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Climate Change

Page Updated:
Feb. 17, 2026

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• • A Greenland Sled Dog Champion Fears
  For His Culture As Climate Change Melts the Ice

  The Rising Temperatures in Ilulissat are Causing the Permafrost to Melt, Buildings to Sink and Pipes to Crack

  
  

  Feb. 16, 2026 -For more than a thousand years, dogs have pulled sleds across the Arctic for Inuit seal hunters and fishermen. But this winter, in the town of Ilulissat, around 300km (186 miles) north of the Arctic Circle, that’s not possible.

  Instead of gliding over snow and ice, Kristensen’s sled bounces over earth and rock. Gesturing to the hills, he said it’s the first time he can remember when there has been no snow — or ice in the bay — in January.

• • Climate Change Could Make This Horrific
  New Jersey Wildlife Disease Worse

  The Garden State is Home to Ranavirus, a Pathogen Capable of Killing Amphibians En Masse

  
  

  Feb. 17, 2026 -It was May 2011 when herpetologist Robert Zappalorti called scientists about the tadpoles.

  Researchers at Montclair State University went to see for themselves. At the site in Ocean County, New Jersey, they found green frog tadpoles that looked like something out of a medical drama or a frog horror film—lethargic and swollen, with red lesions on their skin.

• • Cyclone Gezani Leaves 59 Dead in Madagascar,

  Displaces More Than 16,000

  
  

  Feb. 16, 2026 -At least 59 people died when Cyclone Gezani struck Madagascar last week, the disaster management office said on Monday, as it assesses the impact of the second tropical storm to hit the Indian Ocean island nation this year.

  The cyclone displaced 16,428, while 15 people remain missing, 804 were injured and 423,986 were classified as affected by the disaster, the National Bureau for Risk and Disaster Management (BNGRC) said.

• • New Zealand Hit By Storms and Widespread Floods

  Low Pressure System Funnels Rain Over Already Saturated Areas, Compounding Risk of Further Flooding

  
  

  Feb. 16, 2026 -A deep area of low pressure to the south-east of New Zealand’s North Island swept into the region on Sunday, bringing heavy rain, gale-force winds and dangerous coastal swells that lashed exposed shorelines. The storm triggered power outages, forced evacuations and damaged infrastructure, with further impacts likely on Monday as the system lingers for a time, before tracking southwards later.

  Its arrival came after days of widespread flooding in the ?torohanga district, where a man was found dead after his vehicle became submerged in flood waters. Some areas recorded more than 100mm of rain in 24 hours on Thursday, with Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and the Bay of Plenty bearing the brunt of the deluge.

• • Why Changes in a Florida Ocean
  Current Could Wreak Havoc Worldwide

  Scientists Differ Over Whether or How Fast it May Occur

  
  

  Feb. 15, 2026 -At 2 a.m., oceanographer Ryan Smith was headed into his 12th hour of work with little sleep when trouble started.

  From the rear deck of the University of Miami’s research boat, he guided the vessel’s winch to lower a cage containing 14 long, gray tubes, collectively weighing about 1,000 pounds, hundreds of meters deep into the Atlantic Ocean, to record the temperature, salinity and density of the water. But after running smoothly for the first two-thirds of the trip, the sensors now suddenly stopped transmitting data.

  There was no time for a hiccup. With urgency mounting, Smith signaled to bring the cage to the surface.

• • Thermal Drone Footage Shows Musk’s
  AI Power Plant Flouting Clean Air Regulations

  Images Confirm xAI Continues to Defy EPA Regulations in Mississippi to Power Its Flagship Datacenters

  
  

  Feb. 13, 2026 -Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company is continuing to fuel its datacenters with unpermitted gas turbines, an investigation by the Floodlight newsroom shows. Thermal footage captured by Floodlight via drone shows xAI is still burning gas at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi, despite a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling reiterating that doing so requires a state permit in advance.

  State regulators in Mississippi maintain that since the turbines are parked on tractor trailers, they don’t require permits. However, the EPA has long maintained that such pollution sources require permits under the Clean Air Act.

• • Economics Has Failed On the Climate Crisis

  This Complexity Scientist Has a Mind-Blowing Plan to Fix That

  
  

  Feb. 12, 2026 -It’s a mind-blowing idea: an economic model of the world in which every company is individually represented, making realistic decisions that change as the economy changes. From this astonishing complexity would emerge forecasts of unprecedented clarity. These would be transformative: no more flying blind into global financial crashes, no more climate policies that fail to shift the dial.

  This super simulator could be built for what Prof Doyne Farmer calls the bargain price of $100m, thanks to advances in complexity science and computing power.

• • Trump Administration Erases the
  Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change

  The EPA Rejected Bedrock Scientific Finding That Greenhouse Gases Threaten Human Life

  
  

  Feb. 12, 2026 -President Trump on Thursday announced he was erasing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

  The action is a key step in removing limits on carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases that scientists say are supercharging heat waves, droughts, wildfires and other extreme weather.

• • Climate Action is the Antidote to Global
  ‘Chaos and Coercion,’ Says UN Leader

  Simon Stiell’s Speech Came the Same Day EPA Said It Would Eliminate the Legal Basis For Its Ability to Fight Climate Change
  
  {GREENWIRE}
  
  

  Feb. 12, 2026 -United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell is pitching climate action as an antidote to the instability and tumult besetting the global order.

  In a message delivered Thursday in Turkey, host of this year’s U.N. climate talks, he called on countries to pull together and deliver their climate pledges with greater speed and urgency.

  “In the face of the current chaos, we can, and must, drive forward a new era of international climate cooperation,” said Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

• • China Could Reach Peak Greenhouse
  Gas Emissions Sooner Than Beijing Planned

  Falling Emissions From the World’s Biggest Greenhouse Gas Emitter Could Mean a Global Turning Point

  
  

  Feb. 11, 2026 -Planet-warming emissions from China, currently the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluter, have continued to flatline or fall as cleaner forms of energy outpace coal and gas generation, according to a new analysis published Wednesday.

  If the trend continues, China’s emissions from energy production could peak in the next two years, representing a major structural change in global fossil fuel use and a critical milestone in the effort to slow atmospheric warming.

• • Scientists Thought They Understood Global Warming

  Then the Past Three Years Happened

  
  

  Feb. 11, 2026 -According to a Washington Post analysis, the fastest warming rate on record occurred in the last 30 years. The Post used a dataset from NASA to analyze global average surface temperatures from 1880 to 2025.

  “We’re not continuing on the same path we had before,” said Robert Rohde, chief scientist at Berkeley Earth. “Something has changed.”

• • In South Africa's Affluent Western
  Cape, Farmers Lose Cattle to Drought

  Scientists Say Intensity of Both North and South is Increasing

  
  

  Feb. 12, 2026 -In South Africa's most visited and affluent province, Western Cape, one of the worst droughts in living memory is drying up dams, scorching grass and killing livestock, prompting the government to declare a national emergency this month.

  Scientists say climate change is causing worsening droughts in the province, which draws tourists to its vineyards, beaches and the lush slopes of Table Mountain above Cape Town, but lies on the edge of the advancing semi-desert Karoo. In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.

• • The Conservative Activists Behind One of Trump’s Biggest Climate Moves

  Four Trump Allies Have Been a Driving Force Behind the Administration’s Efforts to Rollback a Key Climate Regulation

  
  

  Feb. 10, 2026, By Lisa Friedman -President Trump campaigned on a platform of climate denial and a promise to reverse federal policies aimed at protecting the planet. But even experts have been stunned at the magnitude of the environmental protections he has unraveled and the speed with which his administration has acted.

  As Maxine Joselow and I report, the swift and meticulous dismantling of climate rules we are now seeing did not happen by chance. It was set in motion by a cadre of conservative lawyers who served in the first Trump administration and spent years honing arguments to block government regulations of climate pollution.

• • Antarctica’s Best Ocean Explorers Have Whiskers and Love to Lounge

  Seals Can Collect Data in Waters That Ships Could Never Reach

  
  

  Feb. 10, 2026 -To recruit the Antarctic expedition’s newest deputy scientist, Ji-Yeon Cheon had to approach the candidate carefully, from behind.

  Step by gentle step, Ms. Cheon walked sideways across a patch of sea ice, avoiding eye contact. Once she was close, she held a five-foot blowpipe to her lips and shot a dart filled with sedative into the animal’s blubbery, speckled-gray rump.

• • Economic Growth Is Still Heating the Planet. Is There Any Way Out?

  Rising GDP Continues to Mean More Carbon Emissions and Wider Damage to the Planet. Can the Two Be Decoupled?

  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -During Cop30 negotiations in Brazil last year, delegates heard a familiar argument: rising emissions are unavoidable for countries pursuing growth.

  Since the first Cop in the 1990s, developing nations have had looser reduction targets to reflect the economic gap between them and richer countries, which emitted millions of tonnes of CO2 as they pulled ahead. The concession comes from the idea that an inevitable cost of prosperity is environmental harm.

• • There Are More Signs of a Coming El Niño
  That Could Trigger Record Global Warmth

  It Could Have Wide-Reaching Impacts Across the Planet

  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -For the second time in as many months, a wind burst occurred in a remote part of the western Pacific Ocean during January — and odds are rising that it will trigger a significant change in the planet’s weather patterns later this year.

  These wind bursts — which are breaking records for their strength — are pushing some of the world’s warmest ocean water from the West Pacific south of Guam toward South America, a phenomenon that signal a shift toward a planet-warming El Niño.

• • Climate Change Fueled Deadly
  January Wildfires in Argentina, Chile

  “Human-Induced Climate Change Made the Weather That Accompanied Recent Wildfires In Chile and Argentina About 2.5 to 3x More Likely”
  
  {EARTH.ORG}
  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -Recent deadly wildfires in parts of Argentina and Chile would have been less likely to occur in a cooler world, according to a new study.

  New research by the World Weather Attribution group concluded that reduced rainfall and elevated temperatures created the perfect conditions for the wildfires to spread. The blazes ripped through the Andean foothills of central-southern Chile and across northern Patagonia in Argentina, affecting dense native forests, national parks, and small rural and tourist communities along the Chile–Argentina border.

• • Accelerated Global Warming Could
  Lock Earth Into a Hothouse Future

  Scientists Say Warming is Increasing Faster Than At Any Time in At Least 3 Million Years

  
  

  Feb. 11, 2026 -If you think of Earth’s climate system as a backyard swing that’s been gently swaying for millennia, then human-caused global warming is like a sudden shove strong enough to disrupt the usual arc and buckle the chains.

  And if humans keep heating the planet with greenhouse gas pollution, the climate swing could lock Earth into a hothouse trajectory, as parts of the system feed on their own momentum, even if emissions are reduced later, an international team of scientists warned Wednesday in a new paper published in the journal One Earth.

• • EPA to Repeal Its Own Conclusion That Greenhouse
  Gases Warm the Planet and Threaten Health

  The Decision is the Legal Framework That Allows the EPA to Regulate Emissions. Its Reversal Could Upend Many Climate Change Policies
  
  {NBC NEWS}
  
  

  Feb. 10, 2026 -The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday plans to repeal the legal framework that underpins its power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

  "President Trump will be joined by Administrator Lee Zeldin to formalize the rescission of the 2009 Obama-era endangerment finding,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing on Tuesday. “This will be the largest deregulatory action in American history, and it will save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations.

• • Why This Country Declared an Ocean
  Current Collapse a National Security Risk

  The Disruption of a Current That Carries Heat North From the Tropics Would Make Much of the World Hotter, While Turning Iceland Into “One Giant Glacier”

  
  

  Feb. 10, 2026 -It is just one scenario among many, but by far the most cataclysmic.

  Sometime over the next 100 years, human-driven warming could disrupt a vital ocean current that carries heat northward from the tropics. After this breach, most of the world would keep getting hotter — but northern Europe would cool substantially, with Iceland at the center of a deep freeze. Climate modeling shows Icelandic winter extremes plunging to an unprecedented minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Sea ice could surround the country for the first time since it was settled by Vikings.

  “At that point, Iceland would be one giant glacier,” said Hildigunnur Thorsteinsson, the director general of the Icelandic Meteorological Office.

• • What Over a Century of Ice Data Can
  Tell Us About the Great Lakes’ Future

  Using Old Records, Scientists Created a New Dataset On How Ice Coverage Has Shifted Since 1897. Researchers Are Already Using It to Study a Declining Fish Species

  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -Michigan researchers have gone back in time to get a picture of how ice cover on the Great Lakes has evolved since the late 19th century.

  Using historical temperature records from weather stations around the region, researchers improved their understanding of where ice might have formed and for how long it lasted — spanning the last 120 years.

• • There Are More Signs of a Coming El Niño
  That Could Trigger Record Global Warmth

  A Record Wind Burst is a Key Sign of a Coming El Niño. It Could Have Wide-Reaching Impacts Across the Planet

  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -For the second time in as many months, a wind burst occurred in a remote part of the western Pacific Ocean during January — and odds are rising that it will trigger a significant change in the planet’s weather patterns later this year.

  For the second time in as many months, a wind burst occurred in a remote part of the western Pacific Ocean during January — and odds are rising that it will trigger a significant change in the planet’s weather patterns later this year.

• • Don’t Let Climate Fatalism Become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

  The Idea That It’s “Too Late” to Reduce Emissions Fuels Cynicism and Despair, Putting Us On an Even Worse Trajectory.

  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026, By Hannah Ritchie -I read Mark Lynas’s book “Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet” when I was 14 years old, and it scared the life out of me. Lynas takes the reader on a journey of what to expect from a world that’s one degree warmer, two degrees, three degrees, all the way up to six degrees. By the middle of the book, your blood pressure is high; by the end, you’re on the floor.

  It is a well-researched book that offers us a window into many possible futures. Fortunately, the scientific consensus has moved away from the most extreme scenarios since its publication. Unfortunately, a lot of the public messaging has not. Many people believe a pathway to 5°C or 6°C is already locked in, and the only thing we can do now is prepare for the worst.

  Let’s look at what the latest science says about where we might end up by 2100.

• • Many Kids Feel Hopeless About Climate Change

  Here's What Helps
  
  {CBC News}
  
  

  Feb 5, 2026 -Despite being concerned about the high use of fossil fuels and non-renewable resources, 14-year-old Midu Nguyen remains hopeful that the world will take action on climate change.

  To her, it’s all about perspective. She takes the same approach to it as she does to tests at school.

  “If you have a test and you don’t want to study for it because you think you’re already going to fail it, then you will fail,” she said in an interview with CBC News.

  “If you change that mindset and think, I will be able to change this, then I think you can really do that.”

• • MaiStorm Leonardo Flooding Kills Man in
  Portugal, Woman Swept Away in Spain

  Two Reservoirs Close to Overflowing Near Jerez

  
  

  Feb. 5, 2026 -Storm Leonardo pounded the Iberian peninsula with torrential rains on Thursday, prompting more flood warnings, as a man was killed by a deluge in Portugal and Spanish rescuers searched for a woman swept away by a river as she tried to save her dog.

  Leonardo is the latest in a wave of half a dozen winter storms to hit Portugal and Spain since the start of 2026, killing several people, ripping roofs off homes and flooding towns.

• • A Polar Bear Paradox is Unfolding in the Arctic

  Against the Backdrop of Arctic Warming, Polar Bears in Norway’s Far North Are Gaining Fat and Feeding On New Prey

  
  

  Feb. 4, 2026 -As polar bears across the Arctic watch their sea ice habitat disappear, here’s something they might be wishing for: A one-way ticket to Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.

  There, on a collection of rocky islands perched at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, polar bears are fatter than they were two decades ago, showing no signs of the distress hitting polar bear populations in parts of Canada and the U.S., scientists wrote last week in Scientific Reports.

• • Landslides On One Side, Floods On the Other

  The Costa Rican Village Desperate to Escape the Climate Crisis

  
  

  Feb. 3, 2026 -In Emilio Peña Delgado’s home, several photos hang on the wall. One shows him standing in front of a statue with his wife and oldest son in the centre of San José and smiling. In another, his two sons sit in front of caricatures from the film Cars. For him, the photos capture moments of joy that feel distant when he returns home to La Carpio, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Costa Rica’s capital.

  Delgado migrated with his family from Nicaragua to Costa Rica when he was 10, as his parents sought greater stability. When he started a family of his own, his greatest hope was to give his children the security he had lacked. But now, that hope is often interrupted by the threat of extreme weather events.

• • Deep Inside an Antarctic Glacier,
  a Mission Collapses at Its Final Step

  Scientists Lost Their Instruments Within Antarctica’s Most Dangerously Unstable Glacier

  
  

  Feb. 2, 2026 -A daring attempt to study Antarctica’s fast-melting Thwaites Glacier collapsed over the weekend after the scientists’ instruments became entombed within the half-mile-thick ice.

  A team of British and South Korean researchers was trying to install instruments beneath the immense glacier, where they would collect data, the first of its kind, on the warm ocean waters that are melting away the ice at a rate of hundreds of feet per year.

• • Morocco Evacuates 50,000 as Flooding
  Threatens City After Weeks of Heavy Rain

  Officials Said the Floods Were Partly Triggered By Water Released From the Nearby Oued Makhazine Dam

  
  

  Feb. 2, 2026 -Morocco has evacuated more than 50,000 people, nearly half the population of the northwestern city of Ksar el-Kebir, as flooding driven by weeks of heavy rain threatened to inundate the city, state media said on Monday.

  "The city has become a ghost town," local resident Hicham Ajttou told Reuters by phone. "All markets and shops are closed and most residents have either left voluntarily or been evacuated."

• • With Waters Rising, Pennsylvania’s
  Historical Treasures Must ‘Adapt or Collapse’

  As Climate Change Supercharges Floods and Rainfall, the State’s Water-Adjacent Landmarks Are Especially Vulnerable

  
  

  Feb 1, 2026 -Karen Young stood in a cavernous room perched on the edge of the Schuylkill River that was once a public swimming pool.

  Abandoned in 1972 after a hurricane, the old natatorium is part of the Fairmount Water Works, an interpretive center and event venue housed in a 200-year-old structure that powered Philadelphia’s municipal water system for almost a century. The room is trapped in time: The paint is peeling, rust crawls across the ceiling and the bleachers sit empty next to the pool’s drained basin.

• • Something Dark Is Growing on Greenland’s Ice. And Melting It Faster

  New Studies Show How Algae Grows On Ice and Snow, Creating “Dark Zones” That Exacerbate Melting in the Consequential Region

  
  

  Jan. 30, 2026 -On snow it’s green or red. On ice it’s a brownish gray. And it’s melting the frozen mass that encases Greenland faster and faster.

  As a warming climate eats away at the ice that covers most of the world’s largest island, algae blooms are speeding up that process, according to two new studies. Greenland is shedding hundreds of billions of tons of ice every year and raising sea levels as it does.

• • ‘Ghost Forests’ Are Even More Widespread Than We Thought

  How Scientists Recently Mapped Millions of Dead Trees Along the Atlantic Coastline, and What It Tells Us About the Changing Climate

  
  

  Jan. 30, 2026 -From above, there’s no mistaking the loss.

  More than 11 million points pepper a map of the East Coast, each representing a once-living tree, in a trail of mortality stretching from South Carolina to Maine.

  “We can pretty confidently say we can count basically every dead tree,” said Xi Yang, a University of Virginia professor and one of a team of researchers whose recent work has helped shed new light on the proliferation of what are known as “ghost forests.”

• • Climate Change Is Fueling Extremes, Both Hot and Cold

  The Possibility of Snow in Tampa, Fla. Record Heat and Fires in Australia

  
  

  Jan. 29, 2026 -On a typical winter day, the Arctic air that has gripped much of the United States this week should be a few thousand miles to the north, sitting atop the North Pole.

  But as man-made climate change continues to disrupt global weather patterns, that mass of cold air, known as the polar vortex, is straying beyond its usual confines.

• • A Nor’easter Will Bring Snow and Flooding

  What to Expect In Your Area

  
  

  Jan. 29, 2026, -Blizzard conditions, damaging winds, coastal flooding and dangerous cold are all expected along the East Coast this weekend as a powerful nor’easter rapidly intensifies into a bomb cyclone.

  The storm’s heaviest snow will fall across the Carolinas, where swaths of 3 to 6 inches are likely, as well as along the coastline from southeast Virginia to southeast Massachusetts — with localized amounts eclipsing 6 inches.

• • The World Is Hitting Point of No Return on Climate

  With Warming Set To Pass The Critical 1.5-Degree Limit, Scientists Are Warning That the World Is On Course to Trigger Tipping Points That Would Lead to Cascading Consequences
  
  {Yale Environment-360}
  
  

  Jan 28, 2026 -he world is poised to overshoot the goal of limiting average global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as for the first time, a three-year period, ending in 2025, has breached the threshold. And climate scientists are predicting devastating consequences, just as the world’s governments appear to have lost their appetite for tackling the emissions that are causing the warming.

  The 1.5-degree target was set at the Paris Climate Conference a decade ago, at the insistence of more vulnerable nations, to forestall severe weather impacts and potential runaway warming that could lead to exceeding irreversible planetary tipping points. But climate scientists say that 10 years of weak action since mean that nothing can now stop the target being breached.

• • Western States Face 'Snow Drought'
  as Snowpack Hits Record Lows

  Despite the Recent Winter Storm, Colorado, Utah and Other Western States Are Severely Lacking In Mountain Snow
  
  {NBC NEWS}
  
  

  Jan 28, 2026 -Last weekend’s winter storm may have covered much of the country in a glut of snow and ice, but the season has not delivered out West, where several states face a snowpack drought.

  In Colorado, the snowpack is “the lowest on record for this point in the season,” said Peter Goble, the assistant state climatologist. “All of our mountain ranges are well below normal.”

• • Rainforests Can Rebound—But Not
  as Quickly as the Climate Clock is Ticking

  Left Alone, Tropical Forests May Recover—But..

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026 -Lots of people are rooting for logged tropical forests to grow back. Here’s one way to jumpstart it: Add a splash of nitrogen.

  Perhaps it should come as no surprise that a key component in agricultural fertilizer would help trees grow faster. But new research clarifies how much it helps and for which forests, as well as suggesting ways to give forests a boost without the ecological damage that can come with fertilizers.

• • Court the Netherlands to Protect
  a Caribbean Island From Climate Change

  Bonaire, a Dutch Overseas Territory, Deserves the Same Protections as Europe, the Ruling Said.

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026, -A Dutch court ruled on Wednesday that the Netherlands violated the human rights of residents of the tiny Caribbean island of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, by failing to protect them from the effects of climate change.

  The Hague District Court ordered the national government to set binding targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions within 18 months and to draft a detailed adaptation plan for Bonaire to be implemented within four years. The court found that the government had discriminated against the approximately 26,000 residents of Bonaire by failing to come up with such a plan, despite the well-known dangers of global warming.

• • Life On an Antarctic Glacier

  After Working and Camping For a Week On Thwaites Glacier, Scientists Were Ready to Start Drilling Into the Ice

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026, - On Tuesday, a week after scientists from Britain and South Korea pitched tents on Antarctica’s remote Thwaites Glacier, they were pretty much ready to start drilling into the half-mile-deep ice.

  The multiday drilling operation would be the culmination of the eight-week voyage of the icebreaker Araon. If successful, it would allow the researchers to lower instruments through the glacier into the ocean below, providing never-before-seen data on how the water is melting the ice from the bottom up. This melting contributes to global sea-level rise by allowing the part of the glacier still sitting on land to slide more rapidly into the ocean..

• • Weekend Winter Storm That Battered Eastern
  U.S. Was Supercharged By Climate Change

  A Warmer Atmosphere Can Hold More Moisture, and That’s Why Last Weekend’s Winter Storm Dumped More Snow, Sleet and Freezing Rain Than Similar Weather Systems Might Have In the Past

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026 -If you live in the eastern U.S., you are likely among the millions dealing with the aftereffects of the heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain that buried the region over the weekend. And while it may be extremely cold, new research reveals that last weekend’s weather was in fact supercharged by global warming.

  Some of the hardest hit places saw more than two feet of snowfall, while up to an inch of ice from freezing rain shut down roads and cut power throughout the Southeast. No doubt, this storm was big. It was always going to pack a punch—but it dumped more frozen precipitation than it would have if the storm had occurred decades earlier. It may seem paradoxical that a warming climate could mean heavier snowfalls, but hotter, albeit still below freezing, temperatures are nonetheless a recipe for more snow.

• • Australian Heatwave Fans Bushfires, Towns Evacuated

  Melbourne Endures Hottest Day in 17 Years

  
  

  Jan. 27, 2026, -A major heatwave across Australia's southeast stoked bushfires, forced hundreds of residents in rural towns to evacuate and brought record-breaking temperatures, with Melbourne recording its hottest day in nearly 17 years.

  Temperatures in parts of Melbourne, the capital city of Australia's second-most populous state of Victoria, exceeded 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

• • Can Cities Build Their Way Out of Both
  the Housing and the Climate Crises?

  Cities Can Deliver Millions of New Homes Without Exhausting the World’s Carbon Budget—If They Abandon Carbon-Intensive Construction Norms

  
  

  Jan. 27, 2026 -Building things in cities accounts for 10-20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study, and could soon gobble up the entire remaining carbon budget available to keep global warming within 2° C.

  “Construction emissions are an important but often-overlooked part of the climate change picture,” says study team member Keagan Rankin, a graduate student at the University of Toronto. “Cities have a lot of control over what gets built in the future, so they are in a good position to reduce construction emissions, but they have historically overlooked construction emissions in their decarbonization plans.”

• • Scientists Record Coldest Ocean Temperature Ever in Earth's History

  And Wonder How Life Survived

  
  

  Jan. 27, 2026, -About 700 million years ago, Earth was entombed in a veneer of ice?hundreds of feet?thick—a frozen state scientists refer to as “Snowball Earth.” Oceans cooled but managed to retain some heat to avoid freezing.

  Now, researchers have an estimate—published in Nature Communications—of how cold and salty oceans were during this period.

  By analyzing data from rock deposits, the study’s authors estimate that sea temperatures were 5°F (minus 15°C). That’s about 22°F (12°C) cooler than even the coldest ocean temperatures today. The study also notes salinity was more than four times higher, allowing the ocean to get extremely cold without freezing. These estimates suggest all the microbes, phytoplankton, algae, and sponges that lived on Earth during this time endured even harsher conditions than scientists suspected.

• • Smothering, Bullying, Stabbing: How It Feels
  to Be In One of the Hottest Places on Earth

  Everything Felt Like It Was Swelling, and Despite My Diligent Consumption of Water and Hydralyte, I Couldn’t Quite Escape the Persistent, Low-Level Nausea

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026, By Stephanie Convery -My mother grew up in Warracknabeal, a speck of a town four hours from Melbourne, Australia, in the wide, wheat country of the Wimmera – that part of Victoria where the sky starts to stretch, where you can see weather happening 100 kilometres away.

  Once or twice a year, our family would pack into the rattling old LandCruiser and drive up to visit my grandmother. It can’t always have been blistering weather but my memories of those trips are shot through with summer heat: the peeling paint of my grandmother’s house, the blasted-dry grass of the reserve over the road and its ancient metal monkey bars, so hot they burned your hands. Once, a dust storm blew up while we were there, engulfing the small weatherboard house in howling dirty orange.

• • What Happens to the Human Body In 49C Heat?

  Australians Are Finding Out

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026 -Australia’s southern states are scorching in extreme heat that was expected to break temperature records in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales.

  January and all-time records were forecast to be set, with temperatures approaching 50C across inland areas, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

• • Searching For Life Across the Planet’s Frigid Frontiers

  To Understand the Massive Changes Afoot in the Warming Polar Regions, Oceanographer Allison Fong Hunts For the tiniest clues

  
  

  Jan. 27, 2026, -The northern and southern reaches of our planet are heating up faster than anywhere else on Earth. While researchers already know that the region is poised to change dramatically—with ice melting and sea levels rising—there’s a larger question of just what species may survive under those new conditions. Which is how microbial oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer Allison Fong found herself wearing a dry suit and 80 pounds of scuba gear underneath a 26-foot-thick ice floe in the Arctic Ocean, clutching a glorified turkey baster.

  Fong was using the enormous syringe to slurp up a thin film of tiny organisms living in the floe’s underbelly. These microbes, like photosynthetic phytoplankton and sea ice algae, are “fundamental to the habitability of Earth,” she says. By studying them, we can understand how ecosystems are thriving—or not—and how different parts of the planet will transform as climate change accelerates.

• • A Winter Storm Fueled by Global
  Warming Tests U.S. Disaster Response

  FEMA is Less Prepared Than It Was a Year Ago

  
  

  Jan. 26, 2026 -A sprawling winter storm that left hundreds of thousands without power, grounded thousands of flights and disrupted travel across the eastern half of the U.S. could be the first real test of the second Trump administration’s Federal Emergency Management Agency.

  The president has said that he wants to eliminate FEMA, and the agency has lost thousands of employees since his second term began. Emergency-management experts have braced for the moment that a weakened FEMA would face a multi-state disaster.

• • Is Climate Change Weakening the Polar Vortex?

  Rising Arctic Temperatures and Melting Sea Ice Could Cause Cold Air to Flow Into the Northern Hemisphere

  
  

  Jab. 24, 2026 -The polar vortex is a ribbon of high-altitude, fast-moving air that traps cold air as it circles the planet’s Arctic region in a counterclockwise direction. But occasionally, the polar vortex stretches into an oval shape, weakens and allows a blob of cold air to spill south into North America.

  That’s what’s happening this week. A mass of cold Arctic air is colliding with a warm, moist high-pressure system moving west from California, producing a sprawling area of freezing rain, ice and snow across much of the Midwest, Southern and Eastern United States.

• • Should the Climate Fight Shift Focus From
  Curbing Emissions to Reducing Human Suffering?

  What to Expect In Your Area

  
  

  Jan. 22, 2026 - As 2025 was winding down, Bill Gates published this letter, explaining how his views on climate change have changed. And, this being the internet, it set off a swath of reactions and hot takes of varying quality.

  But at the heart of his argument was a provocative question. The climate movement is now about 45 years old, and the UN concluded its 30th climate change conference last year. Have we reached a point at which our focus should shift, even subtly, from emissions reduced to lives improved?

• • How This Brutal Winter Storm is Even Possible With Climate Change

  And Maybe Even More Likely
  
  {CNN Climate}
  
  

  Jan 22, 2026 -The frigid temperatures, massive snow and deadly ice storm taking shape east of the Rockies might seem to conflict with life on a rapidly warming planet. But all of these things still happen, even with climate change, and some of them could be even more severe than before when the conditions are right.

  Bone-chilling cold is becoming less common and severe as the world warms — cold comfort for millions of people about to experience a prolonged period of frigid temperatures. Winter is the fastest-warming season in the US, and even this winter so far, warm temperature records have been outnumbering cold records in the Lower 48 states.

• • Half the World’s 100 Largest Cities Are in High Water Stress Areas

  Beijing, Delhi, Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro Among Worst Affected

  
  

  Jan. 22, 2026 -Half the world’s 100 largest cities are experiencing high levels of water stress, with 38 of these sitting in regions of “extremely high water stress”, new analysis and mapping has shown.

  Water stress means that water withdrawals for public water supply and industry are close to exceeding available supplies, often caused by poor management of water resources exacerbated by climate breakdown.

• • Mozambique Counts 13 Dead in Floods So Far

  But Toll Expected to Rise

  
  

  Jan. 22, 2026 - Mozambique authorities on Thursday reported 13 deaths from severe floods over the past two weeks, though the figure is expected to rise sharply, with aid workers saying they expect more bodies to be found as waters recede.

  The country has been hit with heavy rains that caused rivers and dams to overflow, submerging towns and affecting more than half a million people. Parts of neighbouring South Africa were also flooded.

• • A California Climate Expert Is Working
  to Restore Climate Risk Scores Deleted by Zillow

  The Real Estate Website Scrubbed the Data Under Pressure From California’s Real Estate Brokers and Agents Who Were Concerned About Its Impact On Home Prices

  
  

  Jan. 20, 2026 -Even as exposure to floods, fire and extreme heat increase in the face of climate change, a popular tool for evaluating risk has disappeared from the nation’s leading real estate website.

  Zillow removed the feature displaying climate risk data to home buyers in November after the California Regional Multiple Listing Service, which provides a database of real estate listings to real estate agents and brokers in the state, questioned the accuracy of the flood risk models on the site.

• • A Winter Drought Grips the U.S.

  Most of the Country Faces Unusual Dryness Or Drought

  
  

  Jan. 20, 2026 -January is known for cold weather, snow and a lack of daylight. It’s not known for drought.

  But that’s exactly what’s going on across much of the United States.

  More than two-thirds of the country is facing unusual dryness or drought, stretching from the Pacific Northwest to the East Coast, touching every state except California. The stretch since July has been the driest period nationally since 2012.

• • Early January Australian Heatwave Made 5 Times More Likely

  Australia Just Recorded Its Most Severe Heatwave Since 2019
  
  {EARTH.ORG}
  
  

  Jan. 13, 2026 -Human-caused climate change made the intense heatwave that hit parts of Australia earlier this month five times more likely, an analysis has concluded.

  The country just recorded its most severe heatwave since 2019, when extreme weather conditions fueled what have become known as the Australian Black Summer fires. Maximum temperatures across southeastern Australia were consistently above 40C between January 7-9, topping 44.4C in Melbourne on January 9.

• • One of the Biggest Storms in Years is Near

  What to Expect In Your Area

  
  

  Jan. 22, 2026 - A massive winter storm is about to clobber much of the Lower 48, bringing high-end totals of snow, ice and sleet to a swath more than 1,500 miles long. Winter storm watches and warnings stretch from Arizona and New Mexico all the way to New England. The storm is already beginning to form off the California Coast.

  Snow and ice will start on Friday across the Rockies and Plains, push into the South, Midwest and Appalachians on Saturday, then reach the East Coast on Sunday. The storm will bring dangerous travel conditions and probably road closures.

• • As Winter Warms, Olympic Athletes,
  Organizers Hunt for Elusive Snow

  Future Games Will Need to Be Held at Higher Altitudes, and Spread Over Multiple Venues to adapt to a Changing Climate
  
  
  

  Jan. 21, 2026 -As an elite cross-country skier who grew up in Alaska, Gus Schumacher is used to training and racing in biting cold and driving snowstorms. But in recent years, Mr. Schumacher, who is preparing to compete in several events at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics next month in Italy, has been skiing through wet, mushy snow surrounded by barren hillsides.

  “It’s entirely man-made snow and kind of brown on the sides,” Mr. Schumacher said about some of his recent competitions. “It’s not the nicest way to ski.”

• • Antarctic Penguins Have Radically Shifted Their Breeding Season

  Seemingly In Response to Climate Change
  
  

  Jan. 20, 2026 -Penguins in Antarctica have radically shifted their breeding season, apparently as a response to climate change, research has found.

  Dramatic shifts in behaviour were revealed by a decade-long study led by Penguin Watch at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, with some penguins’ breeding period moving forward by more than three weeks.

  The changes threaten to disrupt penguins’ access to food, increasing concerns for their survival. “We are very concerned because these penguins are advancing their season so much, and penguins are now breeding earlier than in any known records,” said the report’s lead author, Dr Ignacio Juarez Martínez.

• • Skies Clear, and a New Outpost Springs
  Up at the Bottom of the World

  Low Clouds Have Lifted Long Enough for Helicopters to Ferry Scientists and Their Gear to a Fast-Melting Glacier on the Edge of Antarctica
  
  
  

  Jan. 20, 2026 -After a series of weather delays threatened to derail their mission, scientists on Monday managed at last to set up camp on Antarctica’s remote and fast-melting Thwaites Glacier. For the next few weeks, they will be attempting a difficult but vital operation.

  They aim to bore half a mile through the ice and place instruments in the warming ocean waters below, giving the world a rare, close-up look at how this gargantuan glacier is being corroded by the sea. Researchers fear that Thwaites’s thinning could someday trigger its total collapse, which would raise sea levels around the globe.

• • Floods in Mozambique Displace More
  Than 300,000 People in One Province

  This According to the Governor
  
  {AP News}
  
  

  Jan. 19, 2026 -More than 300,000 people have been displaced by flooding in a province in Mozambique, its governor said Monday. Authorities had already announced that around 40% of the Gaza province has been submerged by floodwater following weeks of torrential rain in parts of southern Africa.

  Mozambican President Daniel Chapo has canceled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, because of the severe flooding impacting central and southern parts of the country, according to the state-run daily newspaper Noticias.

• • How the US Climate Progress, at Home and Abroad

  One Year of Trump
  
  {EARTH.ORG}
  
  

  Jan. 20, 2026 -2025 was a pivotal year for US climate policy. Since assuming office for his second term, Donald Trump has taken sweeping actions to reverse America’s environmental agenda and withdraw from international commitments. These moves have fundamentally altered the nation’s role in the global fight against climate change, a crisis the President has dismissed as a “con job”.

  A long-time defender of planet-warming fossil fuels, Trump’s focus has been on strengthening ties with the industry in spite of the countless climate commitments the US has made at home and on an international level. From a former fracking executive taking the reins of the Energy Department to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) packed with political appointees who formerly lobbied for the chemical and fossil fuel sectors, Trump has surrounded himself with the right people to execute his anti-climate agenda.

• • Study Measures the Toll of Climate
  Change In Rio De Janeiro Favelas

  Heat Inequalitye
  
  
  

  Jan. 19, 2026 - Michele Campos feels like crying every summer when temperatures in Rio de Janeiro climb above 40°C (100°F), heating up the cement that covers every corner of the favela of Chapeu Mangueira where she lives and making life unbearable in her windowless bedroom.

  “Sleeping is the worst part," said the 39-year-old. "In the favela we experience the heat in a very different way from people who can afford air conditioning."

• The National Climate Change Assessment
• 6 Things We Can Do About Climate Change
• Climate Change Positive Thoughts (free e-Book)
• Get the Climate Lab Book
• Interactive Climate Map 2050 (CC Consequences)
• The People's Dosier on Climate Change

• Global Warming Report from NOAA
• Another Good Global Warming Resource
• More Climate Change Resources
• NY Times Climate Forward: (Climate Change Q&A)
• Carbon Fee & Dividend Video
• Interactive Air Pollution Map 2100