Climate

A perfect storm of climate, geologic and geographic conditions have combined to make Hurricane Helene one of the most devastating storms to ever hit the United States. Days after it slammed into Florida’s Big Bend region on September 26 and traveled hundreds of kilometers inland, Helene’s destructive impact has continued to grow.

Fueled by warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, which climate change made hundreds of times more likely, the tempest rapidly intensified offshore. By the time Helene came onshore as a Category 4 storm, its wind speeds surpassed 209 kilometers per hour (130 miles per hour) (SN: 9/27/24). More

In 2013, Ning Zeng came across a very old, and ultimately very important, log.

He and his colleagues were digging a trench in the Canadian province of Quebec, one that they planned to fill with 35 metric tons of wood, cover with clay soil, and let sit for nine years. The team hoped to show that the wood wouldn’t decompose, a proof-of-concept that burying biomass could be a cheap way to store climate-warming carbon. But during excavation, they unearthed a pristine, twisted log that was very old, older than anything they could have possibly produced in their experiment. More

Heat-related deaths in the United States are on the rise. But how bad will it be 20, 30 or 40 years from now? Scientists now have a clue.

Currently, an estimated 8,000-plus deaths in the United States every year are associated with extreme temperatures, both hot and cold. Within the next few decades, that number could double or even triple, largely due to heat, researchers report September 20 in JAMA Network Open.

“As the climate warms, the frequency, duration and intensity of heat waves is increasing. Understanding how this will impact our health is crucial,” Sameed Khatana, a cardiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, says. Our bodies are capable of bearing sweltering temperatures, but as temperatures rise, this ability is pushed to its limit (SN: 6/21/24). More

Over the last 485 million years, Earth has been both a lot colder and a lot hotter than once thought.

A new temperature timeline that combines geologic data with computational simulations reveals a rich, detailed and dramatic picture of the ebb and flow of icehouse and greenhouse conditions on Earth throughout this span of time, which includes most of the Phanerozoic Eon. The timeline shows Earth’s average temperature dropping to as low as 11° Celsius and rising to as high as 36° C, researchers report in the Sept. 20 Science. More

Transcript

James McCall: Solar production in the US really started to pick up around 2012. As solar really became mainstream, there was a lot more concerns of land use changes.

Ravi Sujith: If you look at the type of land that’s been converted for solar installations, over 60 percent of those landscapes are converted croplands.

Chong Seok-Choi: They both require flat areas with a lot of sun, and that’s close to transmission infrastructures. So in this context, it is important for us to figure out how to combine farming and solar power production so that both can exist in harmony. More

It’s winter in the Southern Hemisphere — but you wouldn’t know it from the thermostat.

On August 26, a remote stretch of the coastline in Western Australia experienced the highest winter temperature ever recorded anywhere in the country: a blistering 41.6° Celsius (107° Fahrenheit).

In Bidyadanga, an Aboriginal community in Western Australia, the overnight low temperature on August 28 was a staggering 27.2° C (81° F). That’s in winter, when the long-term average nighttime temperature has been around 15° C (59° F). Such heightened nighttime temperatures can disrupt sleep, leading to decreased cardiovascular and mental health (SN: 8/6/23). More

In its latest global climate report, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that July was the 14th straight month of record-breaking heat. That, in and of itself, is a new record.

In the last 175 years, there has been only one other hot streak that comes close in terms of longevity. According to NOAA, the second longest hot streak on record spanned the 12 months from May 2015 to May 2016 (SN: 1/20/16; SN: 1/14/21). Then things drop off: The third and fourth longest recorded streaks were six months each, and subsequent stints are shorter still.

Many of these streaks occurred during an El Niño, a natural phenomenon in which warm surface waters spread across the tropical Pacific Ocean, temporarily elevating the global average temperature (SN: 8/21/19). Its cyclical counterpart, La Niña, involves those warm surface waters receding to the western side of the Pacific, causing a transient global cooling effect. More

An extraordinary heat wave last week toppled thousands of temperature records across Asia, from Iran to Japan. In Iran’s highlands, the city of Isfahan, at the foothills of the Zagros Mountains, sweltered in temperatures up to 43.8° Celsius (110.8° Fahrenheit). Japan, which saw at least 120 deaths due to heatstroke in July, issued more heat stroke warnings August 9, as temperatures climbed to 39° C (102.2° F).

As what’s “normal” for temperatures continues to tick upward, it’s important to note that we can’t just adapt our way out of climate change, scientists have warned (SN: 2/28/22). A concerted, global effort to curb carbon emissions is what’s needed to stave off more disastrous climate consequences, researchers say. More