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September 2017: Earth's 4th Warmest September on Record

By Dr. Jeff Masters

September 2017 was the planet's fourth warmest September since record keeping began in 1880, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and NASA this week. The only warmer Septembers came during 2015, 2016 and 2014. Minor differences can occur between the NASA and NOAA rankings because of their different techniques for analyzing data-sparse regions such as the Arctic.

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Two Graphs Explain Why California’s Wildfires Will Only Get Worse

By Molly Taft

The deadly wildfires ripping through Northern California are just the latest in a season of record-defying natural disasters in the U.S. As the death toll passes 40, reports of Californians hiding in pools as their houses burn and scenes of devastated homes and vineyards add to 2017's apocalyptic picture of how climate change is impacting America today.

As the Trump administration guts environmental protections and undermines science, California is one of the states leading the way on climate action. Ironically, experts agree the state can expect devastating fires like the ones in Napa to become the new normal. Drier and drier conditions and creeping temperatures in the American Southwest, definitively linked to climate change, serve to create tinderbox conditions for massive, catastrophic fires to explode.

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Why Are Incarcerated Women Battling California Wildfires for as Little as $1 a Day?

As raging wildfires in California scorch more than 200,000 acres—roughly the size of New York City—more than 11,000 firefighters are battling the blazes, and a number of them are prisoners, including many women inmates.

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Matthew Claaargghk / Twitter‏

Strange Days: Ex-Hurricane Ophelia Batters Ireland Under Orange Skies

By Dr. Jeff Masters and Bob Henson

Ex-Hurricane Ophelia hit Ireland hard with full hurricane-like fury on Monday, bringing powerful winds that caused widespread damage and power outages. At least two deaths have been reported from trees falling on cars, and The Irish Times said at least 360,000 ESB Networks customers lost power in Ireland because of the storm.

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Photo taken by Hélio Madeiras, a firefighter in Portugal. Facebook

Wildfires Rage Through Portugal and Spain, Kill at Least 39

Wildfires have killed at least 39 people in Spain and Portugal since Sunday.

Hundreds of fires in both countries are being fanned by winds from Hurricane Ophelia in the north, currently barreling towards Ireland, and encouraged by extremely dry terrain from a scorching hot summer in the region.

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Bonn Climate Change Conference, June 4 2015. UNclimatechange / Flickr.

UN Urges World Leaders to Heed Climate Risk, Warns of More Severe Disasters

By Paul Brown

The hurricanes and wildfires that have severely damaged large areas of the U.S. in recent weeks have had no impact on President Donald Trump's determination to ignore the perils of climate change and support the coal industry.

In a deliberate denial of mainstream science, the Trump administration has issued a strategic four-year plan for the U.S. Environment Protection Agency that does not once mention "greenhouse gas emissions," "carbon dioxide" or "climate change" in its 48 pages.

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World Bank Group headquarters. Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank / Flickr

World Bank Continues to Fund Climate Chaos, Despite Recognizing the Threat

By Allison Lee

In the last year alone, vulnerable populations have suffered massive damage from the impacts of a changing climate. "Super hurricanes" have torn through the Caribbean—turbocharged by abnormally warm waters—making islands uninhabitable.

Flooding, mudslides, wildfires, and avalanches have hit nearly every continent, killing thousands. These extreme weather events decimated basic infrastructure and destroyed livelihoods and economies. While not all of these individual events can be unequivocally linked to climate change, many are strengthened by it, and they are a harbinger of things to come in a world of climate disruption.

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This NOAA GOES East satellite infrared image taken at 6:15 a.m. EDT (1015 UTC) of Hurricane Nate shows the storm moving through the Gulf of Mexico on Oct. 7 at 6:15 a.m. EDT (1015 UTC). NASA / NOAA GOES Project

Hurricane Nate Heads Into Gulf and Toward Saturday Night Landfall

By Bob Henson and Dr. Jeff Masters

A hurricane warning was in effect from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to the Alabama/Florida border on Friday evening as Tropical Storm Nate, with sustained winds of 70 mph as of 11 p.m. EDT, sped through the narrow Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico.

Update: Nate was upgraded to hurricane strength by the NOAA/NWS National Hurricane Center at 11:30 p.m. EDT Friday, with top sustained winds of 75 mph based on Hurricane Hunter reported.

Very intense thunderstorms were erupting on Friday night near Nate's center, located about 90 miles northeast of Cozumel as of 8 p.m. EDT Friday. Nate was in the process of closing off an eyewall, and it is likely to be a Category 1 hurricane on Saturday night when it makes landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast between Southeast Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle.

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Bees rely on flowers for food. Jim, the Photographer/Flickr

Longer Flowering Seasons: Bad for Bees?

By Dan Nosowitz

Scientists from North Carolina State University stumbled into a weird paradox while analyzing certain high-altitude bees in the Rocky Mountains.

The team studied three species of bees in the subalpine regions of the Mountain West along with 43 years of local flower bloom data in order to understand how climate change might affect the pollinators.

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