You may have heard about El Niño — the natural, recurring phenomenon that releases heat from the ocean into the atmosphere, influencing temperature and precipitation around the world. Its effects will differ this fall and winter depending on where you live, but heavy rainfall, flooding, and snowfall are some of...
What to expect as world leaders gather for COP31
World leaders convene in Antalya, Turkey, on Monday for the United Nations’ 31st Conference of the Parties, or COP31, after another year of deadly climate disasters. Forest fires in Canada, Indonesia, and Brazil impacted millions of people. Heat waves contributed to more than 50,000 deaths in Europe. Floods prompted by...
A monstrous El Niño has arrived. Here’s what it means for where you live.
A monster is growing in the Pacific — not the kraken, but something far scarier and deadlier. El Niño is a natural phenomenon in which a band of warm water forms every three to five years off the coast of South America. It raises ocean water temperatures by just a...
2 years after Mexico relocated their climate-ravaged community, residents struggle to adapt
It’s 3 a.m. and the beach in El Bosque, in southeast Mexico, is humming with small talk and laughter as Viviana Velázquez eases out of her hammock and dashes to the shoreline to greet a boat returning with the night’s catch. Velázquez, 38, and her 13-year-old daughter, Marlene, help the...
As the Colorado River shrinks, calls to drain Lake Powell grow
The 27-year-long drought in the Southwestern U.S. — the longest dry period in the last 1,200 years — is taking a serious toll on the flow of the Colorado River. Climate change is shrinking the snowpack in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, the source of roughly 80 percent of the river’s annual...
These cranberry bogs come with a side of solar
It’s cranberry season in southeastern Massachusetts. At bogs throughout the region, growers are collecting the ruby-red berries destined for holiday cakes, juice bottles, and cans of jellied sauce. At two farms, however, the harvesting process looks a little different: Pickers are navigating equipment around metal poles in the shade of...
Glaciers around the world are endangered — but no two are alike
Part of my work as a geographer and glacier scientist involves traveling around the world. Literally. Several times a year, I join expeditions, traversing continents and oceans, sometimes half the planet, in mere days. I’ve visited glaciers in some startling places — like Uganda’s Stanley Glacier, where ice retreat influences human...
Plastic pollution is putting an old legal doctrine to a new test
Plastic pollution blights the streets, beaches, parks, and lawns of Baltimore. A significant amount of that litter bears the circular red-and-blue Pepsi logo or the flowing white script of Coca-Cola’s branding. But, legally speaking, none of that rubbish is Pepsi’s fault. Or Coke’s. That’s what a Baltimore city circuit court...
Democrats take control of Georgia’s powerful utility regulator
Beginning in January, three of the five officials on the Georgia Public Service Commission will be Democrats. It will be the first time the party has controlled the powerful energy regulation board in 30 years. The commission, which regulates utilities including the state’s largest electric provider, Georgia Power, has come...
Extreme flooding in the Southwest foreshadows a wild El Niño winter
The Southwest just got way too much of a good thing. Last weekend, a ferocious storm inundated communities and killed at least four people. Though precipitation is an essential component of Arizona’s desert climate, the state got two or three months’ worth of it in just a few days —...