Time to get inside? A dust storm approaches.
Zooey/flickr
Batten down the hatches. These are nature’s nuclear weapons.
Tennis fans at the 2014 Australian Open were treated to days of temperatures above 40C.
AAP Image/Joe Castro
2014 saw heatwaves of all kinds and other wild weather. Research can now explain that climate change made these events much more likely.
From hot to cold and cold to hot, the weather can make a difference to our health.
Michael Levine-Clark/Flickr
Changes in temperature and season do affect our health – and not just when the weather turns cold.
A new real-time measuring buoy can change the way the maritime industry operates.
Supplied
Enhanced data collection capabilities will ensure that information collected from the coastline will be seamless.
Drought is a quintessentially Australian experience, yet many of us don’t properly know how they form.
AAP Image/Caroline Duncan
High temperatures make droughts worse, right? Wrong: it’s the other way around. Ahead of an El Niño summer that looks set to bring drought to much of Australia, here’s a quick primer on how they form.
Storm clouds for California?
matso/flickr
El Niño explained: how it works, what a mega El Niño this year could bring and how global warming might affect future El Niño-driven weather patterns.
Storms coming? El Niño is projected to lead to much-needed rain in California next year.
chrisamichaels/flickr
El Niño is expected to bring heavy rains to drought-stricken California, but more rain alone won’t solve the West’s water crisis.
Really dry: a Colorado River aqueduct in southern California.
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Historical analysis shows that natural forces are behind California’s drought, but global warming has contributed 8%-27% to the drought’s severity.
The large 1982 El Niño contributed to the Ash Wednesday bushfires that killed 75 people in south east Australia.
Sydney Oats/Wikimedia
El Niño has arrived, it’s getting stronger, and it’s not about to go away soon. And already there are rumblings that this could be a big one.
Gathering data at the calving front of the Ilulissat Glacier, Greenland.
Denise Holland
To create accurate models that predict how ice sheets and oceans will react to changing climate, modelers need precise current data. One researcher heads to the ends of the earth to collect just that.
Even another 85 years of global warming won’t stop the odd cold, snowy winter.
Andy Rain / EPA
While global warming will continue, it’s important to assess variability as well as long-term average climates.
Keeping cool as Paris sees its hottest temperatures in six decades.
Etienne Laurent / EPA
Shifting air currents high up in the skies can have a big impact down on the ground.
It’s hot – but some people aren’t too bothered.
Andy Rain / EPA
Parts of the UK are sizzling thanks to Iberian air.
Hurricane path forecasts are good, but even the ‘cone of uncertainty’ doesn’t fully describe where the hazards could be.
National Hurricane Center
Forecasting successes can breed complacency in the general public. But all hurricane damage isn’t necessarily contained within the “cone of uncertainty.”
A broken paddle on parched earth, one result of four years of drought in California.
Robert Galbraith/Reuters
What explains the unusually dry and warm weather that’s behind California’s prolonged drought? And how is climate change contributing?
California has been inundated with stranded, hungry sea lion pups, a result of warm waters causing fish to move.
Michael Fiala/Reuters
The “warm blob” of remarkably warm water in the Pacific is changing weather patterns and impacting marine life, providing clues to how ecosystems may change in a warmer future.
Whale sharks were one of the warm water species to move south during the 2010-2011 marine heatwave.
Ben Henrich/Flickr
While eastern Australia trembles in the face of an El Niño, Western Australia’s oceans could finally see relief from devastating marine heatwaves.
Breaking the ice: while scientists increasingly understand why Antarctic sea ice is growing, it remains tricky to forecast.
Australian Antarctic Division
Antarctica’s sea ice is changing in ways that scientists didn’t predict, and is now causing headaches for Antarctic stations.
Warming seas suggest El Niño is on the horizon.
dmytrok/Flickr
El Niño is officially on, and comparing it to previous events suggests it could be big one, perhaps leading to record-breaking temperatures.
The threat of an El Niño has not gone away for Australia.
thinboyfatter/Flickr
This last year we were preparing for an El Niño. But then it all just fizzled out. So what happened? And could this be the year?