UN weather agency issues 'red alert' on climate change after record heat, ice-melt increases in 2023
The U.N. weather agency is sounding a โred alertโ about global warming, citing record-smashing increases last year in greenhouse gases, land and water temperatures and melting of glaciers and sea ice.
UN agency cites worrying warming trend as COP28 summit grapples with curbing climate change
The U.N. weather agency is reporting that glaciers shrank more than ever from 2011 and 2020 and the Antarctic ice sheet lost 75 percent more compared to the previous ten years, as it released its latest stark report about the fallout on the planet from climate change.
UN weather agency says 2023 is the hottest year on record, warns of further climate extremes ahead
The U.N. weather agency says 2023 is all but certain to be the hottest year on record, and warning of worrying trends that suggest increasing floods, wildfires, glacier melt, and heat waves in the future.
July has been so blistering hot, scientists already calculate that it's the warmest month on record
July has been so hot so far that scientists calculate that this month will be the globally hottest on record and likely the warmest human civilization has seen, even though there are several days left to sweat through.
UN agency: 2M killed, $4.3 trillion in damages from extreme weather over past half-century
The U.N. weather agency reported Monday that nearly 12,000 extreme weather, climate and water-related events over much of the past half-century around the globe have killed more than 2 million people and caused economic damage of $4.3 trillion.
Flirting with climate danger: UN forecasts 2 in 3 chance of briefly hitting key heat limit soon
The United Nations' weather agency says there's a two-out-of-three chance that the world will reach the internationally accepted global temperature threshold for limiting the worst effects of climate change sometime in the next five years.
Bye Alpha, Eta: Greek alphabet ditched for hurricane names
(NOAA via AP)With named storms coming earlier and more often in warmer waters, the Atlantic hurricane season is going through some changes with meteorologists ditching the Greek alphabet during busy years. The Greek alphabet had only been used twice in 2005 and nine times last year in a record-shattering hurricane season. AdMeanwhile, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration is recalculating just what constitutes an average hurricane season. STARTING EARLIERMIT hurricane researcher Kerry Emanuel said โthis whole idea of hurricane season should be revisited." So a warming world means the new normal is busy hurricane seasons just like the last 30 years.
UN calls on humanity to end 'war on nature,' go carbon-free
โThere is at least a one-in-five chance of it temporarily exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2024,โ WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said. The Paris climate accord set a goal of not exceeding 1.5-degree (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming since pre-industrial times. --Death Valley, California, hit 129.9 degrees (54.4 degrees Celsius), the hottest the world has seen in 80 years. --Record wildfires struck California and Colorado in the western United States, following a major fire season and record heat in Australia. --The Arctic had record wildfires and a prolonged heat wave culminating in a 100-degree mark (38 degrees Celsius) in Siberia in June.
National Hurricane Center goes Greek with 3 new storms on Friday
The National Hurricane Center wasted no time moving onto the Greek alphabet -- only the second time since the 1950s. The only time the hurricane center dipped into the Greek alphabet was the deadly 2005 hurricane season, which included Hurricane Katrinaโs strike on New Orleans. Tropical Storm Beta will meander along the Texas coastline over the next 5 days. pic.twitter.com/YsrpliN9fF โ National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 18, 2020Whatโs Next? The supercharged Atlantic hurricane season has produced so many named storms that scientists ran out of traditional names as Tropical Storm Wilfred developed in the eastern Atlantic.
Why isnt there a Q hurricane name?
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. Weve only got four names left unused (Sally, teddy, Vicky, & Wilfred) on the 2020 Hurricane names list and we are approaching the peak of the Atlantic Hurricane Season. Once we exhaust those names we move on to the Greek Alphabet for storm names like Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, Epsilon, etc. While there are 26 letters in our traditional alphabet, there are only 22 storm names on the annual hurricane lists, skipping letters like Q, U, X, and Z. There are six rotation lists of names that the WMO uses for hurricane names. The 2005 hurricane season has the most retired names five for one season.
UN agency laments summer's 'deep wound' to Earth's ice cover
GENEVA The United Nations weather agency says this summer will go down for leaving a deep wound in the cryosphere -- the planets frozen parts -- amid a heat wave in the Arctic, shrinking sea ice and the collapse of a leading Canadian ice shelf. The weather agency said in a statement that many new temperature records have been set in recent months, including in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk. The town, located in Siberia above the Arctic Circle line, reached 38 degrees Celsius (100 F) on June 20. She noted a heat wave across the Arctic, r ecord-breaking wildfires in Siberia, nearly record-low sea ice extent, and the collapse of one of the last fully intact Canadian ice shelves. The WMO is preparing to release on Sept. 9 a report on the impact of climate change on the cryosphere.
Lightning bolt the length of Florida sets new world record
The United States recently handed the world record for longest lightning flash over to Brazil. A separate megaflash set a record in Argentina for the longest reported single lightning bolt duration. The previous record for the longest detected distance for a single lightning flash was 199.5 miles on June 20, 2007, across Oklahoma. The previous record for duration was for a single lightning flash that lasted continuously for 7.74 seconds over Provence-Alpes-Cte dAzur, France, was broken after experts confirmed a 16.73-second-long single lightning flash 16.73 that developed continuously over northern Argentina on March 4, 2019. Satellite image of record duration of lightning flash, Argentina, March 4, 2019.
UN evaluates reports of record Arctic heat in Siberia
In this handout photo provided by Olga Burtseva, children play in the Krugloe lake outside Verkhoyansk, the Sakha Republic, about 4660 kilometers (2900 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia, Sunday, June 21, 2020. A Siberian town that endures the world's widest temperature range has recorded a new high amid a hear wave that is contributing to severe forest fires. Russia's meteorological service said the thermometer hit 38 Celsius (100.4 F) on Saturday in Verkhoyansk, in the Sakha Republic about 4660 kilometers (2900 miles) northeast of Moscow. (Olga Burtseva via AP)GENEVA The U.N. weather agency is investigating media reports suggesting a new record high temperature of over 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Arctic Circle amid a heatwave and prolonged wildfires in eastern Siberia. The World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday that its looking to verify the temperature reading on Saturday in the Russian town of Verkoyansk with Roshydromet, the Russian federal service for hydro-meteorological and environmental monitoring.