Tackling air pollution and climate change together could save lives and boost economies, UN reports show. Climate change-driven wildfires and heatwaves are worsening air pollution, with damaging consequences for nature and human health, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Global warming is making these events worse as they release microscopic airborne pollutants that risk […]
A persistent patch of unusually warm tropical ocean helped intensify snowfall over East Antarctica, contributing to a temporary net ice sheet mass gain of about 695 billion tons, according to a new study published in Nature on August 19. Researchers found that sustained warming in the tropical warm pool during 2021-23 set off a chain of atmospheric […]
Local communities in Gilgit-Baltistan in northern Pakistan are turning to the Indigenous practice of glacier grafting as water shortages take hold. The world’s highest peaks are located in the Himalaya and Karakoram mountain ranges, part of a vast mountain belt stretching across Asia. But beneath their grandeur lie some of the planet’s most fragile ecosystems. […]
Weather forecasters have warned that parts of Europe will be entering “flash-flood season” following a blistering summer. Europe’s blistering summer was a “grim illustration” of human-caused climate change. That’s what the European Commission said in June, when much of the continent was already baking under its third heatwave of the year. July and August provided […]
El Niño can supercharge the impacts global warming. But burning fossil fuels could also be strengthening the destructive climate phenomenon. A new study suggests that El Niños – the natural climatic chaos agent that pops up periodically and spikes global temperatures – are getting stronger because of human-caused climate change. El Niños are more than […]
Marine heatwaves are increasingly being recognized as more than an environmental problem. New research warns that prolonged periods of unusually warm ocean temperatures can also threaten human physical and mental health. Researchers from Adelaide University and the University of Hong Kong say marine heatwaves should be treated as an important public health concern. They argue […]
Scientists have identified a previously unknown natural process in the Arctic that can cause the number of cloud-forming particles in the atmosphere to surge. The discovery could have important implications for cloud cover, how much sunlight is reflected back into space, and how the Arctic responds to future climate change. The findings, published August 5 […]
A lush knee-high jungle grows in the Arctic, but warming is changing Earth’s mini-greenhouse. With no tall trees reaching to the sky, Alaska’s North Slope tundra can look desolate. But up close, “the tundra’s kind of like the jungle”, says Adam Bloom, a Florida Atlantic University plant biology student. Except this lush Arctic jungle tops […]
The average global sea surface temperature outside polar regions reached 21.1°C on Saturday. The world’s oceans have reached their highest daily temperature on record, with global sea surface temperatures hitting 21.1°C on 22 August – a new high made particularly striking by the time of year, according to the European Union’s climate change data. The […]
The area of Europe affected by wildfires could triple as a result of climate change, new research suggests. Back-to-back heatwaves and an early drought have created tinderbox conditions in western Europe since early July, leading to severe wildfires across France, Greece, Spain and Belgium in particular. More than 20 people have been killed, including 14 in the Almeria wildfire […]
