Trees burn at night during a forest fire near Maials, west of Tarragona, Spain, 27 June 2019 Photo: Albert Gea / REUTERS

France, Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic set June heat records, worst still to come – Spain battles worst Catalonia wildfire in 20 years

By Ian Livingston 26 June 2019 (The Washington Post) – A ferocious heat wave has overtaken parts of Europe. A number of records have already been broken, and there are several days of extreme heat to go. As the heat wave escalates toward its peak late this week, temperatures have already neared or surpassed 100 degrees (37.8 degrees Celsius) […]

Heat forecast for Europe on 25 June 2019. The most widespread anomalous heat, with temperatures more than 12°C (22°F) above average (pink colors), are predicted on Wednesday and Thursday. Graphic: The Weather Company

Dangerous June heat wave envelops Western Europe – Germany sizzles in record June heat

By Dr. Jeff Masters 25 June 2019 (Weather Underground) – A ferociously hot airmass from the Sahara Desert has moved northward into Western Europe and will bring a dangerous heat wave unprecedented for June for the remainder of the week. All-time national heat records for June are likely to fall in multiple countries, and some […]

Free air CO2 enrichment experiments using native Australian forests. Elevated CO2 levels are used to examine the effects on native forests, animals, soils and grasses. Photo: Western Sydney University

Leaving microbes out of climate change conversation has major consequences, experts warn – “Climate change is literally starving ocean life”

By Ivy Shih 19 June 2019 (UNSW) – An international group of leading microbiologists have issued a warning, saying that not including microbes – the support system of the biosphere – in the climate change equation will have major negative flow-on effects. More than 30 microbiologists from 9 countries have issued a warning to humanity […]

Indians stand in queues to fill vessels with drinking water from a water tanker in Chennai, capital of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Wednesday, 19 June 2019. Millions of people are turning to water tank trucks in the state as house and hotel taps run dry in an acute water shortage caused by drying lakes and depleted groundwater. Some private companies have asked employees to work from home and several restaurants are closing early and even considering stopping lunch meals if the water scarcity aggravates. Photo: R. Parthibhan / AP Photo

Life in India’s first city that’s almost out of water – “I’m scared for my daughter”

By Divya Karthikeyan and Swati Gupta 22 June 2019 Chennai, India (CNN) – As Manjula Sridhar went into the operation theater of a maternity ward in Chennai, the capital of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, her mother began arguing with the doctor over a water shortage that threatened to delay the delivery. Cradling her little girl, […]

Surface temperature anomaly forecast for Europe, 22 June 2019. Graphic: weathermodels.com

Europe braces for scorching heatwave with temperatures “unprecedented for the month of June”

22 June 2019 (AFP) – Forecasters say Europeans will feel sizzling heat next week with temperatures soaring as high as 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in an “unprecedented” June heatwave hitting much of Western Europe. From Great Britain to Belgium to Greece, a wave of hot air coming from the Maghreb in North Africa […]

Permafrost forms a grid-like pattern in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in Alpine, Alaska, a 22.8 million acre region managed by the Bureau of Land Management on Alaska's North Slope. USGS has periodically assessed oil and gas resource potential there. Photo: David Houseknecht / USGS

Warming Arctic permafrost releasing 12 times more nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, than previously thought – “This needs to be taken more seriously than it is right now”

By Caitlin McDermott-Murphy 6 June 2019 (The Harvard Gazette) – About a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere is covered in permafrost. Now, it turns out these permanently frozen beds of soil, rock, and sediment are actually not so permanent: They’re thawing at an increasing rate. Human-induced climate change is warming these lands, melting the ice […]

Total U.S. consumer debt, 2003-2019. Data are through the first quarter of 2019. Data: New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel / Equifax. Graphic: MarketWatch

U.S. consumer debt is now above levels hit during the 2008 financial crisis

By Mark DeCambre 21 June 2019 (MarketWatch) – Consumer debt is growing to worrisome levels. Ben Mohr, senior research analyst of fixed income at investment consultant Marquette Associates, calculated that total U.S. consumer debt hit $14 trillion in the first quarter of 2019, surpassing the roughly $13 trillion of leverage accumulated in credit cards, auto […]

Statistically significant drug overdose death rate increase from 2016 to 2017 U.S. States. Graphic: CDC

12 million pills and 700 deaths: How a few pill mills helped fan the U.S. opioid inferno – “There was just so much money”

By Del Quentin Wilber 14 June 2019 (Los Angeles Times) – Soon after he took over as medical director of the Urgent Care & Surgery Center in eastern Tennessee in 2012, Dr. Marc Valley realized he was supervising illegal drug dealers in lab coats. Platoons of patients socialized in the parking lot, none seemingly afflicted […]

Student leaders with the lobbying group Renew Oregon, which helped craft landmark climate change legislation currently under debate in Oregon, pose to show their T-shirts after a news conference in Salem, Oregon, on 20 June 2019. Minority Republican senators walked out Thursday to block a vote on the proposal, which would be the second of its kind in the nation. That prompted Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, to activate the state police to bring absentee senators back against their will. Photo: Gillian Flaccus / AP Photo

Oregon governor sends police after Republican senators who fled Capitol over climate legislation

By Sarah Zimmerman and Gillian Flaccus 20 June 2019 SALEM, Oregon (Associated Press) – Republican senators in Oregon engaged in a high-stakes game of brinksmanship Friday with Democratic lawmakers and prepared to remain absent from the Capitol for a second day to block a vote on a landmark climate plan that would be the second […]

Warming stripes for Washington state, 1895-2018. Graphic: Climate Central

Show your stripes: Iconic global warming imagery goes local

By Bob Henson 20 June 2019 (Weather Underground) – The summer solstice arrives on Friday, 21 June 2019, and so does the second year of “warming stripes”. Launched in 2018, this growing campaign builds on a set of imagery developed by University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins: colored stripes that portray a century-plus of global […]

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