Central America – Desdemona Despair

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

July 7, 2024

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 […]

Map showing hottest 5-day period for maximum daytime temperatures (left) and maximum nighttime temperatures (right) in Mexico for 3 June 2024 - 9 June 2024. The thick black contour shows the study region. Black crosses show the locations where impacts or temperature records have been reported. Data: ERA5. Graphic: World Weather Attribution

July 4, 2024

Climate change made killer heat wave in Mexico, Southwest U.S. even warmer and 35 times more likely – “The changes we have seen in the last 20 years, which feels like just yesterday, are so strong”

By Seth Borenstein 20 June 2024 WASHINGTON (AP) – Human-caused climate change dialed up the thermostat and turbocharged the odds of this month’s killer heat that has been baking the Southwestern United States, Mexico and Central America, a new flash study found. Sizzling daytime temperatures that triggered cases of heat stroke in parts of the United States were […]

Global surface air temperature anomalies compared with 1850-1900 mean, 1940-2024. May 2024 was the 12th consecutive month to set a monthly global average temperature record, and exceed the key Paris Agreement temperature target of 1.5°C. Data: ERA5. Graphic: Tory Lysik / Axios Visuals

June 24, 2024

Global heat record broken for 12th straight month in May 2024

By Andrew Freedman 5 June 2024 (Axios) – May 2024 was the 12th consecutive month to set a monthly global average temperature record, and exceed a key Paris Agreement temperature target. Why it matters: The new data comes amid a slew of findings from climate monitoring groups released Wednesday, timed to coincide with a speech in New York […]

Map showing additional days with temperatures above the 90th percentile in the current climate over 15 May 2023 to 15 May 2024, added by the burning of fossil fuels. Produced 21 May 2024. Graphic: Climate Central

June 1, 2024

Global warming added a month’s worth of extra-hot days between 2023 and 2024 – “That’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on people. It’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on nature.”

By Raymond Zhong 28 May 2024 (The New York Times) – Over the past year of record-shattering warmth, the average person on Earth experienced 26 more days of abnormally high temperatures than they otherwise would have, were it not for human-induced climate change, scientists said Tuesday [Climate change and the escalation of global extreme heat […]

Annual global mean surface temperature anomalies relative to 1850–1900. Global mean near-surface temperature in 2023 was 1.45 ± 0.12 °C above the 1850–1900 average. The analysis is based on a synthesis of six global temperature datasets. 2023 was the warmest year in the 174-year instrumental record in each of the six datasets. The past nine years – from 2015 to 2023 – were the nine warmest years on record. The two previous warmest years were 2016, with an anomaly of 1.29 ± 0.12 °C, and 2020, with an anomaly of 1.27 ± 0.13 °C. Globally, every month from June to December was record warm for the respective month. September 2023 was particularly noteworthy, surpassing the previous global record for September by a wide margin (0.46 °C–0.54 °C) in all datasets. The second-highest margin by which a September record was broken in the past 60 years (the period covered by all datasets) was substantially smaller, at 0.03 °C–0.17 °C in 1983. July is typically the warmest month of the year globally, and thus July 2023 became the warmest month on record. The long-term increase in global temperature is due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The shift from La Niña, which lasted from mid-2020 to early 2023, to fully developed El Niño conditions by September 2023 likely explains some of the rise in temperature from 2022 to 2023. However, some areas of unusual warming, such as the North-East Atlantic do not correspond to typical patterns of warming or cooling associated with El Niño. Other factors, which are still being investigated, may also have contributed to the exceptional warming from 2022 to 2023, which is unlikely to be due to internal variability alone. Graphic: WMO

April 28, 2024

WMO: Climate change indicators reached record levels in 2023 – “Sirens are blaring across all major indicators. Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting. And changes are speeding-up.”

19 March 2024 (WMO) – A new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that records were once again broken, and in some cases smashed, for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat. Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires, and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones […]

Geographical pattern of the primary drivers of deteriorating status among amphibians. a,b, The primary drivers of deteriorating status among amphibians during 1980–2004 (482 species; a) and 2004–2022 (306 species; b). Cell colour was determined by the primary driver impacting the most species. Where two primary drivers equally contribute to a cell, an intermediate colour is shown. The stars indicate where the primary driver is undetermined or there are numerous primary drivers. The cell area is 7,775 km2. Graphic: Luedtke, et al., 2023 / Nature

October 29, 2023

Climate change emerges as major driver of amphibian declines, new research finds – “It’s a gut punch and an awakening”

By JoAnn Adkins 4 October 2023 (FIU) – Amphibians are in trouble and in desperate need of conservation action, according to a new global assessment of the world’s amphibian population. Salamanders are experiencing the greatest decline in numbers, but frogs, toads, newts, and salamanders throughout the Neotropics — extending from South Florida and Caribbean islands […]

Aerial view of the Panamanian island of Carti Sugdupu. Hundreds are preparing to leave the island in the face of rising sea levels. Photo: Luis Acosta

September 10, 2023

“We’re going to sink”: hundreds abandon Caribbean island home – “Almost all the islands are going to be abandoned by the end of this century”

By Juan José Rodríguez 6 September 2023 (AFP) – On a tiny Caribbean island, hundreds of people are preparing to pack up and move to escape the rising waters threatening to engulf their already precarious homes. Surrounded by idyllic clear waters, the densely populated island of Carti Sugtupu off Panama’s north coast has barely an […]

EIU Democracy Index 2022, global map by regime type. The average global index score stagnated in 2022. Despite expectations of a rebound after the lifting of pandemic-related restrictions, the score was almost unchanged, at 5.29 (on a 0-10 scale), compared with 5.28 in 2021. The positive effect of the restoration of individual freedoms was cancelled out by negative developments globally. The scores of more than half of the countries measured by the index either stagnated or declined. Western Europe was a positive outlier, being the only region whose score returned to pre-pandemic levels. Graphic: EIU

February 3, 2023

EIU Democracy Index 2022: Frontline democracy and the battle for Ukraine – “Overall the story is one of stagnation. This is a dismal result given that in 2022 the world started to move on from the pandemic-related suppression of individual liberties that persisted through 2020 and 2021”

1 February 2023 (EIU) – The Democracy Index, which began in 2006, provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide in 165 independent states and two territories. This covers almost the entire population of the world and the vast majority of the world’s states (microstates are excluded). The Democracy Index is based on five […]

A graveyard that has been washed into the sea due to coastal erosion at Monkey River, a coastal village in south-east Belize. Photo: Andrea Ocampo / UN Video

January 30, 2023

Saving a Belize village from man-made erosion – “I don’t want to see more graves go to the sea”

8 January 2023 (UN News) – “My grandma and my grandfather are now washed out in the sea,” says Mario Muschamp, gazing out at the coast near his close-knit Creole community. “You know, their graves are gone. That really hurts.” This is the reality for the inhabitants of Monkey River, who have watched on, powerless, […]

Map showing Biodiversity Intactness Index for the year 2020 at 0.25° resolution. The global average is 77 percent. Data: Natural History Museum, 2022. Graphic: WWF / ZSL

October 27, 2022

WWF’s Living Planet Report 2022 reveals devastating 69 percent average drop in wildlife populations since 1970 – “We have cut away the very foundation of life and the situation continues to worsen”

TORONTO, 12 October 2022 (WWF-Canada) – Monitored wildlife populations — mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish — have seen a devastating 69 per cent drop on average since 1970 according to WWF’s Living Planet Report (LPR) 2022. The report highlights the stark outlook of the state of nature and urgently warns governments, businesses and the public to take […]