South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the 2022 COP27 meeting in Egypt.
Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The kind of coverage favoured by South African media probably doesn’t do much to improve the public’s understanding of climate change.
Warming of more than 1°C risks unsafe and harmful outcomes for humanity.
Ink Drop/Shutterstock
Temperature rise of more than 1°C pushes us towards irreversible climate tipping points, yet Earth is 1.2°C warmer than in pre-industrial times.
Warm water along the equator off South America signals an El Niño, like this one in 2016.
NOAA
The official forecast calls for a strong El Niño by winter, but other models suggest it might dip in and out. An atmospheric scientist explains.
Michael Probst/AP
The likely El Niño is bad timing for the electricity sector, and means Australians may face supply disruptions and volatile prices.
Hurricane Florence, seen from the International Space Station in 2018. Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
NASA
Current forecasts suggest a warm tropical Pacific will be interfering with what could otherwise be a ferocious Atlantic hurricane season.
Twenty years of storm tracks in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific basins.
NASA
El Niño years put Hawaii and the Mexican Riviera on alert for destructive tropical storms and hurricanes.
A flash drought in 2012 dried out soil, harming crops in Kansas and several other states.
John Moore/Getty Images
If greenhouse gas emissions continue at a high rate, breadbaskets of Europe and North America will see a 50% chance of a flash drought each year by the end of this century.
Street flooding has become more common in parts of Honolulu.
Eugene Tanner / AFP via Getty Images
Honolulu, Baltimore, Charleston, S.C. and several other cities harmed by rising seas and extreme weather are suing the oil industry. At stake is who pays for the staggering costs of climate change.
Dan Peled/AAP
Yes, we need better flood warnings. But most of us don’t or can’t evacuate from floods. Safety means focusing on community resilience as well as warnings
Canary Wharf, London.
Nathaniel Noir/Alamy Stock Photo
Hot days are getting hotter in north-west Europe – and the region is poorly equipped to cope.
When cold weather sets in there are several ways to keep yourself warm.
NickyLloyd/Getty Images
Climate systems which drive anomalously cold weather will still cause cold extreme events into the 21st century.
The hardest-hit homes in Florida’s mid-April flooding were in modest neighborhoods in low-lying areas.
Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images
Nationally, 57% of the population says they’re not prepared for a flood disaster. Surveys and disasters show that those most at risk are least prepared.
Kivalina sits on a narrow barrier island on the Chukchi Sea.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
In the years since the Supreme Court rejected Kivalina’s appeal on May 20, 2013, the community’s search and rescue team has faced increasing climate disasters: ‘We just can’t adapt this fast.’
This message was sent to almost all phones in the UK.
Sam Stephenson/Alamy
Warnings can now be sent to everyone in a place likely to be flooded – not just those who opt-in.
Simon Annable/Shutterstock
Extreme weather is a threat to the UK’s electricity system – and climate change is likely to make it even worse.
Fire at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Photo by Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images
Autumn extreme fire weather around Cape Town in South Africa has become 90% more likely in a warmer world.
Thoko Chikondi/AP
Extreme weather events are complex – and working out exactly how much damage climate change caused is a tricky task.
Tulare Lake is reemerging as flood water spreads across miles of California farmland.
Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
This year’s Sierra snowpack is looking a lot like 1983’s, and that was a year of flooding and mudslide disasters. A meteorologist explains what’s ahead.
Storm Eunice caused widespread damage in February 2022.
EPA-EFE/Andy Rain
The government’s pro-climate rhetoric has met reality – and it doesn’t look good.
A tornado touches down.
Morgan Schneider/OU CIMMS/NOAA NSSL
Researchers are turning to computer models, drones and other methods to improve tornado forecasting.