heat waves

By YCC Team Until recently, giant seaweed called bull kelp formed lush underwater forests in northern California’s coastal waters. These kelp forests have long provided critical habitat for many species like salmon, crabs, and jellyfish. But now just a few patches of bull kelp remain. “It’s very desolate looking,” says Meredith McPherson of UC Santa […]

By Hannah Thomasy From 2014 to 2016, the Gulf of Alaska experienced the worst marine heat wave of the decade. From single-celled organisms to top predators, practically no level of the ecosystem was left unscathed. During the Pacific marine heat wave, tens of thousands of dead seabirds washed up on beaches, unusually low numbers of […]

By Sam Baker What really makes this reporter’s stomach churn thinking about climate change? Thawing permafrost. A scenario where it all melts, releasing copious amounts of CO2 and methane (it holds twice as much carbon as the atmosphere holds right now), and there’s no going back. But what’s at the top of the list of […]

Six months of summer may sound like a school child’s fantasy, but it could be a very real, and very serious, impact of the climate crisis. A study published in Geophysical Research Letters last month found that summer in the Northern Hemisphere could last nearly six months by 2100 if nothing is done to reduce […]

While cities bear a heavy cost from the climate crisis, they could also lead the way in implementing climate adaptation strategies. A recent study published by Nature Climate Change found that cities are at a greater risk than suburban and rural areas for heat stress, water scarcity, air pollution and energy insecurity due to their […]

The remains of at least 214 people who died attempting to cross the Mexico-Arizona border have been recovered so far in 2020, and advocates blame extreme heat, The Associated Press reports. The figure is just 10 shy of the overall annual record from 2010, according to the nonprofit Humane Borders and the Pima County Medical […]

Wildfires burned more acres this year in the U.S. than ever before in modern records, E&E reports based on data published by the National Interagency Fire Center. Extreme heat, fueled by climate change caused by extracting and burning fossil fuels, dries vegetation and turns vast swaths of forest into a tinderbox. “In 2020 we saw […]

By Jeff Masters, PhD and Dana Nuccitelli Calendar year 2020 was an extreme and abnormal year, in so many ways. The global coronavirus pandemic altered people’s lives around the world, as did extreme weather and climate events. Let’s review the year’s top 10 such events. 1. Hottest Year on Record? The official rankings will not […]