Sea levels are just the start of how climate change will upend the ocean. Rising temperatures are also threatening a critical artery that runs through the ocean known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. This current, in short, sends warm water northwards and dumps colder water southwards in a giant loop, massively influencing the world's weather systems along the way.
“You can really tell the difference in products that have chocolate. They've decreased the chocolate and increased the sugar, likely [because] it's less expensive.”
Over the past century, humanity has achieved extraordinary gains in human health. Advances in water and sanitation, maternal and child care, infectious disease control, vaccinations, and other public health achievements have vastly improved human longevity and quality of life, reducing global child mortality significantly and increasing life expectancy to about 71 years as of 2021 ( WHO, 2024).
She parted some creosote branches to reveal a shriveled shrub, just ankle-high. This doomed seedling was part of a National Park Service planting effort to replace dozens of Joshua trees cut down by a Southern California Edison contractor tasked with protecting the company's power lines. But of the 193 babies planted here roughly five years ago, only 27, or 14%, are still alive, according to the Park Service. If researchers don't figure out why so few survived, an imperiled icon of the California desert may disappear even more quickly.
The 2026 World Cup is not only the most politically combustible tournament in modern history, but it is also on track to be the most polluting World Cup ever, with total greenhouse gas emissions hitting nearly two times the historical average. Scientists conservatively project that the tournament will generate around 9m tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Air travel comprises approximately 7.7m tons of this carbon budget, and more than four times that of the average for tournaments held between 2010 and 2022. The researchers note that the worst-case upper estimate for air transport is about 13.7m tons of CO2.
In southern Pakistan throughout April and May, temperatures have risen far above seasonal norms. In Sindh, daytime temperatures have frequently crossed 44C to 46C, forcing residents indoors during peak afternoon hours and severely affecting outdoor labourers, transport workers and farming communities. India has also been experiencing intense heatwave conditions in recent weeks, particularly across Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and parts of northern and central India, where temperatures in several cities have crossed 45C.
The problem was colder and more specific than a simple lack of weather: too much of that water failed to become durable mountain snow. That is the signature of a warm snow drought. A dry snow drought is straightforward, the mountains do not get enough precipitation. A warm snow drought is more frustrating for skiers because the atmosphere can still look active. The water shows up, but it arrives as rain, heavy wet snow, or snow that melts too early to build a lasting pack. The mountain gets weather, but the snowpack does not get the full benefit.
“Your request that 'the federal government should give a $5,000 tax rebate for all new electric car purchases' means that the federal government must take that money out of the pockets of hardworking people who may not have the means to buy an electric vehicle in the first place,” Foxx seethed in the letter, posted on social media by the boy's mother.
When marine snow made of dead plankton's shells, fish poop, dust particles, and other debris descends to the ocean floor, it carries atmospheric carbon the plankton used to make their calcite shells. It's one of the ways the ocean stores carbon, helping to keep greenhouse gases from turning the planet into an oversize toaster oven. Yet scientists realized that something has been dissolving those calcite shells and releasing carbon dioxide, reducing the ocean's carbon-trapping capacity.
Asia’s last tropical glaciers can be found near Puncak Jaya, Papua, the highest peak in Southeast Asia. But it is unlikely that they will survive until the end of this decade. Over the past 44 years, the peak has lost 97% of its ice and four of its glaciers. Its remaining two glaciers, Carstensz and the East Northwall Firn glacier, are expected to disappear by 2030, adding Indonesia (alongside Venezuela and Slovenia) to the list of countries that have lost all of their glaciers.
The Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (GLAMOS) is reporting an average snow deficit of 25%, compared to averages from 2010-2020, partly due to a warm and dry month of April this season. Specifically, the regions of Upper Valais, Ticino, and Graubünden are seeing a drastic deficit heading into the summer melt months. Consequently, the protective snow layer is depleting so rapidly, it could be a matter of just weeks before debris and bare ice are exposed, leading to an inevitable accelerated glacier melt and retreat.
Crater Glacier, the world's youngest glacier, sitting at an approximate elevation of 6,526 feet. It is also officially known as Tulutson Glacier, its original Indigenous designation, though the U.S. Board on Geographic Names formally approved the name "Crater Glacier" in 2006.
Sand is sometimes referred to as the unrecognised hero of development, but its essential role in sustaining the natural services on which we depend is even more overlooked. Sand is our first line of defence against sea level rise, storm surges, and salination of coastal aquifers all hazards exacerbated by climate change. The most extracted solid material on Earth, sand is mined to build homes, roads and sea walls in concrete production, building foundations and masonry work.
A recent report has warned that the river could disappear by 2040 due to declining water levels and droughts driven by climate change. Satellite data have shown that the Euphrates basin has lost more than 34 cubic miles of freshwater since 2003, roughly 13 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, highlighting the scale of the decline.
“Iris Rodriguez remembers sleeping on a bed made out of sacks. Her grandfather put it together for her; she slept on it while her family processed coffee in the early hours of the morning, during harvest time. That's one of the memories that made me feel like I belonged and that I was loved by my family, she recalls.”
