An early morning rower glides through the glare of the rising sun on the Potomac River on Saturday, 20 July 2019. The Potomac River, which flows through the U.S. capital Washington, D.C., hit a record high temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34 degrees Celsius) over the weekend following a major heat wave. Photo: J. David Ake / AP

Potomac River hits record high temperature of 34°C (94°F) after weeks of relentless heat

24 July 2019 (AFP) – The Potomac River, which flows through the US capital Washington, hit a record high temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34 degrees Celsius) over the weekend—as warm as bathwater—following a major heat wave. The previous highs came in the summers of 2011 and 2012, though record keeping began only in 2007. […]

Map of wildfires around Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk, 21 July 2019. Graphic: The Siberian Times

Major Siberian cities choking from wildfire smoke

22 July 2019 (The Siberian Times) – Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk are suffering smoke pollution and infernos rage in forests after hot, dry weather. Pictures show the scale of the smoke in major population centres from the raging wildfires with the cause seen mainly as out-of-control forest fires in Krasnoyarsk region, the second largest in Russia. […]

Forecast high-temperature departures from average for the European heat wave through Saturday, 27 July 2019. Areas in darker red and pink contours are expected to see temperatures the most above average each day. Graphic: The Weather Channel

Another Europe heat wave shatters all-time records in Belgium and the Netherlands with more records possible

By Jonathan Erdman 24 July 2019 (The Weather Channel) – Another Europe heat wave is building that may shatter the all-time record in Paris and set national records in at least three countries as it spreads into Scandinavia. On Wednesday, all-time record highs were broken in Belgium and the Netherlands when temperatures reached 102.3 degrees and 101.8 […]

Age-specific death rates for persons aged 25–44, by Hispanic origin and race, United States, 2000–2017. Graphic: Curtin and Arias, 2019 / CDC

Death rates increasing for U.S. adults aged 25 to 44: CDC report

24 July 2019 (ABC News) – Death rates are on the rise for young and middle-aged U.S. adults, with white and black people experiencing higher mortality than Hispanic people, according to new research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published Tuesday. Between 2012 and 2017, the rates for white and black people […]

A firefighter monitors the progression of a wildfire at Amendoa, in Macao, Portugal, on 21 July 2019. Photo: Patricia De Melo Moreira / AFP / Getty

Photo gallery: Wildfires rage in Central Portugal, July 2019

By Alan Taylor 23 July 2019 (The Atlantic) – Over the past few days in Portugal’s Castelo Branco region, strong winds and temperatures greater than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) have driven devastating wildfires through several villages, destroying structures and injuring 39 people. Nearly 2,000 firefighters worked to bring the three major fires largely […]

Aerial view of Millstone Power Station. Unit 2 of Millstone Power Plant near New London was shut down on 12 August 2012 after temperatures in the sound exceeded 75 degrees for 24 hours, the maximum temperature at which the nuclear power plant has permits to extract cooling water for the unit. Photo: Roger Ressmeyer / Corbis

Nuclear power, once seen as impervious to global warming, threatened by heat waves – “You need to solve global warming for nuclear plants to survive”

By Alan Neuhauser 1 July 2019 (US News) – There’s a reason nuclear plants are built close to water. Harnessing the enormous power of nuclear fission, plants generate steam, which shoots through pipes to spin a turbine that generates massive amounts of electricity. To keep from getting dangerously hot, the plants suck up surrounding water […]

Stability diagram of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), rate R versus duration T of mass addition with unstable regime in red and stable regime in blue. Interpolation of the field is based on the conducted ensemble of stabilization experiments (gray circles). The critical threshold Rc (white curve) of stabilization is approximated by function given at the top right corner. White stars highlight simulations that share the same total amount of deposited mass (M = 8000 Gt), added at differing rate and duration, showing that the combination of both determines potential stabilization. Graphic: Feldmann, et al., 2019 / Science Advances

Adding 8 trillion tons of artificial snow to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could stop it from collapsing – “The fundamental trade-off is whether we as humanity want to sacrifice Antarctica to save the currently inhabited coastal regions”

By Katherine J. Wu 17 July 2019 (PBS) – Gird your loins, humans: The time has come to turn part of the South Pole into our own giant snow globe. Or has it? In a study published today in the journal Science Advances, a team of German researchers suggests that dumping 8 trillion tons of artificial snow onto […]

Radar estimates of rainfall in Arkansas from Tropical Depression Barry, 16 July 2019. Arkansas is now the fifth state to post a new tropical storm or hurricane rainfall record since 2017, joining Texas, Hawaii, North Carolina, and South Carolina. These exceptional rainstorms keep happening and appear to be part of a trend toward more extreme events connected to climate change. Graphic: WeatherMatrix

Tropical Depression Barry’s 14.58” of rain in Arkansas breaks all-time state record – Arkansas becomes fifth U.S. state to set tropical storm rainfall record in past two years

By Dr. Jeff Masters 17 July 2019 (Weather Underground) – Rainfall from Tropical Depression Barry deluged southwest Arkansas over the past three days, with the 14.58” that fell at Murfreesboro on July 14 – 16 breaking the all-time state record for precipitation from a tropical cyclone. Barry’s heavy rains that fell over southwest Arkansas inundated multiple highways, including […]

Two women cool themselves down in the Trocadero Fountain near the Eiffel Tower in Paris during a heatwave on 28 June 2019. The temperature in France on 28 June 2019 surpassed 45 degrees Celsius for the first time on record. Photo: AFP

Paris braces for record heat as Europe scorched again

22 July 2019 (AFP) – Parisians were bracing on Monday for potentially the hottest ever temperature in the French capital this week as a new heatwave blasted into northern Europe that could set records in several countries. Temperatures were already topping 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday in Paris, but the mercury could […]

Temperature forecast for Europe, 25 July 2019. Graphic: Wetterzentrale

Germany braces for fourth heatwave of summer – “That is not normal anymore. It’s everything other than normal.”

22 July 2019 (The Local) – Temperatures could exceed 38C in some parts of the Bundesrepublik this week during a record fourth summer heat wave. On Thursday temperatures around Germany will spike to up 38C – reigning in the fourth heat wave of the summer. Due to climate change, says Latif, there is double the […]

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