Spain – Desdemona Despair

Twenty-first century groundwater-level trends in globally distributed monitoring wells. Each point represents one monitoring well, coloured to represent the Theil–Sen trend of annual median groundwater levels during the twenty-first century. Blue and red points indicate shallowing and deepening, respectively, of groundwater levels over time, with darker colours indicating faster rates. a, Spatial distributions of groundwater-level trends in globally distributed monitoring wells. b–o, Regional maps illustrating the substantial spatial variability in groundwater-level trends. Supplementary Notes 16 and 17 show monitoring wells and their groundwater-level trends at subcontinental scales (Supplementary Note 16) and in 207 individual aquifer systems. Graphic: Jasechko, et al., 2024 / Nature

April 28, 2024

Groundwater resources are drying up across the globe – “Climate variability and change can impact water supplies underground as well as above-ground”

By Matthew Rozsa 24 January 2024 (Salon) – Humans rely on groundwater for many things, but especially our food. Roughly 30 percent of all the planet’s available freshwater comes from groundwater, or water that is found underground in the spaces between rocks, soil and sand. It is primarily used for agriculture and billions of humans are dependent […]

Heavy rainfall caused catastrophic flooding in Derna, northeastern Libya, on 11 September 2023. Photo: AFP / Getty Images

September 30, 2023

Horrific Libya flooding made up to 50 times more likely by planet-warming pollution, scientists find – “Through these events we are already seeing how climate change and human factors can combine to create compounding and cascading impacts”

By Laura Paddison 19 September 2023 (CNN) – The deadly rainfall which caused catastrophic flooding and destruction in Libya, as well as other parts of the Mediterranean, this month was made much more likely and worse by the human-caused climate crisis, in addition to other human factors, according to a new scientific analysis [Interplay of climate change-exacerbated […]

This map shows global temperature anomalies for July 2023 according to the GISTEMP analysis by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Temperature anomalies reflect how July 2023 compared to the average July temperature from 1951-1980. Graphic: NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies

August 20, 2023

NASA announces July 2023 was hottest month on record – “The science is clear this isn’t normal”

By Sheri Walsh 14 August 2023 (UPI) – July 2023 was the hottest month on record in 143 years, as Americans felt “the effects of the climate crisis,” scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York announced Monday. According to NASA, July 2023 was on average 0.43 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than any […]

Map showing global water stress projected to 2050. By 2050, an additional 1 billion people are expected to live with extremely high water stress, even if the world limits global temperature rise to 1.3 degrees C to 2.4 degrees C (2.3 degrees F to 4.3 degrees F) by 2100, an optimistic scenario. Global water demand is projected to increase by 20 percent to 25 percent by 2050, while the number of watersheds facing high year-to-year variability, or less predictable water supplies, is expected to increase by 19 percent. Data: wri.org/aqueduct. Graphic: WRI

August 20, 2023

25 countries, housing one-quarter of the population, face extremely high water stress – By 2050, an additional 1 billion people will live with extremely high water stress

By Samantha Kuzma, Liz Saccoccia, and Marlena Chertock 16 August 2023 (WRI) – New data from WRI’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas show that 25 countries — housing one-quarter of the global population — face extremely high water stress each year, regularly using up almost their entire available water supply. And at least 50% of the world’s population […]

Maximum July temperatures averaged over the length of the heat events defined for the WWA study published on 25 July 2023 (left-hand side) and the same but expressed in anomalies with respect to 1950-2023 (right-hand side). The first row shows the Western USA and Mexico, the second Southern Europe and the third row China. Graphic: World Weather Attribution

August 5, 2023

Extreme heat in North America, Europe, and China in July 2023 made much more likely by global warming – Without human-induced climate change these heat events would have been extremely rare: China heatwave would have been a 1 in 250-year event, and max heat like in July 2023 would have been virtually impossible in the U.S./Mexico region and Southern Europe

25 July 2023 (World Weather Attribution) – Following a record hot June, large areas of the US and Mexico, Southern Europe and China experienced extreme heat in July 2023, breaking many local high temperature records. July 2023 saw extreme heatwaves in several parts of the Northern Hemisphere, including the Southwest of the US and Mexico, […]

Map of regional temperature anomaly and heat-related mortality rate in Europe during the summer of 2022. a, Regional temperature anomaly (°C) averaged over the summer. b–f, Regional heat-related mortality rate (summer deaths per million) aggregated over the summer for the whole population (b), women aged 65–79 years (c), men aged 65–79 years (d), women aged 80+ years (e) and men aged 80+ years (f). Summer refers to the 14-week period between 30 May and 4 September 2022 (weeks 22–35). Graphic: Ballester, et al., 2023 / Nature Medicine

July 23, 2023

Study finds possibility that more Europeans died because of heat in 2022 than any year in recorded history

By Alice Park 10 July 2023 (TIME) – As the Earth continues to warm, the rising temperatures are contributing to a number of health conditions that are in turn driving up mortality. And for the first time, scientists have figured out a more detailed way to estimate how many deaths can be attributed to heat. […]

Map showing temperatures around the world and numbers of people killed by heatwaves, 4 July 2023. Data: Zoom Earth. Graphic: Anadolu Agency / Getty

July 8, 2023

Striking map charts deadly heatwaves killing people around the world in 2023

By Katherine Fidler 5 July 2023 (Metro) – A striking map [by Anadolu Agency –Des] shows how soaring temperatures are affecting people around the world – 48 hours after the world recorded its hottest-ever day. Using June as a snapshot, the infographic highlights just some of the regions struck by intense heat – including the […]

Temperature forecast for the Iberian Peninsula during the week of 26 June 2023. Graphic: AEMET

July 3, 2023

Spain weathers scorching temperatures as heatwaves become more frequent – “In the last 12 years the frequency of heatwaves in June has tripled”

MADRID, 26 June 2023 (Reuters) – Areas of southern Spain such as Seville and Cordoba registered scorching temperatures of up to 44 degrees Celsius (111.2 Fahrenheit) on Monday as the first heatwave of the summer hit the Iberian country, sending people to seek shade from a blistering sun. Heatwaves in June have become more frequent […]

A man carries his mother as he arrives at an emergency ward at a hospital in Ballia District in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, 21 June 2023. Photo: Adnan Abidi / REUTERS

July 2, 2023

Climate nears point of no return as land, sea temperatures break records, experts say – “We’ve run out of time because change takes time”

By David Stanway 30 June 2023 SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The target of keeping long-term global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) is moving out of reach, climate experts say, with nations failing to set more ambitious goals despite months of record-breaking heat on land and sea. As envoys gathered in Bonn in early June […]

A view of the drought that affected the Los Bermejales reservoir, which was at 18 percent of its capacity in Arenas del Rey in Granada, Spain, on 13 May 2023. Photo: Anadolu Agency / Getty Images

June 11, 2023

Europe is struggling with a precarious water situation ahead of another drought-riven summer in 2023 – “A few years ago, I would never have imagined that water would be a problem here in Europe, especially in Germany or Austria”

By Sam Meredith 5 June 2023 (CNBC) – European policymakers are battling to get to grips with a growing water crisis ahead of what researchers fear could be yet another climate crisis-fueled summer of drought. Water resources in Europe are growing increasingly scarce because of the deepening climate emergency, with record-breaking temperatures through spring and a historic winter […]