cooling exceeds the role of carbon embodied in trees.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Makarieva and Brazilian scientist Antonio Nobre explain how the theory makes the case for a more urgent approach by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to protect the Amazon.
An El Niño is forecast for 2023. How much coral will bleach this time?
- Forecasts suggest that an El Niño climate pattern could begin later this year, raising sea temperatures at a time when global temperatures are already higher than ever due to human-driven climate change.
- If an El Niño develops and it becomes a moderate to severe event, it could raise global temperatures by more than 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels, the threshold set by the Paris Agreement.
- An El Niño would generate many impacts on both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, including the potential for droughts, fires, increased precipitation, coral bleaching, invasions of predatory marine species like crown-of-thorns starfish, disruptions to marine food chains, and kelp forest die-offs.
Temperature extremes, plus ecological marginalization, raise species risk: Studies
- In a business-as-usual carbon emissions scenario — humanity’s current trajectory — two in five land vertebrates could be exposed to temperatures equal to, or exceeding, the hottest temperatures of the past decades across at least half of their range by 2099. If warming could be kept well below 2°C (3.6°F), that number drops to 6%, according to a new study.
- More than one in eight mammal species have already lost part of their former geographical range. In many cases, this means those species no longer have access to some (or sometimes any) of their core habitat, making it much more difficult to survive in a warming world.
- When animal populations continue to decline in an area even after it has been protected, one possible explanation may be that the conserved habitat is marginal compared to that found in the species’ historical range.
- In the light of recent pledges to protect 30% of the planet’s surface, it is important to prioritize the right areas. The focus should be on conserving core habitat — which is often highly productive and already intensively used by humans — while respecting the rights and needs of Indigenous people, many of whom have also been pushed to the margins.
With climate change, Nepal’s leopards get a bigger range — and more problems
- Climate change will make higher-elevation areas of Nepal suitable habitat for leopards, a new study shows.
- This is expected to push the big cats into increased conflict with humans and more competition with snow leopards.
- Most of the current and new habitat will fall outside protected areas, and the leopards’ preferred prey may not be available there, which could prompt the predators to hunt livestock.
- But the finding could also be an opportunity to conserve leopards in their potential new habitat, by educating communities there, ensuring availability of wild prey, and drawing up wildlife management plans.
Extreme heat takes a toll on tropical countries’ economies
- Extreme heat costs tropical countries more than 5% of their annual per capita GDP, new research shows, while more prosperous mid-latitude countries lose only about a 1% of GDP due to heat waves, which can even bolster economic growth in some instances.
- Poorer tropical countries suffer the worst effects of heat waves despite being least culpable and least economically capable of adapting.
- The effects of extreme heat and drought can hit hard in local communities, such as among Kenyan families who rely on cattle they can no longer feed.
Climate change is hammering insects — in the tropics and everywhere else: Scientists
- A new review paper finds that climate change is pounding insects in a wide variety of ways all over the world.
- Because insects are so sensitive to temperature change, climate change is impacting them directly, including potentially decreasing their ability to breed.
- But climate change is also causing insects to change their behavior as it shifts seasonal beginnings and ends, risking that insects will act out of sync with the rest of the environment on which they depend. Climate change-intensified drought, extreme precipitation, lengthening heat waves, and fires are also harming insects.
- The best way to protect insects? Combat climate change and safeguard micro-habitats.
Deadly landslides prompt Philippine president to call for tree planting
- Typhoon Nalgae, which made five landfalls on Oct. 29, killed 123 people across the Philippines, including at least 61 who died in floods and landslides on the southern island of Mindanao.
- After inspecting the damage wrought by the storm, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. blamed deforestation and climate change for the scale of the disaster, and called on flood control plans to include tree planting.
- The Philippines already has an ambitious tree-planting program, but an audit found it has so far fallen short of its target.
In temperate Nepal, climate change paves way for tropical dengue fever
- Nepal is experiencing its worst outbreak of dengue fever in recorded history, which health experts attribute in part to a changing climate.
- Wetter monsoons and warmer temperatures have made for ideal breeding conditions for the mosquitoes that carry the virus.
- Poor water and waste management are also factors, allowing for water to stagnate for long periods and giving the mosquitoes a place to lay their larvae.
- Experts say it will take a combination of personal responsibility — to eradicate mosquito-breeding grounds — and government leadership — to coordinate the public health response — if dengue is to be eradicated in Nepal.
Arctic sea ice loss to increase strong El Niño events linked to extreme weather: Study
- The frequency of strong El Niño events could increase by 35% by the end of the century as Arctic sea ice begins to melt out completely in the summer, according to a recent modeling study. El Niños — buildups of especially warm water in the eastern Pacific off of Peru — often trigger ‘devastating’ droughts, floods and cyclones around the globe.
- The findings provide more evidence that Arctic warming is affecting weather in other parts of the world — not only in the mid-latitudes, but as far away as the tropics.
- Other recent studies have found that sea ice loss is causing rapid acidification of the Arctic Ocean and more extreme precipitation and flooding in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago located between mainland Norway and the North Pole.
2022: Another consequential year for the melting Arctic
- Arctic sea ice extent shrank to its summertime minimum this week — tied with 2017 and 2018 for the 10th lowest ever recorded. However, the last 16 consecutive years have seen the least ice extent since the satellite record began. Polar sea ice extent, thickness and volume all continue trending steeply downward.
- Arctic air temperatures were high this summer, with parts of the region seeing unprecedented heating. Greenland saw air temperatures up to 36° F. above normal in September. Canada’s Northwest Territories saw record highs, hitting the 90s in July. Sea temperatures also remained very high in many parts of the Arctic Ocean.
- Scientists continue to be concerned as climate change warms the far North nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet, sparking concern over how polar warming may be impacting the atmospheric jet stream, intensifying disastrous extreme weather events worldwide, including heat waves, droughts and storms.
- While a mostly ice-free Arctic could occur as early as 2040, scientists emphasize that it needn’t happen. If humanity chooses to act now to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, downward sea ice extent and volume trends could potentially be reversed.
Agulhas Current enigma: An oceanic gap in our climate understanding
- Comprehending the workings of western boundary ocean currents, like those of the Agulhas Current off the South African coast, may hold a key to Earth’s climate system. But understanding this particular current is hampered by a major lack of in-situ data. This gap leaves us in the dark about local, regional and global climate impacts.
- The Agulhas Current, located in the Indian Ocean, is one of the most energetic ocean current systems in the world. Changes to it can impact local weather in South Africa and elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, and perhaps influence large-scale climatic changes in the Northern Hemisphere and globally as well.
- However, it is not clear how and what these impacts may be, or when they may occur. With climate change escalating rapidly due to unabated human carbon emissions, it is now more important than ever that we understand the impacts of Southern Hemisphere ocean currents, and integrate their actions into climate models.
- But attempts at long-term monitoring of the Agulhas Current System have not been fully successful. Accomplishments and failures to date have underscored significant local research capacity challenges, and differences in the approach to, and financing of, ocean science in the Global North as compared to the Global South.
How close is the Amazon tipping point? Forest loss in the east changes the equation
- Scientists warn that the Amazon is approaching a tipping point beyond which it would begin to transition from a lush tropical forest into a dry, degraded savanna. This point may be reached when 25% of the forest is lost.
- In a newly released report, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) estimates that 13.2% of the original Amazon forest biome has been lost due to deforestation and other causes.
- However, when the map is divided into thirds, it shows that 31% of the eastern Amazon has been lost. Moisture cycles through the forest from east to west, creating up to half of all rainfall across the Amazon. The 31% figure is critical, the report says, “because the tipping point will likely be triggered in the east.”
- Experts say the upcoming elections in Brazil could have dramatic consequences for the Amazon, and to avert the tipping point we must lower emissions, undertake ambitious reforestation projects, and build an economy based on the standing forest. Granting and honoring Indigenous land tenure and protected areas are also key strategies.
More droughts are coming, and the Amazon can’t keep up: Study
- Up to 50% of rainfall in the Amazon comes from the forest itself, as moisture is recycled from the trees to the atmosphere.
- In severe droughts, when the forest loses more water to evaporation than it receives from rain, the trees begin to die. For every three trees that die due to drought in the Amazon rainforest, a fourth tree, even if not directly affected by drought, will also die, according to a new study.
- As trees are lost and the forest dries up, parts of the Amazon will rapidly approach a tipping point, where they will transition into a degraded savanna-like ecosystem with few to no trees.
- The southern and southeastern Amazon are the most vulnerable regions to tipping. Here, deforestation and fires are at their most extreme, driven largely by cattle ranching and soy farming.
For lightning-prone communities in Bangladesh, new warning system may not be enough
- An average of four people a week are killed by lightning in Bangladesh, and the problem is expected to get worse as climate change increases the frequency of lightning strikes.
- Most of the victims tend to be farmers and fishers, who, like members of other poor communities around the world, are bearing the brunt of climate change impacts.
- The Bangladesh Meteorological Department has rolled out an early-warning system, based on modeling developed in collaboration with NASA, that it says will provide up to 54 hours’ warning of potential lightning strikes.
- But experts say the communities most in need of these alerts are those who don’t have access to the technology, and have called for other measures, such as building lightning arresters in open fields and wetlands, to protect vulnerable communities.
Bad weather knocks down Brazil’s grain production as ‘exhaustively forewarned’
- Brazil’s agricultural GDP declined by 8% in the first quarter of 2022 due to a severe drought in the country’s south caused by a rare triple-dip La Niña.
- In Rio Grande do Sul, the nation’s southernmost state, 56% of last year’s total soy harvest was lost, harming thousands of farmers.
- Scientists warn that climate change will make Brazil’s southern region, an agribusiness stronghold, widespread crop losses more common.
- Despite warnings, climate denial in the agriculture sector is getting in the way of mitigation efforts as the government of President Jair Bolsonaro and the agribusiness lobby push an anti-environmental agenda.
As stronger storms hit Bangladesh farmers, banks are climate collateral damage
- Farmers in coastal areas of Bangladesh are increasingly defaulting on their loans due to climate change-driven storms that are destroying the farms they put up as collateral.
- Agricultural loans for the year to May 2022 amounted to the equivalent of $3 billion, or a fifth of the value of all loans distributed in Bangladesh.
- Increasingly frequent and severe storms therefore pose as much of a threat to the country’s financial sector as to farming communities and the environment.
- The warming of the sea in the Bay of Bengal as a result of climate change is supercharging storms, giving them more energy, helping them to drive tidal surges farther inland and dump larger volumes of rain than before.
‘The volume of water is beyond control’: Q&A with flood expert M. Monirul Qader Mirza
- An early start to the monsoon and unusually heavy rains have caused massive flooding in northeastern Bangladesh, leaving millions of people stranded in floodwaters.
- The Meghna River Basin is accustomed to these flash floods, but the scale of the disaster this year has been compounded by human encroachment and development in the watershed region, said M. Monirul Qader Mirza, a water management expert.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Mirza emphasized the need for infrastructure planning to consider river and rainfall dynamics to mitigate flood risk, and to have an early-warning system in place to minimize damage.
- Mirza also said that identifying the role of climate change in the problem is complex and requires extensive studies and modeling, but added it’s indisputable that rainfall patterns have become increasingly erratic.
High tech early warning system could curb next South African locust swarms
- The worst locust swarms in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province in 25 years (occurring in May 2022) is in the past. But the millions of eggs laid by the insects could hatch this September, the beginning of spring in the Southern Hemisphere.
- Grassy farmland in the vast region was only just beginning to recover from a devastating six year drought which struck between 2015 – 2021, when the locust swarms arrived earlier this year.
- Farmers are now pinning their hopes on new software that will track newborn locusts in real time, enabling them to target and exterminate the insect pests before they take to the skies and reproduce.
- The software has been used in seven countries in the Horn of Africa and East Africa and is seen as a vital part of minimizing the size of swarms, which can become an annual disaster if they aren’t targeted immediately after birth. South Africa favors chemical pesticides over non-toxic biopesticides for locust control.
Beyond boundaries: Earth’s water cycle is being bent to breaking point
- The hydrological cycle is a fundamental natural process for keeping Earth’s operating system intact. Humanity and civilization are intimately dependent on the water cycle, but we have manipulated it vastly and destructively, to suit our needs.
- We don’t yet know the full global implications of human modifications to the water cycle. We do know such changes could lead to huge shifts in Earth systems, threatening life as it exists. Researchers are asking where and how they can measure change to determine if the water cycle is being pushed to the breaking point.
- Recent research has indicated that modifications to aspects of the water cycle are now causing Earth system destabilization at a scale that modern civilization might not have ever faced. That is already playing out in extreme weather events and long-term slow-onset climate alterations, with repercussions we don’t yet understand.
- There are no easy or simple solutions. To increase our chances of remaining in a “safe living space,” we need to reverse damage to the global hydrological cycle with large-scale interventions, including reductions in water use, and reversals of deforestation, land degradation, soil erosion, air pollution and climate change.
Even Antarctic snow can’t escape the plastic peril, study shows
- A study presents new evidence that microplastics are present in snow in Antarctica, one of the remotest places on Earth.
- Researchers collected snow samples at 19 sites across the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, and found 29 microplastic particles per liter of melted snow — a higher amount than what was found in marine samples in Antarctica.
- The microplastics found in samples close to research stations were three times higher than what was found at other locations, prompting researchers to conclude that much of the plastic was coming from local clothing and equipment.
Bangladeshi coastal communities plant mangroves as a shield against cyclones
- Bangladesh’s southwestern coastal districts are prone to tidal surges, which can become extreme during cyclone seasons, with surges as high as 3 meters (10 feet).
- The coasts have embankments built across to keep the seeping seawater from reaching the coastal settlements, but as cyclones get more severe under a changing climate, these embankments aren’t enough, and losing houses to cyclonic floods has become the norm for coastal communities here.
- As a protection measure, the Bangladeshi government and several NGOs, with the communities’ participation, have initiated large-scale planting of mangrove trees along the embankments to act as a natural shield against tidal surges.
- The NGOs have provided the initial financial and technical support to the communities and are encouraging a self-reliant process of planting native mangrove species.
Conflict over resources in Kenya hits deadly highs with firearms in play
- Increased droughts, floods and invasive species are fueling violent conflicts between pastoralists over livestock in Kenya’s central Baringo county, the intensity of which is exacerbated by the proliferation of illegal firearms in the region.
- Firearms trafficked from civil conflicts in the Horn of Africa have made their way into the hands of pastoralists who now see it as the only way to defend themselves and their cattle during raids and conflicts over grazing land.
- In 2021, there were 16 deaths from 19 livestock raids; in the first four months of 2022, there have been 39 fatalities from 24 violent clashes, half of them due to livestock raids.
- Violent conflicts in Baringo are linked to insecurity in neighboring counties, and drought along with politics only heighten the precarious situation.
Cradle of transformation: The Mediterranean and climate change
- The Mediterranean region is warming 20% faster than the world as a whole, raising concerns about the impacts that climate change and other environmental upheaval will have on ecosystems, agriculture and the region’s 542 million people.
- Heat waves, drought, extreme weather and sea-level rise are among the impacts that the region can expect to see continue through the end of the century, and failing to stop emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could make these issues worse.
- Charting a course that both mitigates climate change and bolsters adaption to its effects is further complicated by the Mediterranean’s mix of countries, cultures and socioeconomics, leading to wide gaps in vulnerability in the region.
Freshwater planetary boundary “considerably” transgressed: New research
- Earth’s operating systems have stayed in relative balance for thousands of years, allowing the flourishing of civilization. However, humanity’s actions have resulted in the transgressing of multiple planetary boundaries, resulting in destabilization of those vital operating systems.
- This week scientists announced that humanity has transgressed the freshwater planetary boundary. Other boundaries already crossed are climate change, biosphere integrity, biogeochemical cycles (nitrogen and phosphorous pollution), land-system change, and novel entities (pollution by synthetic substances).
- In the past, the freshwater boundary was defined only by “blue water” — a measure of humanity’s use of lakes, rivers and groundwater. But scientists have now extended that definition to include “green water” — rainfall, evaporation and soil moisture.
- Scientists say soil moisture conditions are changing from boreal forests to the tropics, with abnormally dry and wet soils now common, risking biome changes. The Amazon, for example, is becoming far dryer, which could result in it reaching a rainforest-to-savanna tipping point, releasing large amounts of stored carbon.
Beyond CO2, tropical forests a ‘cool’ solution to climate crisis, study finds
- Forests, increasingly looked to for their role in addressing climate change, can draw carbon from the atmosphere, but they also have more localized impacts on temperature and weather.
- Forests are responsible for about 0.5°C (0.9°F) of cooling globally when their ability to sequester carbon and these biophysical effects are considered, a recent study has found.
- Tropical forests, with their speedy uptake of carbon and the local cooling they provide — by humidifying the air, for example — are considered a “double win” for the climate.
Tropical trees’ growth and CO2 intake hit by more extreme dry seasons
- A new study has found that dry seasons that are warmer and drier than usual can stunt the growth of tropical trees, causing them to take in less carbon dioxide.
- While trees tend to grow more during the wet season, the researchers found that the dry season actually had a stronger impact on tree growth than the wet season.
- As climate change continues to raise temperatures, tropical trees could face increased risk of mortality and the possibility of becoming a net source of carbon, rather than a carbon sink.
Climate pledges could limit warming to 2C. What’s needed is action, study says
- A new study has suggested that global temperatures can be limited to 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels if countries fully meet all of their climate pledges on time.
- However, the researchers say that rapid action is needed within the decade to meet the targets necessary to fulfill this goal.
- This analysis comes shortly after the publication of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report, which says that greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025 and nations need to reach net-zero emissions by the 2050s.
Indonesia’s Riau province declares state of emergency ahead of fire season
- Almost every year vast swaths of Southeast Asia are covered in toxic haze, which causes air quality to reach hazardous levels and creates major health, environmental and economic problems.
- Recorded since the early ’70s, the smoke is almost entirely a result of large forest and peatland fires in Indonesia that are often illegally started to clear land for oil palm plantations.
- The governor of Indonesia’s Riau province in Sumatra, which, along with Borneo, is a primary location of the fires, has declared an emergency alert status to increase and expedite prevention and extinguishing efforts ahead of this year’s fire season.
- A national environmental NGO says the alert status shows the government has again failed to prevent the fires, and that the existing mitigation efforts fail to tackle the root of the problem.
The Great Barrier Reef is bleaching — once again — and over a larger area
- The Great Barrier Reef is currently experiencing its sixth mass bleaching event, and the fourth event of this kind to happen in the past six years.
- Based on aerial surveys that were concluded this week, bleaching has affected all parts of the Great Barrier Reef, with the most severe bleaching occurring between Cooktown, Queensland, and the Whitsunday Islands.
- Sea surface temperatures around the Great Barrier Reef have been higher than normal, despite the region going through a La Niña climate pattern, which usually brings cooler, stormier weather.
- Climate change remains the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef and other reefs around the world, experts say.
Marine cold spells, a potential buffer against warming seas, are fading away
- A new study has found that marine cold spells have decreased in number and intensity since the 1980s due to climate change.
- Marine cold spells can have both negative and positive impacts on the environment; they can wreak havoc on ecosystems like coral reefs, but they can also buffer the impacts of heat stress during marine heat waves.
- While marine cold spells are decreasing, marine heat waves are increasing — but the relationship between these two kinds of events still isn’t clear, the study says.
Multiyear ice thinner than thought as Arctic sea ice reaches winter max: Studies
- Arctic sea ice has reached its yearly maximum extent at 14.88 million sq. km., the 10th lowest on record. The up-and-down story of sea ice extent in the past year highlights how unpredictable it can be from season to season, even as the overall decline continues.
- A study employing new satellite data found that Arctic multiyear sea ice — ice that survives the summer melt — is thinning even faster than previously thought and has lost a third of its volume in just two decades.
- This comes as Antarctic sea ice extent hit a record summer low, raising questions whether it is beginning a long-term decline, although experts are wary of drawing conclusions yet.
- While summer Arctic sea ice is predicted to mostly disappear by 2050, a new study suggests we could likely preserve it through 2100 by aggressively cutting methane emissions by 2030, along with reaching net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050.
‘Everything is on fire’: Flames rip through Iberá National Park in Argentina
- Fires in the central Corrientes province of northeast Argentina have burned through nearly 60% of Iberá National Park, home to protected marshlands, grasslands and forests that hosts an array of species.
- Many of the fires originated from nearby cattle ranches, and spread across significant portions of the park due to a prolonged drought.
- Conservationists are working to relocate a number of reintroduced species, including giant river otters and macaws, to places of safety.
- While experts say they expect a substantial loss to biodiversity, they add that the park should mount a rapid recovery thanks to all the rewilding work already done.
In trio of storms hitting Western Europe, role of climate change is complicated
- In early February, a polar vortex caused a series of three storms — Dudley, Eunice and Franklin — to hit the U.K. and Western Europe, unleashing heavy rains and winds across the region.
- The most powerful storm was Eunice, which had wind measurements of up to 196 kilometers per hour (122 miles per hour).
- Storms striking in quick succession are not unusual for Western Europe.
- While climate change did not necessarily drive these winter storms, it likely made the rainfall and storm surge more intense.
Two storms in two weeks carve trail of death and destruction in Madagascar
- Batsirai, a category 4 cyclone, struck Madagascar’s eastern coast on Feb. 5, leaving 10 people dead.
- The island nation is still recovering from another tropical storm, Ana, which made landfall on Jan. 22 and left dozens dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.
- Data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that 12 storms of category 4 or 5, the highest level, made landfall on Madagascar between 1911; of these 12, eight occurred since 2000.
Efforts to dim Sun and cool Earth must be blocked, say scientists
- Scientists are calling on political institutions to place limits on solar geoengineering research so that it cannot be deployed unilaterally by countries, companies or individuals.
- Long-term planetary-level geoengineering interventions of this kind are unprecedented and extremely dangerous, say the academics behind the letter, and should not therefore be experimented with outdoors, receive patents, public funds or international support.
- Solar geoengineering’s leading proposal — injecting billions of aerosol particles into the Earth’s stratosphere — could have severe, unintended and unforeseen consequences. Modelling suggests that it may cause drying in the Amazon rainforest
- In addition, if solar geoengineering were deployed, it would need to be maintained for decades. Sudden discontinuance would result in Earth facing what scientists call termination shock, with a sudden temperature rise due to existing atmospheric carbon emissions which would have been masked by cooling stratospheric aerosols.
As climate change melts Antarctic ice, gentoo penguins venture further south
- Researchers have discovered a new colony of gentoo penguins in Antarctica previously unknown to science.
- The colony was found on Andersson Island on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, which is the furthest south the species has ever been found in that region.
- Scientists say climate change played a key role in the penguins’ presence on the island, as warming temperatures and record ice melt make new locations habitable for the species.
- Scientists and conservationists are making renewed calls to establish a network for marine protected areas in Antarctica to help safeguard the region as the climate rapidly changes.
In Africa, temperatures rise, but adaptation lags on West’s funding failure
- Last year was the third-warmest year for the continent, tied with 2019, with warming more pronounced here than the global average.
- The annual temperature in 2021 was 1.33°C (2.39°F) above average for the continent, with West and North Africa seeing an unusually warm year.
- Extreme events and long-drawn catastrophes are taking a toll and sapping resilience, while adaptation efforts are failing due to planning gaps and financing woes.
- Committed finance for adaptation is pegged at $2.7 billion to $5.3 billion annually, but the estimated cost of coping with climate impacts is almost double that.
In hot water: Ocean warming hits another record high on climate change
- A new study has found that, for the sixth year in a row, the world’s oceans have been hotter than they’ve ever been in recent history due to human-induced climate change.
- The research team found that last year, the upper 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) in all oceans absorbed 14 zettajoules more of human-made energy than the previous year, equal to about 145 times the world’s electricity generation in 2020.
- A warming ocean creates a multitude of issues, driving extreme weather events, accelerating sea level rise, disrupting marine biodiversity, threatening global food security, and melting polar ice shelves.
- Experts say the best way to reduce ocean climate impacts is to lower carbon emissions and meet the Paris Agreement goal of not allowing global warming to surpass 1.5°C (2.7°F) over preindustrial levels.
In Indonesia’s Sulawesi, a community works to defuse blast-fishing crisis
- Decades of blast fishing have destroyed much of the coral reefs off Indonesia’s Lora village, reducing fish catches.
- Increased law enforcement and advocacy by NGOs has helped roll back these destructive practices, but other threats loom, including increasingly unpredictable weather and competition from large trawlers.
- A community organization is seeking to have the region zoned as a conservation area.
Sinkholes emerge in rural Kenya after series of floods, droughts
- In recent years, a number of sinkholes have emerged in Baringo county, a geologically active region in western Kenya’s Great Rift Valley.
- According to geologists, their appearance can be linked both to the worsening impacts of climate change through floods and droughts, and local communities drilling boreholes along precarious fault lines to access more water.
- According to members of the community, the sinkholes have yet to spur the county or the government into action, with food aid currently provided by local human rights organizations.
- Increases in floods are driving human-wildlife conflict for space, and pastoralists are having difficulty adapting to environmental changes.
Climate change agricultural impacts to heighten inequality: Study
- Major changes in crop productivity will be felt globally in the next 10 years according to new computer simulations. Climate impacts on crops could emerge a decade sooner than previously expected in major breadbasket regions in North America, Europe and Asia according to the new forecasts.
- Researchers combined five new climate models with 12 crop models, creating the largest, most accurate set of yield simulations to date. Corn could see yield declines of up to 24% by 2100, while wheat may see a boost to productivity. In some sub-tropical regions, climate impacts on crops are already being felt.
- High- and low-emissions scenarios project similar trends for the next 10 years, suggesting these agricultural impacts are locked-in. But actions taken now to mitigate climate change and alter the long-term climate trajectory could limit corn yield losses to just 6% by 2100.
- Climate adaptation measures such as sowing crops earlier or switching to heat- tolerant cultivars are relatively cheap and simple to implement, while other actions, such as installing new irrigation systems, require financial investment, planning, and time.
With La Niña conditions back, is it good news for tropical forests?
- La Niña conditions have developed across the Pacific Ocean for the second year in a row, according to forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
- A phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation ocean-atmosphere cycle, La Niña heralds broadly cooler and wetter conditions across the tropics, with above-average rainfall predicted for important tropical rainforests in Southeast Asia and South America.
- Although the current conditions emerge toward the end of the fire season in the Amazon and Indonesia, experts say these biomes will benefit from wet conditions conducive to forest and peatland growth and recovery.
- Studies indicate that climate change will increase the frequency and severity of La Niña and El Niño events, which will occur against the backdrop of a warmer world, with inevitable implications for natural ecosystems and livelihoods.
Researchers express alarm as Arctic multiyear sea ice hits record low
- Low sea ice concentration can create a misleading picture of sea ice health in the Arctic. Though extent is only at its 10th lowest since satellite records began in 1979, the waters north of Alaska this September are full of diffuse ice.
- Of great concern to scientists, the Arctic has lost 95% of its thick multiyear sea ice since 1985. Older, thicker ice acts as a buffer against future Blue Ocean Events, expected as early as 2035. A BOE would mark a year when most Arctic ice melts out in summer.
- It no longer takes a freak-weather year to reach near record-lows for extent or volume. 2020 saw a second-place finish in the record book, behind 2012.
Reforestation holds promise for Europe’s increasingly drier summers
- A new study in Nature Geoscience suggests that if all land suitable for reforestation was forested in Europe, average summer rainfall would increase by 7.6%, partially ameliorating drier summers predicted as a result of climate change.
- While the study is based on all the potentially reforestable land in Europe after accounting for food security and biodiversity, the amount of land people are willing and able to reforest is likely to be lower in practice.
- As a statistical model, the study helps scientists and policymakers understand the relationship between forests and precipitation and highlight the benefits beyond carbon sequestration.
Humans’ role in climate warming ‘unequivocal,’ IPCC report shows
- The greenhouse gases humans have released into the atmosphere over the past 100 to 150 years has led to a 1.1°C (2°F) rise in global temperatures, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.
- The authors of the IPCC’s latest report use the strongest language yet to connect human activity to climate change, calling the link “unequivocal.”
- The report draws on the findings of thousands of studies, pointing to the need to cut CO2 emissions immediately while also suggesting that many of the impacts of climate change are irreversible.
- This report focuses on the science behind climate change and will be combined with two subsequent reports on the adaptation and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change and ways to mitigate its effects to produce the IPCC’s sixth assessment, scheduled for publication in September 2022.
New study says changes in clouds will add to global warming, not curb it
- Best estimates for global temperature increases due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 since the start of the industrial era are between +1.5C and +4.5C. A major reason for this huge range of uncertainty is how clouds will perform in a warmed world, with some modelers saying clouds will help cool the planet, while the majority say clouds will further warm it.
- Clouds add immense uncertainty to climate models because they contain so many variables (including altitude, size, turbulence, amount of ice crystals, quantity and particle chemistry), and also because they don’t fit neatly inside the global grid cell system that modelers use to estimate warming.
- A new study used a machine learning model to bypass previous cloud modeling problems. The researchers concluded that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will most likely lead to a 3.2C (5.76F) global temperature increase, almost exactly in the middle of the range estimated by the majority of current U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change models.
- Researchers within and outside the study agree more data and research is needed to confirm or alter these results.
Lessons from Brazil’s São Paulo droughts (commentary)
- São Paulo is increasingly facing severe droughts, as is the case in 2021. In 2014 the city came close to having its reservoirs run dry. Brazil’s agriculture and hydropower also depend on reliable rains.
- Anthropogenic climate change is increasing the fluctuations in ocean surface water temperatures, and the frequency is increasing of the combination of warm water in the Atlantic and cold water in the Pacific off the coasts of South America, a combination that leads to droughts in São Paulo.
- The trends in ocean temperatures are expected to worsen these droughts, but what could make them truly catastrophic is the prospect of this variation being combined with the impact of deforestation depriving São Paulo of the water that is recycled by the Amazon forest and transported to southeastern Brazil by the “flying rivers.” The lessons are clear: control global warming and stop deforestation.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Cerrado desertification: Savanna could collapse within 30 years, says study
- Deforestation is amplifying climate change effects in the Brazilian Cerrado savanna biome, making it much hotter and drier. Researchers observed monthly increases of 2.24°C (4.03°F) in average maximum temperatures between 1961 and 2019. If this trend persists, temperature could be 6°C (10.8°F) higher in 2050 than in 1961.
- Cerrado air moisture is decreasing partly due to the removal of trees, which bring water up from as much as 15 meters (nearly 50 feet) underground to carry on photosynthesis during the dry season. Replacement of native vegetation by crops also reduces the absorption of sunlight by wild plants and leads to an increase in temperature.
- Even dew, the only source of water for smaller plants and many insects during the dry season, is being reduced due to deforestation and deepening drought. The demise of pollinators that rely on dew may prompt a cascading effect adversely impacting the biome’s biodiversity, which could collapse in the next 30 years.
- The Cerrado is often called Brazil’s “water tank,” as it is the source of eight of 12 Brazilian river basins. Its looming biome collapse and deepening drought mean less water for rural and urban populations and for agriculture. Low flows in rivers will also affect hydropower, likely causing energy shortages.
Record heat waves are a taste of what’s to come under a changing climate
- A new study suggests that record-shattering heat events will become more frequent and more intense as the world continues to warm due to human-induced climate change.
- In a high-emissions scenario, the study suggests extreme heat waves will be two to seven times more probable between 2021 and 2050, and 21 times more probable between 2051 and 2080.
- If emissions can be curbed, however, and global temperatures do not exceed 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels, this would help reduce extreme heat events.
Lessons from the 2021 Amazon flood (commentary)
- In June 2021, the annual flood season in the western and central Amazon reached record levels, and dramatic scenes of inundated homes, crops and city streets captured attention beyond Amazonia. This event provides lessons that must be learned.
- The high flood waters are explained by climatological forces that are expected to strengthen with projected global warming. Damaging floods represent just one of the predicted impacts in Amazônia under a warming climate.
- The administration of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro must change its current denialist positions on global warming and its policies that encourage deforestation. The Amazon forest must be maintained for many reasons in addition to its role in avoiding climate change.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Indonesia eyes less severe fire season, but COVID-19 could turn it deadly
- This year’s forest fire season in Indonesia is expected to be less severe than in previous years, but the haze from the burning could still compound the coronavirus crisis in the country.
- Favorable weather conditions and ongoing efforts to restore peatlands point to a “relatively benign” fire season, and hence less risk of severe haze, a new report says.
- Even before the pandemic, haze from forest and peat fires was known to increase cases of respiratory infections fourfold in the hardest-hit areas; combined with COVID-19, haze this time around could stretch the country’s overwhelmed hospitals beyond breaking point.
- Indonesia has recently become the global epicenter of the disease, registering more daily cases than India and Brazil, with the country’s doctors’ association warning the health care system has “functionally collapsed.”
As Arctic warms, scientists wrestle with its climate ‘tipping point’
- A leaked version of the newest science report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns of looming, potentially catastrophic tipping points for Arctic sea ice melt, tundra thaw, savannification of the Amazon rainforest, and other planetary environmental thresholds beyond which recovery may be impossible.
- But what are tipping points, and how does one pinpoint what causes them, or when they will occur? When studying a vast region, like the Arctic, answering these questions becomes dauntingly difficult, as complex positive feedback loops (amplifying climate warming impacts) and negative feedback loops (retarding them) collide with each other.
- In the Arctic, one working definition of a climatic tipping point is when nearly all sea ice disappears in summer, causing a Blue Ocean Event. But attempts to model when a Blue Ocean Event will occur have run up against chaotic and complex feedback loop interactions.
- Among these are behaviors of ocean currents, winds, waves, clouds, snow cover, sea ice shape, permafrost melt, subarctic wildfires, aerosols and more, with many interactions still poorly understood. Some scientists say too much focus is going to tipping points, and research should be going to the “radical uncertainty” of escalating extreme local events.
As Arctic melt sets early July record, hard times lie ahead for ice: Studies
- Arctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record for this time of year on July 5, even though the spring had so far been relatively cool and stormy — conditions that, in the past, would have protected the ice.
- Three new studies help explain why. One found that increasing air temperatures and intrusion of warm water from the North Atlantic into the Barents and Kara Seas — a climate change-driven process known as Atlantification — are overpowering the ice’s ability to regrow in winter.
- Another study found that sea ice in coastal areas may be thinning at up to twice the pace previously thought. In three coastal seas — Laptev, Kara, and Chukchi — the rate of coastal ice decline increased by 70%, 98%, and 110% respectively when compared to earlier models.
- A third study found accelerated sea ice loss in the Wandel Sea, pointing to a possible assault by global warming on the Arctic’s Last Ice Area — a last bastion of multi-year sea ice which stretches from Greenland along the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Combined, this research shows Arctic ice may be in worse trouble than thought.
Arctic biodiversity at risk as world overshoots climate planetary boundary
- The Arctic Ocean biome is changing rapidly, warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. In turn, multiyear sea ice is thinning and shrinking, upsetting the system’s natural equilibrium.
- Thinner sea ice has led to massive under-ice phytoplankton blooms, drawing southern species poleward; fish species from lower latitudes are moving into the peripheral seas of the Arctic Ocean, displacing and outcompeting native Arctic species.
- Predators at the top of the food chain, such as polar bears, are suffering the consequences of disappearing ice, forced onto land for longer periods of time where they cannot productively hunt.
- The Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement has been signed by 10 parties to prevent unregulated commercial fishing in the basin until the region and climate change impacts are better understood by scientists. International cooperation will be critical to protect what biodiversity remains.
As Arctic sea ice hits annual maximum, concern grows over polar ice loss: Studies
- Arctic sea ice reaches its annual maximum extent in March. But while ice extent is high this year, scientists are far more concerned by the drastic loss of sea ice volume, which continues its steady decline.
- A new study has documented drastic ice loss in both the north and south polar regions; scientists found that the single biggest reduction came from Arctic sea ice — the Earth lost 7.6 trillion metric tons of it in the last three decades.
- Another new study shows that the last bastion of old, thick multiyear ice in the Arctic, north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island, is diminishing as the stability of the Nares ice arches declines — blockages which work like a cork in a bottle to stop multiyear ice from flowing out into the Atlantic.
- Meanwhile, researchers warn about the urgent need for new Arctic monitoring satellites. Currently there is just one in operation, the DMSP-F18 satellite, and it has already been in orbit more than a decade. Its failure could leave researchers blind and disrupt an Arctic ice database continuous back to 1978.
New age of sail looks to slash massive maritime carbon emissions
- If ocean shipping were a country, it would be the sixth-largest carbon emitter, releasing more CO2 annually than Germany. International shipping accounts for about 2.2% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N. International Maritime Organization.
- But change is on the way. Wind, solar electric, and hydrogen-powered ships offer innovative low- or no-carbon alternatives to fossil fuel-powered cargo vessels, with wind about to make a huge comeback in shipping, say experts. New experimental sail designs include hard sails, rotating vertical cylinders, and even kites.
- Today, startup companies like Fair Transport (with its retrofitted wooden vessels Tres Hombres and Nordlys); modest sized proof-of-concept firms, with purpose-built vessels like Grain de Sail; and large cargo ship retrofits and purpose-built vessels like Neoline’s new large cargo vessels, are starting to address CO2 emissions.
- Through the late 1940s, huge steel sailing ships carried cargos on some ocean routes. By 2030 — less than 100 years since the end of the last great era of sail — fossil fuel-powered cargo vessels may give way to high- and (s)low-tech sailing ships thanks to a revolution in energy technology, that reduces shipping costs with less emissions.
Dusty winds exacerbate looming famine in Madagascar’s deep south
- At least 1.27 million people need humanitarian assistance in Madagascar’s drought-hit deep south, according to a Jan. 18 request by the U.N. and the Malagasy government for $75.9 million in international aid to cope with the crisis.
- The area is also experiencing dust and sand storms, a natural phenomenon known as a tiomena that is exacerbating the crisis by smothering crops, forests, buildings and roads.
- Tiomenas may be increasingly common as southern Madagascar undergoes a long-term drying trend.
- Experts say upgrading the area’s water supply system is an urgent priority and recommend massive tree planting to provide wind breaks, protect soils from erosion and create more humidity.
Critical temperature threshold spells shorter lives for tropical trees
- Rising temperatures as a result of climate change are making tropical forests hotter, which translates into shorter life spans for tropical tree species, a new study shows.
- Tropical forests host about 50% of Earth’s biodiversity and 50% of its forest carbon stocks; their capacity to capture and store carbon depends on their health and longevity.
- The authors of the study warn that the shorter life span raises concerns about the future potential of forests to offset CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning.
- They also warn that temperatures will keep rising in the near future — “even if we were to take drastic emissions reductions measures.”
Top 10 environmental news stories of 2020
- 2020 is a year that many people would like to forget. Here’s a look at 10 of the biggest environmental storylines to remember.
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic transcended virtually everything in 2020, including the environment, from canceled summits on climate and biodiversity to a temporary dip in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, to greater awareness of the link between human health and planetary health.
- Conservation efforts in tropical countries were especially hard hit by the pandemic.
One year on: Insects still in peril as world struggles with global pandemic
- In June 2019, in response to media outcry and alarm over a supposed ongoing global “Insect Apocalypse,” Mongabay published a thorough four-part survey on the state of the world’s insect species and their populations.
- In four, in-depth stories, science writer Jeremy Hance interviewed 24 leading entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations to get their expert views on the rate of insect decline in Europe, the U.S., and especially the tropics, including Latin America, Africa, and Australia.
- Now, 16 months later, Hance reaches out to seven of those scientists to see what’s new. He finds much bad news: butterflies in Ohio declining by 2% per year, 94% of wild bee interactions with native plants lost in New England, and grasshopper abundance falling by 30% in a protected Kansas grassland over 20 years.
- Scientists say such losses aren’t surprising; what’s alarming is our inaction. One researcher concludes: “Real insect conservation would mean conserving large whole ecosystems both from the point source attacks, AND the overall blanket of climate change and six billion more people on the planet than there should be.”
Brave New Arctic: Sea ice has yet to form off of Siberia, worrying scientists
- After a summer that saw record Siberian fires and polar temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit, along with near record low sea ice extent in September, the Arctic Ocean’s refreeze has slowed to a crawl.
- The Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea are, at this point, failing to re-freeze as rapidly as in the past. Scientists see all of these worrying events, along with many other indicators including fast melting permafrost, as harbingers of a northern polar region that may be entering a new climate regime.
- Models predict the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by 2040 or 2050, with unforeseen negative impacts not only in the Far North, but on people, economies and ecosystems around the globe. One major concern: scientists worry how changes in the Arctic might alter temperate weather systems, impacting global food security.
- “We’re conducting this blind experiment, and we don’t yet know the real implications,” one sea ice researcher tells Mongabay. “How do you sell climate change to be as much of an emergency as COVID-19? Except that it will kill a lot more people.”
Arctic Sea ice melts to second-place finish at annual minimum
- At the annual September Arctic sea ice minimum this year, the ice extent was reduced to just 3.74 million square kilometers, a low that surpassed every year since 1979 except 2012, which saw a minimum of 3.41 million square kilometers.
- While 2012 was an anomaly (a year in which an immense August cyclone shattered the weakened ice), 2020 came very close to that record, but without any such storm, though the region did see intense July and August heat.
- A new study finds, once again, that what starts in the Arctic doesn’t stay there. Researchers say that Asia is seeing lengthier bouts of extreme storms, droughts, heat and cold as weather systems stall there, possibly due to a weakening Northern Hemisphere jet stream — an effect thought to be due to Arctic warming.
- In other new research, scientists say a layer of warm Atlantic water entering the Arctic, which had always stayed down deep in the past, is starting to rise toward, and mix with, colder surface waters. That mixing could be fatal to the Arctic sea ice in the future — with unknown, but potentially dire impacts on global climate stability.
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