Climate change complicates plant choices and care. Early flowering and late freezes can kill flowers like these magnolia blossoms.
Matt Kasson
The US Department of Agriculture has updated its plant hardiness zone map, which shows where various plants will grow across the country. Gardeners should take note.
The education of students in countries like Sudan is already being negatively affected by the extremes of climate change.
Richard Juilliart/Shutterstock
Teaching children about the environmental crisis can help fight climate change, but climate change is already negatively affecting children’s education around the globe.
A field of dying maize plants in southern Malawi during 2016’s severe drought caused by El Nino.
Getty Images
Approximately 22% of Malawians are food insecure, partly because of the poor maize harvest in 2023.
A family crosses the flooded streets of Pakistan in 2010.
Gerhard JˆrÈn/Climate Visuals
Our expert in disaster recovery and climate change adaptation calls for a longer-term response to conflict zones affected by severe flooding, such as Libya and Pakistan.
bennphoto / Shutterstock
Cold snaps can affect everyday services and infrastructure, putting lives at risk.
Japan Meteorological Agency, Himawari-8
Last year was the hottest in recorded history. That heat led to a range of unusually intense weather events across Australia.
Janelle Lugge/Shutterstock
Extreme winds from thunderstorms have downed transmission towers from Victoria to Western Australia in recent years. What’s going on?
Con Chronis/AAP
Transmission towers bent like soft plastic when extreme winds whipped through Victoria last week. Fixing it means asking hard questions.
Tijnlp/Shutterstock
We’re going to build a lot more solar as we race to clean up the grid. But as the world heats up, solar will degrade faster in hot, humid areas. We need to plan ahead.
Too much fresh water from Greenland’s ice sheet can slow the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation.
Paul Souders/Stone via Getty Images
Scientists now have a better understanding of the risks ahead and a new early warning signal to watch for.
Temperatures dropped well below freezing in Liverpool.
Adam Vaughan / EPA
It’s getting warmer, but there are bumps on the way.
In California, El Niño helped fuel a wet 2023 and early 2024.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
The strong El Niño that started in 2023 will still have big impacts at least through March. Here’s what to watch for next.
Low-income communities often have a longer wait for electricity to come back after outages.
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
Researchers tracked power outages after 8 major storms to see how wealth corresponded to recovery time.
A satellite image shows a powerful atmospheric river hitting the U.S. West Coast on Jan. 31, 2024.
NOAA GOES
These giant rivers in the sky are both destructive and essential for the Western U.S. water supply.
Chicago topped 70 degrees on Feb. 26, 2024. That’s not normal.
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
As the climate changes and weather warms, the freezing line is shifting, bringing rain to many regions more accustomed to snow.
A blizzard with brutally cold temperatures hit Iowa and neighboring states on Jan. 12, 2024.
Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The world can expect fewer severe cold events as average temperatures rise, but people still need to be prepared for wintery blasts.
Wrecks during snowstorms can shut down highways, stranding drivers in the cold for hours.
Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images
Costs quickly rise when things go wrong with roads, roofs and power lines. Many of those risks are also avoidable.
Flood water filled streets in downtown Montpelier, Vt., on July 11, 2023.
Kylie Cooper/Getty Images
An atmospheric scientist explains how rising temperatures are helping to fuel extreme storms, floods, droughts and devastating wildfires.
Extreme downpours filled downtown Montpelier, Vt., with water in July 2023.
John Tully for The Washington Post via Getty Images
The US saw a record number of billion-dollar disasters in 2023, even when accounting for inflation. The number of long-running heat waves like the Southwest experienced is also rising.
JOSHUA PRIETO/AAP
Once the immediate crisis in North Queensland has subsided, authorities will need to grapple with how to deal with the ‘new normal’ of extreme weather events. The big question is: are they prepared?