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 […]

A family in Sujawal district, Sindh province of Pakistan look out at their flooded home which was submerged by the devastating 2022 floods in the country. Photo: Turkish Red Crescent

Pakistan floods: Six months on, humanitarian needs remain dire – “Massive needs require massive support”

By Angbeen Sohail 13 December 2022 (IFRC) – It’s been almost six months since flash floods battered parts of Pakistan, and hundreds of thousands of people are still reeling from the floods’ effects. Homes, livelihoods, and farmlands were destroyed and many parts of the country remain underwater. An estimated 33 million people have been affected, […]

Dugong (Dugong dugon). Photo: Ahmed Shawky

Manatee relative, 700 new species now facing extinction

By Patrick Whittle 10 December 2022 (AP) – Populations of a vulnerable species of marine mammal, numerous species of abalone and a type of Caribbean coral are now threatened with extinction, an international conservation organization said Friday. The International Union for Conservation of Nature announced the update during the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, […]

Hoof prints left by Camargue bulls mark a section of pasture encrusted with salt on the Raynaud ranch in Camargue, southern France, 23 September 2022. As soil salt levels rise due to drought and reduced river flow from the Rhone River, the land traditionally used by bull breeders like the Raynaud family is becoming more and more difficult to maintain as a suitable pace to raise animals. Photo: Daniel Cole / AP Photo

In southern France, drought, rising seas threaten traditions – “The sea level rises on our coast and takes more and more of our land”

By Daniel Cole 30 October 2022 SAINTES-MARIE DE LA MER, France (AP) – In a makeshift arena in the French coastal village Aigues-Mortes, young men in dazzling collared shirts come face-to-face with a raging bull. Surrounded by the city’s medieval walls, the men dodge and duck the animal’s charges while spectators let out collective gasps. […]

An indigenous woman raises her hands in prayer asking for rain in the Lloko Lloko community, in Tihuanacu, Bolivia, on 23 November 2022. Photo: Claudia Morales / REUTERS

In South America’s Andes, farmers pray for rain to end drought – “The heat is very strong and burning, we can no longer bear it”

By Monica Machicao 25 November 2022 TIHUANACU, Bolivia (Reuters) – High in the mountains of the Bolivian Andes, farmer Alberto Quispe has one thing on his mind: rain. In the rural area of Tihuanacu, around 100 kilometers (62 miles) south-west of highland city La Paz, locals say there has been little rain this season during […]

Screenshot from a video showing the low water level at Kariba dam in Kariba Zimbabwe, 28 November 2022. Photo: Africanews

Water levels in Zimbabwe’s biggest dam too low for power – Zimbabweans without power for 19 hours a day – “The dam no longer has any usable water to continue undertaking power generation operations”

By David Henning 9 December 2022 Lake Kariba, the world’s largest artificial lake, has recorded low dam levels during the drought, currently standing at 4.6%, according to the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA). The ZRA limited the generation of Kariba’s hydroelectric power stations to 300 megawatts owing to the reduced water levels, and Zimbabweans are having to endure […]

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 […]

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 […]

60-year-old Abdullahi Hassan watches over four of his grandchildren in a shelter where he and his family of eight lives and sleep in November 2022. The shelter is located in a camp for the displaced on the outskirts of Luuq, Somalia. They had been at the camp for two weeks, having left home when rain didn't come and all their livestock was wiped out. Photo: Lily Martin / CBC

From Ukraine to Yemen, UN seeks record $51.5 billion for “shockingly high” aid needs – “The humanitarian response system is being tested to its limits”

By Emma Farge 1 December 2022 GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations and partners on Thursday appealed for a record $51.5 billion in aid money for 2023, with tens of millions of additional people expected to need assistance, testing the humanitarian response system “to its limits”. The appeal represents a 25% increase on 2022 and […]

This undated photo provided by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources shows a northern long-eared bat. On Tuesday, 29 November 2022, the Biden administration declared the northern long-eared bat endangered, a last-ditch effort to save a species driven to the brink of extinction by a deadly fungus. This is the third species of bat recommended for the designation in 2022 due to white-nose syndrome. Photo: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources / AP

U.S. bat species devastated by fungus now listed as endangered – “This species is in dire straits, but we never want to give up hope”

By John Flesher 29 November 2022 TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan (AP) – The Biden administration declared the northern long-eared bat endangered on Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to save a species driven to the brink of extinction by white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease. “White-nose syndrome is decimating cave-dwelling bat species like the northern long-eared bat at […]

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