Authorities have moved the Great Barrier Reef onto its highest alert level in response to widespread coral bleaching. Months of monitoring will now be needed to assess the ongoing damage.
Since 1999, Australia has swung between drought and deluge with surprising speed, because El Niño has fallen into sync with similar patterns in the Indian and Southern Oceans.
Climate change has been implicated in record-breaking temperatures across the 20th century.
KayVee.INC/Flickr
Sydney is in the process of smashing the record for the longest run of days above 26°C. Weather, El Nino and climate change are all playing their part.
Don’t dismiss what science has to say about the fate of coral reefs.
Tom Bridge/tethys-images.com
Australia is the land of drought of flooding rains, driven by events such as El Nino. But despite this variability, some parts of Australia are clearly drying out.
The land may be dry, but Western Australia’s waters are full of life.
Russ Babcock
The Great Barrier Reef might get all the attention, but what about our western coral reefs? Warmer waters and human impacts mean these reefs are in trouble.
Hurricane Pali churns over the eastern Pacific on January 11.
NASA Earth Observatory
January hurricanes are rare events, but two have already formed this month. Atmospheric scientist Adam Sobel explains the conditions that generated Pali and Alex.
Homeless in Los Angeles: Bernard Leatherhood (62) and Arthur Johnson (72).
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Margot Kushel, University of California, San Francisco
Field research in Oakland highlights a major issue that Americans have yet to face up to: how to deal with growing numbers of homeless older people in our streets.
Here come the rains to Hollywood and Southern California.
skinnylawyer/flickr
The third-ever ‘super’ El Niño is under way. Here’s how it will affect your region in the US and how global warming affects this and future El Niños.
Despite a decade of drought and declining rainfall in parts of Australia, there’s still plenty of water to go around.
Maroondah reservoir from www.shutterstock.com
The Millennium Drought ended more than five years ago, but several years of below-average rainfall and El Niño have brought drought back to many parts of Australia. Our latest report on water in Australia shows rainfall is continuing to decline in eastern Australia and increase in the north.
Indonesia’s haze made global headlines but an intense dry season has also sparked major fires in Brazil.
Mountains overlooking the Hex river valley in the Western Cape, South Africa. The country has been experiencing inclement weather this summer.
EPA/Nic Bothma
The current drought in southern Africa is as a result of a powerful El Niño event. Better planning and forecasting could help mitigate the effects.
While firefighters battled widespread fires in New South Wales in October 2013, hundreds of thousands of people turned to social media and smartphone apps for vital updates.
AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
Terry Flew, Queensland University of Technology e Axel Bruns, Queensland University of Technology
When disaster strikes, more people than ever are turning to social media to find out if they’re in danger. But Australian emergency services need to work together more to learn what works to save lives.
Hurricane Patricia as it made landfall on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
NASA/NOAA
False complacency: Hurricane Patricia didn’t devastate Mexico as feared, but provides more evidence that warming waters raise the chances of more intense storms.