Global Warming

El Niño is a natural climate pattern during which sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become significantly warmer than average. This drives hotter weather around the world. Since the world is already warming, El Niño only amplifies that warming. The El Niño of 2023 and 2024 resulted in the hottest years ever recorded. The strong El Niño currently taking place is shattering temperature records from Europe to Asia.

Disasters are big business. Decades ago, meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration started tracking the number of natural disasters in the US – the ones that incurred at least a billion dollars in damages. The numbers have gone up and up. FEMA used to handle 25 major disasters per year on average; in the past decade, the number is 63. FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund averaged $3.4 billion a year in the 90’s and the early years of the new century. Now, annual spending is closer to $16 billion.

For decades, climate scientists have been warning about the effects of burning fossil fuels on global temperatures. They have been developing increasingly sophisticated climate models that simulate how the atmosphere, oceans, and land will respond under different emissions scenarios. But as the world has warmed and the effects of the warming increase, the models have not been taking into account additional sources of emissions that result from that warming.

Rising sea levels around the world is one of the most visible consequences of human-caused climate change. As global temperatures rise, oceans absorb more heat and expand, while melting glaciers and ice sheets add even more water to the seas.

The late May heatwave in Europe has broken records in more than half a dozen countries. For example, in Oxford, England, where a continuously operating weather station has been keeping records since 1815, a new May record was set on the 26th at nearly 93 degrees Fahrenheit. London reached 95 degrees; the highest temperature ever registered this early in the year.

Greenland is one of the fastest-melting iced-over regions on Earth. In fact, scientists say the large-scale melting of Greenland’s massive ice sheet is irreversible, and it’s happening now at an accelerating rate.

The geographic range of a plant species is the area where it can survive and grow. That range is shaped by climatic factors such as temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, humidity, and wind. When those conditions change, plants must either adapt, shift their range, or risk decline.

Planting trees is a key strategy in the fight against climate change. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, regulate temperature, support biodiversity, and improve air and water quality. In urban areas, planting trees may also be one of the simplest ways cities can prepare for a warmer future.

Gray whales undertake one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal on Earth. They spend the summers feeding in the nutrient-rich waters of the Arctic before traveling about 12,000 miles round trip to winter in the warm and protected lagoons of Baja Mexico. But as ocean conditions change, some gray whales are taking unexpected detours.

Projections are that a strong El Niño is on the way. An El Niño is a natural release valve for ocean heat. It starts with shifts of swirling ocean currents and winds over the Pacific. The result is that huge stores of tropical ocean heat surges from the Western Pacific in the area between Australia and Indonesia northward to Japan. The ocean heat then spills into the atmosphere in pulses that change weather patterns, reroute high-elevation winds, raise global temperatures, bleach coral reefs, and disrupt fisheries and ocean ecosystems.