Flooding fears as eye of the storm hits the coast with maximum sustained winds of 85mph
Isaias has made landfall in the Carolinas as a category 1 hurricane, bringing with it maximum sustained winds of 85mph (140km/h) and the threat of devastating floods.
The eye of Isaias hit the coast on Monday night near Ocean Isle beach in southern North Carolina, the National Hurricane Center said, hours after being upgraded from a tropical storm.
Continue reading...Scientists say human fingerprint on record temperatures has rarely if ever been clearer
The record-breaking heatwave in the Siberian Arctic was made at least 600 times more likely by human-caused climate change, according to a study.
Between January and June, temperatures in the far north of Russia were more than 5C above average, causing permafrost to melt, buildings to collapse, and sparking an unusually early and intense start to the forest fires season. On 20 June, a monitoring station in Verkhoyansk registered a record high of 38C.
Continue reading...Torrential rain and floods in the southern island have left at least 50 people dead or missing. Rescue workers are still combing through the wreckage of houses hit by flooding and landslides in after extreme weather hit the region. The death toll on Kyushu is expected to climb further
Continue reading...Badru Kyewalyanga’s home-produced cooking devices use less wood and mean villagers are breathing cleaner air
People are “constantly cutting down trees”, says Badru Kyewalyanga, as he squelches his bare feet into a thick paste of mud in Mukono, central Uganda. “But they have nowhere else to get firewood. The deforestation rate here is very high.”
With only 10% of Uganda’s rural population connected to the electrical grid, there is little option but to burn wood, leading to one of the worst deforestation rates in the world. Every year, 2.6% of the country’s forests are cut down for fuel, agriculture, and to make way for population growth. If things stay as they are, Uganda will lose all its forest cover in less than 25 years, the country’s National Environment Management Authority says.
Continue reading...Bihar state records one of the highest daily tolls from lightning in recent years as monsoon begins
At least 107 people have died from lightning strikes in northern and eastern India, officials said, during the early stages of the annual monsoon season.
Some 83 people were killed in the impoverished eastern state of Bihar after being struck by lightning, and another 24 died in northern Uttar Pradesh state. Dozens more were injured, officials said.
Continue reading...A large dust cloud has travelled from the Sahara and blanketed parts of the Caribbean in a weather event not seen for 50 years. Dubbed the 'Godzilla dust cloud', it has limited visibility and lowered air quality throughout the region. The mass of dusty air is known as the Saharan Air Layer and forms over the Sahara desert before typically moving across the North Atlantic in the northern hemisphere’s late spring to early autumn
Continue reading...Unusually high temperatures in region linked to wildfires, oil spill and moth swarms
A prolonged heatwave in Siberia is “undoubtedly alarming”, climate scientists have said. The freak temperatures have been linked to wildfires, a huge oil spill and a plague of tree-eating moths.
On a global scale, the Siberian heat is helping push the world towards its hottest year on record in 2020, despite a temporary dip in carbon emissions owing to the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...Record-breaking rainfall has devastated communities – and with thousands displaced and more rain predicted the picture is bleak
Using a short piece of nylon line with a hook at one end and a long thin stick on the other, a mechanic and a nightclub doorman have only caught one small fish all day.
“I’ve never been a fisherman before,” says Erick Ochieng on the edge of a flooded creek in the port city of Kisumu on the banks of Lake Victoria. “I used to work as a bouncer but nightclubs have closed. Sometimes my family sleeps without eating.”
Continue reading...Delhi braces for swarm while farmers in badly-hit north play loud music and honk car horns to try to prevent decimation of fields
Residents of Delhi are bracing themselves for a possible invasion of locusts, which have been ravaging areas in the north of the country.
A change in wind direction could save the city, but Dr K L Gurjar, deputy director of the Locust Warning Organisation, has warned residents to be prepared to “make a lot of loud noise so that instead of settling, they keep flying and fly past the city. And don’t panic”.
Continue reading...Strong winds tore down electricity pylons, walls and buildings, with full scale of damage still being estimated
The most powerful cyclone to hit Bangladesh and eastern India in more than 20 years tore down homes, carried cars down flooded streets and claimed the lives of up to 20 people.
Authorities began surveying the damage Thursday after millions spent a sleepless night which saw 165km/h (102mph) winds carrying away trees, electricity pylons, walls and roofs, and transformer stations exploding.
Continue reading...The Bay of Bengal’s fiercest storm this century, super-cyclone Amphan, has slammed into the coast of eastern India and Bangladesh, bringing heavy gales and the threat of deadly storm surges and flooding. Over 2 million people have been evacuated from their homes
Continue reading...Thousands of migrant workers left jobless by Covid-19 pandemic are still on the roads, and evacuations have been hampered by distancing rules
The Bay of Bengal’s fiercest storm this century – super cyclone Amphan – was bearing down on millions of people in eastern India and Bangladesh on Wednesday, with forecasts of a potentially devastating and deadly storm surge.
Authorities have scrambled to stage mass evacuations away from the path of Super Cyclone Amphan, which is only the second “super cyclone” to form in the north-eastern Indian Ocean since records began.
Continue reading...Scientists identify thousands of extreme events, suggesting stark warnings about global heating are already coming to pass
Intolerable bouts of extreme humidity and heat which could threaten human survival are on the rise across the world, suggesting that worst-case scenario warnings about the consequences of global heating are already occurring, a new study has revealed.
Related: One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years – study
Continue reading...Human cost of climate crisis will hit harder and sooner than previously believed, research reveals
The human cost of the climate crisis will hit harder, wider and sooner than previously believed, according to a study that shows a billion people will either be displaced or forced to endure insufferable heat for every additional 1C rise in the global temperature.
In a worst-case scenario of accelerating emissions, areas currently home to a third of the world’s population will be as hot as the hottest parts of the Sahara within 50 years, the paper warns. Even in the most optimistic outlook, 1.2 billion people will fall outside the comfortable “climate niche” in which humans have thrived for at least 6,000 years.
Continue reading...At least six people were killed after severe storms tore through a number of southern states late on Wednesday, adding to weeks of extreme weather that had already killed more than two dozen people and destroyed hundreds of homes.
Related: Tornadoes and storms hit US south as six killed in Mississippi
Continue reading...Research on events in Hawaii suggests climate crisis could increase eruptions around world
The spectacular eruptions of the Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii in 2018 were triggered by extreme rainfall in the preceding months, research suggests.
Scientists say the finding raises the possibility that climate breakdown, which is causing more extreme weather, could lead to an increase in eruptions around the world.
Continue reading...Findings confirm 11 of the 12 warmest years in Europe occurred in past two decades
Europe had its hottest year on record last year, new data has confirmed, with periods of exceptional heat last February, June and July, and one of the wettest Novembers on record.
Previous records were broken by only a small margin, but the findings confirmed that 11 out of the 12 warmest years in Europe have occurred in the past two decades, according to the European State of the Climate 2019 report, published on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Storms caused flooding, mudslides and power outages, killing 11 people in Mississippi and six people in Georgia
Severe weather has swept across the southern US, killing at least 19 people and damaging hundreds of homes from Louisiana into the Appalachian mountains.
Many spent part of the night sheltering in basements, closets and bathtubs as sirens wailed to warn of possible tornadoes.
Continue reading...A tornado strike destroyed homes and left a trail of devastation across large parts of the US south on Sunday. In northern Louisiana, up to 300 homes and other buildings were damaged, and utility companies reported thousands of power outages. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency confirmed at least six deaths in the state from the severe weather
Continue reading...Swallows and swifts on their annual flight from Africa to Europe have been found dead across Greece
Thousands of swallows and swifts migrating from Africa to Europe have been left dead by high winds battering Greece, bird watchers say.
The birds have been found in the streets of Athens, on apartment balconies in the capital, in the north, on Aegean islands and around a lake close to the seaport of Nauplia in the Peloponnese.
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