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 […]

Maps indicating the number of high monthly temperature records set per decade during the period 2070–2099. a–d, Number of years with at least one month during the year setting a high monthly temperature record (RCP8.5 (a), RCP2.6 (b)), and total number of months setting high temperature records (RCP8.5 (c), RCP2.6 (d)). Multi-model means. Graphic: Power and Delage, 2019 / Nature Climate Change

Most of the world faces record-high temperatures every year without serious climate action

By Brandon Specktor 17 June 2019 (Live Science) – When I say, “how about that heat wave,” perhaps you think of the western United States, where temperatures last week soared above 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius), smashing dozens of historical heat records from Oregon to Arizona. Or maybe you think of India — where intense heat […]

This forecast for 6 June 2019 shows the temperature anomaly (difference from normal) in India. Red shades show areas where the temperature is hotter than normal. Graphic: WeatherBell Analytics

Indian villages lie empty as drought forces thousands to flee – Sick and elderly left to fend for themselves – No water left in 35 major dams

By Sam Relph 11 June 2019 DELHI (The Guardian) – Hundreds of Indian villages have been evacuated as a historic drought forces families to abandon their homes in search of water. The country has seen extremely high temperatures in recent weeks. On Monday the capital, Delhi, saw its highest ever June temperature of 48C. In Rajasthan, […]

One-in-30-year heat-related mortality that is avoidable by stabilizing future warming at the 1.5° and 2°C Paris Agreement thresholds rather than 3°C. The point estimates show the mean 1-in-30-year mortality level across 101 plausible exposure-response relationships, whereas the error bars show the 95% eCI accounting for uncertainties from internal climate variability and the exposure-response relationship. All estimates assume constant population. Confidence intervals that do not include 0 (dotted line on each panel) indicate a statistically significant number of avoidable deaths. The size of each bubble on the central map is proportional to the square root of the city’s population in July 2016. The color of each bubble indicates the city’s projected population change between 2015 and 2040. Graphic: Lo, et al., 2019 / Science Advances

Adjusting carbon emissions to the Paris climate commitments would prevent thousands of heat-related deaths per city – “Compelling evidence for the heat-related health benefits of limiting global warming to 1.5°C”

5 June 2019 (University of Bristol) – Thousands of annual heat-related deaths could be potentially avoided in major US cities if global temperatures are limited to the Paris Climate Goals compared with current climate commitments, a new study led by the University of Bristol has found. The research, published today in the journal Science Advances, is […]

Simultaneous heatwaves caused by anthropogenic climate change – “If in future more and more key agricultural regions and densely populated areas are affected by simultaneous heatwaves, this would have severe consequences”

By Peter Rüegg 9 April 2019 (ETH) – Without the climate change caused by human activity, simultaneous heatwaves would not have hit such a large area as they did last summer. This is the conclusion of researchers at ETH Zurich based on observational and model data. Many people will remember last summer – not only […]

Abnormal high temperatures in Alaska disrupt isolated communities, upset subsistence hunting patterns, and cause deaths – “It’s hard to characterize this anomaly, it’s just pretty darn remarkable for that part of the world”

By Tim Lydon 29 May 2019 (Hakai Magazine) – Alaska in March is supposed to be cold. Along the north and west coasts, the ocean should be frozen farther than the eye can see. In the state’s interior, rivers should be locked in ice so thick that they double as roads for snowmobiles and trucks. […]

Exponential growth in impacts from abrupt climate change

By Nick Humphrey 2 May 2019 (Patreon) – I get asked a lot about what the future holds. I discussed the projections of global average temperature and sea level rise in an upcoming interview on Radio Ecoshock (will be posted next week). However, while trying to write an article on this, I found myself frustrated […]

Projected change in population density in Ethiopia by 2050 under a pessimistic climate change scenario. As climate change worsens even moderately, it could cause water shortages in Ethiopia severe enough to prompt 1.5 million Ethiopians to migrate by 2050. They’ll most likely move out of the northern highlands and Addis Ababa into the southern highlands and Ahmar Mountains. Addis Ababa lies at the center of Ethiopia’s agricultural region, and lower crop yields will result in movement out of the urban center, which is currently the hub of the country’s economic development. Graphic: The World Bank Groundswell Report

Get ready for tens of millions of climate refugees

By Susan Cosier 24 April 2019 (Technology Review) – In 2006, the British economist Nicholas Stern warned that one of the biggest dangers of climate change would be mass migration. “Climate-related shocks have sparked violent conflict in the past,” he wrote, “and conflict is a serious risk in areas such as West Africa, the Nile […]

Summer extremes of 2018 linked to stalled giant waves in jet stream

29 April 2019 (PIK) – Record breaking heatwaves and droughts in North America and Western Europe, torrential rainfalls and floods in South-East Europe and Japan – the summer of 2018 brought a series of extreme weather events that occurred almost simultaneously around the Northern Hemisphere in June and July. These extremes had something in common, […]

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