Sea surface temperature anomalies in the Mediterranean Sea on 19 June 2022. Graphic: European Union / Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service

Europe’s 2022 heatwave may have caused more than 20,000 “excess” deaths – “I consider this the most impactful heatwave since 2003”

By Juliette Portala 24 November 2022 (Reuters) – Summer heatwaves in France, Germany, Spain, and Britain led to more than 20,000 “excess” deaths, a report compiling official figures said on Thursday. Temperatures hit nearly 40 degrees Celsius or above from Paris to London in 2022 and climate scientists from the World Weather Attribution group found […]

Arctic annual air surface temperatures from October 2021 to September 2022 were the sixth warmest dating back to 1900. The image on the left depicts the departure from the average near-surface temperature across the Arctic during this period, with redder colors showing areas of greater than average warmth. The graphic on the right shows how the rate of Arctic air temperature warming has outpaced the rate of global warming. Data: ERA5 and NASA. Graphic: NOAA / Climate.gov

NOAA: Human-caused climate change fuels warmer, wetter, stormier Arctic

13 December 2022 (NOAA) – A typhoon, smoke from wildfires, and increasing rain are not what most imagine when thinking of the Arctic. Yet these are some of the climate-driven events included in NOAA’s 2022 Arctic Report Card, which provides a detailed picture of how warming is reshaping the once reliably frozen, snow-covered region which […]

Maternal Deaths per 100,000 Births, by State Abortion Policy, 2018-2020. Maternal death rates were 62 percent higher in 2020 in abortion-restriction states than in abortion-access states (28.8 vs. 17.8 per 100,000 births). Notably, across the three years presented in this graph, the maternal mortality rate was increasing nearly twice as fast in states with abortion restrictions. Graphic: Commonwealth Fund

The U.S. maternal health divide: The limited maternal health services and worse outcomes of states proposing new abortion restrictions

By Eugene Declercq, Ruby Barnard-Mayers, Laurie Zephyrin, and Kay Johnson 14 December 2022 (Commonwealth Fund) – In anticipation of a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a number of states passed “trigger laws” that would ban all, or nearly all, abortions once national abortion protections ended. In the months since the Court’s ruling in Dobbs […]

Number of Western Monarch butterflies (left) and butterfly surveys (right), 1997-2021. In the western United States, the number of individual butterflies has been steadily decreasing over the past four decades, at a rate of around 1.6% every year, according to a March 2021 study in the journal Science. The iconic Monarch butterfly is one of the species in trouble. Warmer autumn temperatures, an effect of climate change, may be interfering with the butterflies’ hibernation-like period known as diapause. So rather than slowing down ahead of winter, the insects are staying awake longer, expending more energy, and eventually starving to death. In July 2022, the migratory monarch was added to the IUCN’s global endangered species list. Graphic: Catherine Tai / Reuters

The collapse of insects – “They’re the fabric tethering together every freshwater and terrestrial ecosystem across the planet”

By Julia Janicki, Gloria Dickie, Simon Scarr and Jitesh Chowdhury 6 December 2022 (Reuters) – As a boy in the 1960s, David Wagner would run around his family’s Missouri farm with a glass jar clutched in his hand, scooping flickering fireflies out of the sky. “We could fill it up and put it by our […]

Ryan Smith, a 36-year-old homeless addict, falls asleep after smoking fentanyl in Los Angeles, Thursday, 18 August 2022. Nearly 2,000 homeless people died in the city from April 2020 to March 2021, a 56 percent increase from the previous year, according to a report released by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Overdose was the leading cause of death, killing more than 700. Photo: Jae C. Hong / AP Photo

Fentanyl’s scourge plainly visible on streets of Los Angeles

By Jae C. Hong and Brian Melley 28 November 2022 LOS ANGELES (AP) – In a filthy alley behind a Los Angeles doughnut shop, Ryan Smith convulsed in the grips of a fentanyl high — lurching from moments of slumber to bouts of violent shivering on a warm summer day. When Brandice Josey, another homeless […]

Smoke rises from a forest fire in the Transamazonica highway region, in the municipality of Labrea, Amazonas state, Brazil, 17 September 2022. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon slowed slightly last year, a year after a 15-year high, according to closely watched numbers published Wednesday, 30 November 2022. Photo: Edmar Barros / AP Photo

Amazon deforestation in Brazil remains near 15-year high in 2022 – “If da Silva wants to decrease forest destruction by 2023, he must have zero tolerance for environmental crime from Day One of his administration”

By Fabiano Maisonnave 30 November 2022 RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon slowed slightly last year, a year after a 15-year high, according to closely watched numbers published Wednesday. The data was released by the National Institute for Space Research. The agency’s Prodes monitoring system shows the rainforest lost an area […]

Abortion laws by U.S. state in 2022 after the after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health U.S. Supreme Court decision. Graphic: Center for Reproductive Rights

Dr. Katelyn Jetelina: Data on a post-Dobbs world – “In just four short months post-Dobbs, thousands of women’s lives were impacted”

By Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD 7 November 2022 (Your Local Epidemiologist) – Last week, five new studies provided a first look into Dobbs v. Jackson’s impact on access to abortion care. This was largely thanks to JAMA Network that published a special issue on this topic. This is the story that data is telling. Shift in location of abortions Just […]

Number of U.S. dollar billionaires in China, 1999-2022. The year 2022 saw the biggest fall in the Hurun China Rich List in the 24 years of its existence. Data: Hurun Research Institute. Graphic: James P. Galasyn

China’s superrich decimated as economic downturn wipes out billions – “This year has seen the biggest fall in the Hurun China Rich List of the last 24 years”

By John Feng 8 November 2022 (Newsweek) – China’s wealthy lost hundreds of billions of dollars in 2022 as the global economic downturn also shook up the country’s typically high-growth industries, according to an annual rich list published on Tuesday. The number of Chinese entrepreneurs worth 5 billion Chinese yuan ($710 million) or more on September 15 […]

Average near-surface air temperature percentiles for October 2022. Colour categories refer to the percentiles of the temperature distribution as calculated from the 1991–2020 reference period. The “warmest” category refers to the period 1979-2022. Graphic: Copernicus Climate Change Service / ECMWF

Europe experienced warmest October on record in 2022 – “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish”

8 November 2022 (DW) – The European continent has just experienced its warmest October since records began, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).  It said temperatures were nearly 2 degrees Celsius above the average for the 1991-2020 reference period. “The severe consequences of climate change are very visible today and we need ambitious climate […]

Mole fraction of atmospheric methane (CH4), 1984-2021. Graphic: WMO

Greenhouse gas levels hit new highs in 2022 – Biggest increase in methane since measurements began – “The continuing rise in concentrations of the main heat-trapping gases, including the record acceleration in methane levels, shows that we are heading in the wrong direction”

GENEVA / NEW YORK, 26 October 2022 (WMO) – In yet another ominous climate change warning, atmospheric levels of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached new record highs in 2021, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin reported the biggest […]

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