What Is A Hurricane Storm Surge and Why Is It So Dangerous?

As Hurricane Sally headed for the northern Gulf Coast on Tuesday, September 15, 2020, forecasters warned of a potentially life-threatening storm surge, with water levels that could rise as high as 7 feet in some areas.

What is driving the wildfires that are ravaging California, Oregon and Washington? President Trump and state officials have offered sharply different views.

Methane is a shorter-lived greenhouse gas - why do we average it out over 100 years? By doing so, do we risk emitting so much in the upcoming decades that we reach climate tipping points?

Our approach to climate change for the past 30 years is simply not working. Greenhouse gas emissions in Canada in the year 2018 (the last year for which we have statistics) were almost exactly where they were in the year 2000.

As the world warms and the atmosphere becomes increasingly fertilised with carbon dioxide, trees are growing ever faster.

Extreme weather and climate events causing extensive damage are a fact of the Canadian climate, and this year is no exception.

Ice cores are columns of ice drilled through glaciers that are highly versatile and detailed recorders of Earth’s climate and environment that cover hundreds to many thousands of years.

Anyone who’s tending a garden right now knows what extreme heat can do to plants. Heat is also a concern for an important form of underwater gardening: growing corals and “outplanting,” or transplanting them to restore damaged reefs.

Are we headed for a period with lower Solar activity, i.e. sunspots? How long will it last? What happens to our world when global warming and the end of this period converge?

How often do you strike up a conversation with an older relative about the past? You might switch off when someone begins a sentence with “back in my day…”,

Thirty years ago, in a small Swedish city called Sundsvall, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its first major report.

Hurricane Laura blew up quickly as it headed for the Louisiana coast, intensifying from a tropical storm to a major hurricane in less than 24 hours.

Thunderstorms are common across North America, especially in warm weather months. About 10% of them become severe, meaning they produce hail 1 inch or greater in diameter, winds gusting in excess of 50 knots (57.5 miles per hour), or a tornado.

Massive ice-sheets covered northern Europe and northern Asia, and about half of North America, and global sea-levels were as much as 130 meters lower than today.

As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity.

In new research, we have identified what we call 12 “discourses of delay”. These are ways of speaking and writing about climate change that are commonly used by politicians, media commentators and industry spokespeople.

Humanity is not doomed, not now or even in a worst-case scenario in 2030. But avoiding doom — either the end or widespread collapse of civilisation — is setting a pretty low bar. We can aim much higher than that without shying away from reality.

The Arctic heat wave that sent Siberian temperatures soaring to around 100 degrees Fahrenheit on the first day of summer put an exclamation point on an astonishing transformation of the Arctic environment that’s been underway for about 30 years.

Heat may kill more people in the US than previously reported, according to a new study.

When the southern Great Plains of the US were blighted with a series of droughts in the 1930s, it had an unparalled impact on the whole country.

The explosive growth and success of human society over the past 10,000 years has been underpinned by a distinct range of climate conditions.

Climate scientists use mathematical models to project the Earth’s future under a warming world, but a group of the latest models have included unexpectedly high values for a measure called “climate sensitivity”.

Changes in ocean circulation may have caused a shift in Atlantic Ocean ecosystems not seen for the past 10,000 years, new analysis of deep-sea fossils has revealed.

Humanity has only recently become accustomed to a stable climate. For most of its history, long ice ages punctuated with hot spells alternated with short warm periods. 

The Arctic is predicted to warm faster than anywhere else in the world this century, perhaps by as much as 7°C.

Up to half of the world’s sandy beaches are at risk of disappearing by the end of this century if no action is taken to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

I recently watched an interview with David Attenborough, in which he was asked whether there is hope that things can get better for our planet. 

Successful implementation of the Paris agreement targets could help reduce extinctions considerably, possibly to 16% or less by 2070, according to lead author Cristian Román-Palacios.

Evidence suggests the number of species going extinct, and the rate at which they disappear, is increasing dramatically.

The world’s largest polar research expedition is currently underway in the Arctic. The year-long expedition, known as the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC), involves 300 researchers from 19 countries.

The Bank for International Settlements – the “central bank” for central banks – made headlines with a report outlining how the next major financial crisis may come from unexpected climate risks.

Between the summer of 2015 and the spring of 2016, a marine heatwave swept the northern Pacific Ocean that was hotter and lasted longer than any since records began in 1870.

For over a quarter of a century, United Nations climate negotiations have failed to reach a legally binding treaty.

2019 might well be remembered as the year the world caught fire. Some 2.9 million hectares of eastern Australia have been incinerated in the past few months, an area roughly the same size as Belgium.

The catastrophic bushfires raging across much of Australia have not only taken a huge human and economic toll, but also delivered heavy blows to biodiversity and ecosystem function.

The 12 Days of Christmas is a song that promises a great deal, but there’s a line that carollers may have to omit in future.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) recently declared climate change a health emergency, reflecting similar positions taken by a growing list of peak medical bodies around the world.

Modern society has given significant attention to the promises of the digital economy over the past decade. But it has given little attention to its negative environmental footprint.

From Sudan to Syria to Bangladesh, climate change is often presented as a powerful and simple root cause of violent conflict and mass migration.

Almost 40% of global land plant species are very rare, and these species are most at risk for extinction as the climate continues to change, according to new research.

People who directly depend on the natural world for their livelihoods, like farmers and fishers, will be among the greatest victims of the climate crisis.

The fossil fuel industry, political lobbyists, media moguls and individuals have spent the past 30 years sowing doubt about the reality of climate change - where none exists. The latest estimate is that

A new modeling approach can help us better understand how policy decisions will influence human migration as sea levels rise across the globe.

Growing up in Tanzania, I knew that fruit trees were useful. Climbing a mango tree to pick a fruit was a common thing to do when I was hungry, even though at times there were unintended consequences.

One year ago, the international scientific community could hardly have expected that Greta Thunberg, a teenager from Sweden, would become one of its greatest allies.

For more than 3.5 billion years, living organisms have thrived, multiplied and diversified to occupy every ecosystem on Earth.

The concept of a canary in a coal mine – a sensitive species that provides an alert to danger – originated with British miners, who carried actual canaries underground through the mid-1980s to detect the presence of deadly carbon monoxide gas.

We live in an era — the Anthropocene — where humans and societies are reshaping and changing ecosystems.

The grasslands of the Canadian Prairies are a hidden gem for bird watchers, with millions of migratory birds passing through the area each year. 

Exactly 40 years ago, a small group of scientists met at the world’s first climate conference in Geneva. They raised the alarm about unnerving climate trends.

The Golden State is on fire, which means that an idea of American utopia is on fire, too.

Climate change may cause a dramatic drop in rice production in major growing regions, a decline that could jeopardize critical food supplies, researchers report.

In a shocking report the US Army's assessment of its future under the unfolding climate crisis, every American should pause and so should other countries' military.

At the beginning of October 2019, my kids’ preschool informed me that it might be closed the next day because of rolling blackouts — a radical new effort by our local power utility in Northern California to avoid sparking wildfires.

Butterflies are rather like Goldilocks, preferring conditions to be neither too hot nor too cold, but “just right”.

As a climate scientist of more than 25 years, I’m proud of the work my profession has done in recent decades to alert humanity to the unfolding climate crisis

Shoreline recreational fishing will likely be another casualty of climate change, according to new research.

The relationship between a heating planet and violent clashes is complex — and critical. “This is where I keep my weapon,” said Lolem, a young Karamojong cattle herder.

When Hurricane Michael made landfall on Florida’s Panhandle on Oct. 10, 2018, as a Category 5 storm it was only the fourth on record to have ever hit the U.S. mainland. 

As I write this, much of inland eastern Australia is enduring what is likely to be the worst drought ever recorded.

Just like us, the natural world dances to the rhythms of its seasonal cycles. We all enjoy the first suggestions of spring as trees come into leaf, migrant birds arrive, bees and butterflies emerge, and men in cities start wearing shorts.

Thousands of school students across Australia joined in the global protest calling for action on climate change.

Eco-anxiety is likely to affect more and more people as the climate destabilises. Already, studies have found that 45% of children suffer lasting depression after surviving extreme weather and natural disasters.

Canadians across the country say their allergies are getting worse. 

Is climate change making spiders more aggressive? A recent scientific study suggests so, as the researchers link aggressiveness to tropical cyclones, events that are expected to become more frequent and powerful with climate change

Fire emissions from wildfires can contribute to cardiovascular disease hundreds of miles from the flames, according to new r

esearch.

Up to 800,000 hectares of the unique Chiquitano forest were burned to the ground in Bolivia between August 18 and August 23.

Today, dry areas represent more than 41% of land on the globe and they are home to more than two billion people.

In addition to the ecological impact, the devastation invasive pests wreak on trees reduces carbon storage equivalent to the amount of carbon emitted by 5 million vehicles each year.

Poor on-the-ground monitoring makes it impossible to know which city is the world’s most polluted, according to new research.

Every year, without fail, summer brings changes to our surroundings: more sunlight, heat, greenness and flowers, among many others.

In its latest report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change describes how agriculture, deforestation, and other human activities have altered 70% of the land on Earth’s surface.

Governments at all levels invest a lot in greening Australian suburbs. Yet, in a recent report, we show that the greening efforts of most of our metropolitan local governments are actually going backwards.

Our earth is very old. Based on the estimation of the oldest rock, it’s around 4.5 billion years of age. Scientists from all over the world use astronomy, geology, chemistry, biology, archaeology and other sciences to investigate the Earth’s formation as well as the emergence and extinction of life on Earth.

Climate change has fundamentally changed the nature of the risk for homeowners and insurance companies alike. 

While in many countries new cars, domestic appliances, and even houses now have mandatory energy efficiency disclosures, air travel’s carbon footprint is largely invisible, despite it being relatively much bigger.

Media coverage of mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef may have been a major tipping point for public concerns around climate change, according to research published today.

"There is no denying it: The longer we wait to take bold action to curb emissions, the higher the costs will be for all of us."

Urban Canadians are feeling the impact of climate change. Flooding in Quebec this spring damaged nearly 1,900 homes in 126 municipalities, causing widespread psychological distress.

Global climate change is endangering small island countries, many of them developing nations, potentially harming their ability to function as independent states.

Doctors and economists may seem like strange partners. We spend our days working on very different problems in very different settings.

President Donald Trump has long made blocking the thousands of Central Americans who head to the southern U.S. border, most of them seeking asylum, from entering and staying in the country a top priority.

As concern grows over human-induced climate change, many scientists are looking back through Earth’s history to events that can shed light on changes occurring today.

The 2018 summer heatwave in the UK broke records – and it won’t be the last spell of such severe heat. In fact, climate change means that hot summers which would once occur twice a century may soon occur twice a decade.

Antarctica is further from civilisation than any other place on Earth. The Greenland ice sheet is closer to home but around one tenth the size of its southern sibling. 

The world has witnessed a shocking series of disastrous events in 2017. Devastating hurricanes and Mexico’s 7.1 magnitude earthquake were just some of the catastrophes to captivate our collective attention.

The claim that humanity only has just over a decade left due to climate change is based on a misunderstanding.

In a post-apocalyptic future, what might happen to life if humans left the scene? After all, humans are very likely to disappear long before the sun expands into a red giant and exterminates all living things from the Earth.

Around the world, the health care debate often revolves around access. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, recently announced: “All roads lead to universal health coverage.”

Managed retreat in the face of sea level rise will be a mixed bag, researchers predict.

The Sierra Nevada mountain streams that naturalist John Muir extolled are now in peril, research finds.

Nearly half a billion more people could be at risk for contracting mosquito-borne diseases in the next 30 years as a result of climate change.

Flooding in the Midwest, triggered by an intense “bomb cyclone,” has devastated parts of the region, which has been plagued by flood events in recent decades.

The dire climate change situation continues to make headlines and inspire actions like the Sunrise Movement.

Many parts of Queensland have been declared disaster zones and thousands of residents evacuated due to a 1-in-100-year flood.

Many parts of Australia have suffered a run of severe and, in some cases, unprecedented weather events this summer.

Due to food shortages related to climate change, the Earth may experience a net increase of 529,000 adult deaths by 2050, according to a new review article published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A record-breaking cold wave is sending literal shivers down the spines of millions of Americans. Temperatures across the upper Midwest are forecast to fall an astonishing 50 degrees Fahrenheit (28 degrees Celsius) below normal this week – as low as 35 degrees below zero.

Rising temperatures are weakening the jet stream, allowing frigid Arctic air to reach further south.

Scientists say the answer is in the ice. Scientists know that sea levels have risen more in some places during the past century than in others.