Dengue cases in Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras, 2023-2024 and 5-year average. In the Region of the Americas, the number of dengue cases recorded during the first half of 2024 exceeded the maximum number of cases historically reported in a year, as compared to all previously recorded years. As of epidemiological week (EW) 23 of 2024, 43 countries and territories in the Region of the Americas have reported 9,386,082 cases of dengue; this number is twice as high as the number of cases recorded throughout 2023, 4,617,108 cases. Data: Adapted from the Pan American Health Organization / PLISA Health Information Platform for the Americas, Dengue Indicators Portal, Washington, D.C. PAHO; 2024 cited 13 June 2024. Graphic: PAHO / WHO

Dengue fever: CDC issues alert amid U.S. and global spike in cases – In 2024, cases of dengue fever in the Americas have reached record-breaking levels, with more than 9.7 million reported cases, twice the number for the entire year in 2023

By Finn Cohen 27 June 2024 (Healthline) – As cases of dengue fever rise worldwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an advisory for physicians, public health authorities, and the public in the United States to be alert to the trend. So far in 2024, cases of dengue fever in countries in the Americas have reached record-breaking […]

The Little Sioux River floods homes in Smithland, Iowa, on 25 June 2024. Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes / The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK

Flooding across the U.S. Midwest may have wiped out up to 1 million acres of crops, new estimates show – 7 million acres accumulated more than 6 inches of rain, which caused standing water in fields

By Tyne Morgan 3 July 2024 (Farm Journal) – Portions of Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska are grappling with the aftermath of flooding, while continuing to fight a swollen river. The Mississippi River is facing flood threats, too. The high waters and flooding are suffocating fields, causing crop damage to key growing areas across the […]

Florida governor Ron DeSantis delivers remarks in Umatilla, Florida,Tuesday, 25 June 2024, during a visit to tout the state’s infrastructure grants program. In May 2024, DeSantis signed a bill that stripped the phrase “climate change” from much of Florida law, reversing 16 years of state policy and, critics said, undermining Florida’s support of renewable and clean energy. Photo: Joe Burbank / Orlando Sentinel

Florida censors references to climate science in textbooks for public schools – “How do you write an environmental science book to appease people who are opposed to climate change?”

By Leslie Postal 5 July 2024 (Orlando Sentinel) – Textbook authors were told last month that some references to “climate change” must be removed from science books before they could be accepted for use in Florida’s public schools, according to two of those authors. A high school biology book also had to add citations to […]

Map showing geomorphological data and icefield reconstruction of the Juneau Icefield for the “Little Ice Age” (LIA) maximum. Graphic: Davies, et al., 2024 / Nature Communications

Melting of Alaska’s Juneau Icefield accelerates, losing snow nearly 5 times faster than in the 1980s – “When you go there the changes from year-to-year are so dramatic that it just hits you over the head”

By Seth Borenstein 2 July 2024 (AP) – The melting of Alaska’s Juneau icefield, home to more than 1,000 glaciers, is accelerating. The snow covered area is now shrinking 4.6 times faster than it was in the 1980s, according to a new study. Researchers meticulously tracked snow levels in the nearly 1,500-square mile icy expanse going back […]

Flames consume a home on Bessie Lane as the Thompson Fire burns in Oroville, California, Tuesday, 2 July 2024. An extended heat wave blanketing Northern California resulted in red flag fire warnings and power shutoffs. Photo: Noah Berger / AP Photo

Insurance crisis that started in Florida and California is spreading – “Insurance companies are responding to the fact that we’re seeing more frequent and more severe climate events, and the fact that they’re paying out more than they’re bringing in”

By Scott Cohn 2 July 2024 (CNBC) – An insurance crisis that has sent premiums skyrocketing and caused carriers to flee coastal states like Florida and California is spreading, and it is fundamentally changing the real estate market in states across the country. “Not only is the cost higher than people anticipated, but just the inability to […]

Homes destroyed by Hurricane Beryl lie in Clifton, Union Island, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Thursday, 4 July 2024. Photo: Lucanus Ollivierre / AP Photo

Hurricane Beryl batters Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as Texas officials urge coastal residents to prepare – 11 dead across the Caribbean – “This is a determined storm that is still strong”

By Martín Silva and John Myers Jr. 5 July 2024 TULUM, Mexico (AP) – Beryl battered Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday after hitting near the resort town of Tulum, whipping trees and knocking out power, while officials in Texas urged coastal residents to prepare as the storm moves toward the Gulf of Mexico. Beryl hit Mexico as […]

Map showing reduction of stored groundwater in the U.S. Southwest, April 2002 - September 2023. Gravity measurements from the GRACE series of satellites show that the decline in water levels in the Great Basin region from April 2002 to September 2023 has most severely affected portions of southern California (indicated in red). Record snowfall in recent years has not been enough to offset long-term drying conditions and increasing groundwater demands in the U.S. Southwest. Graphic: Hall, et al., 2024 / Geophysical Research Letters

NASA satellites find record snow didn’t offset Southwest U.S. groundwater loss – “In years like the 2022-23 winter, I expected that the record amount of snowfall would really help to replenish the groundwater supply. But overall, the decline continued.”

By James R. Riordon 17 June 2024 (NASA GSFC) – Record snowfall in recent years has not been enough to offset long-term drying conditions and increasing groundwater demands in the U.S. Southwest, according to a new analysis of NASA satellite data [Snowfall Replenishes Groundwater Loss in the Great Basin of the Western United States, but […]

Map of the U.S. showing 11 weather and climate disasters each costing $1 billion or more that occurred between January and May, 2024. Graphic: NOAA / NCEI

Billion-dollar disasters swept across the U.S. in Spring 2024

By Meredith Garofalo 13 June 2024 (Space.com) – Two severe weather events in May brought the number of billion-dollar disasters for the United States in 2024 up to nearly a dozen.  The month began with a tornado outbreak from May 6 to May 10 that stretched across 23 states, going from South Dakota to Florida. […]

An abandoned home sits across from a vacant lot Wednesday, 22 May 2024, in Hannibal, Missouri. Photo: Jeff Roberson / AP Photo

For shrinking Mississippi River towns, frequent floods worsen fortunes – “Everybody’s gone. This is a ghost town.”

By Michael Phillis, Jim Salter, and Camille Fassett 11 June 2024 WEST ALTON, Missouri (AP) – Devastating flooding, driven in part by climate change, is taking an especially damaging toll on communities that once thrived along the banks of America’s most storied river. Flooding has pushed people out of their homes near the Mississippi River at […]

People walk through waist-deep water in a flooded street as they evacuate on 12 June 2024, in Hollywood, Florida. On 12 June 2024, Gov. DeSantis signed the state budget after cutting almost $1 billion from the fiscal plan, including about $205 million in stormwater, wastewater, and sewer projects. Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Florida governor Ron DeSantis cuts stormwater flooding funding amid Florida deluge – “All those storm water projects he cut look pretty stupid right now”

By Jordan King 13 June 2024 (Newsweek) – Communities in Florida were hit with heavy rainfall and intense flooding on the same day Governor Ron DeSantis cut budgets for multiple water projects. On 12 June 2024, DeSantis signed the state budget after cutting almost $1 billion from the fiscal plan, the Tampa Bay Times reported—including about $205 […]

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