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.
Federal agencies pay much of the cost to fight forest fires, which means taxpayers are subsidizing the risky practice of building more homes at the wildland-urban interface.
According to scientists, tree-ring analysis shows that California drought is the worst it has been in 500 years.The study underscores the severity of current drought and the challenges of future water management in the state.
Faith Kearns, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources y Doug Parker, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
El Niño is expected to bring heavy rains to drought-stricken California, but more rain alone won’t solve the West’s water crisis.
Papua New Guinea is now facing a drought and frosts that look set to be worse than 1997, when hundreds of people died. So how can memories of 1997 save lives over the next few months?
The seesaw between El Niño and La Niña is set to get stronger with global warming. Signs are that this year and next will deliver a big swing from one to the other, prompting fires and floods across the world.
The US West – suffering one of the most damaging wildfire seasons this decade – needs to break with current practices to avert more costly and dangerous wildfires in the future.
Understanding how different species are likely to respond to drought is crucial to accurately predicting the impact of future climate change on plant communities.
Hydrologists, climate scientists and policymakers are beginning to grapple with a difficult question: who will be affected most by longer and more frequent droughts?
The same persistent weather pattern bringing hot, dry conditions to California is likely connected to a punishing drought in the Sao Paulo area in Brazil.
As California enters another hot dry summer, policymakers from water and electric utilities are looking at ways to preserve these interdependent resources.
The Outback covers 70% of Australia, and its water is precious and scarce. Yet there is no joined-up plan to monitor and manage Outback water, despite the wealth of species and communities that depend on it.
Tackling climate change is the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century, a team of 60 international experts today declared in a special report for the medical journal The Lancet.