Coming-out

Climatologists say a particularly powerful weather pattern could amplify wildfire risk, heatwaves and flooding worldwide as global temperatures continue to rise

A climate monster is growing right now in the Pacific Ocean, perhaps the most fearsome El Niño since before scientists even began modeling them. They now know the pattern quite well: A marine heat-wave in the Pacific Ocean scrambles global weather and produces in some places more intense droughts and in others more intense rainfall and flooding; disruptions to hurricane patterns and monsoon seasons, which can cause widespread crop failures; and much more punishing heat.

Researchers in Japan have developed a new material that allows solar cells to generate an amount of energy from sunlight that was previously thought impossible. The discovery, made by a team at Kyushu University, involves a special “spin-flip” emitter that can harvest energy from the Sun that is typically lost as heat. The breakthrough overcomes the long-standing limit of conventional solar cells to achieve an energy conversion efficiency of 130 per cent – opening up new possibilities for ultra-efficient solar panels.

Flagship report calls for fundamental reset of global water agenda as irreversible damage pushes many basins beyond recovery

Logging and mining are destroying swathes of the Congo rainforest, with the result that African forests went from being  a carbon sink to a carbon source in 2010 to 2017

German scientists warn global warming is accelerating faster than expected, raising the risk of a 3 °C rise by 2050 and forcing Europe to confront unthinkable adaptation plans.

Climate.gov, which went dark this summer, to be revived by volunteers as climate.us with expanded missionEarlier this summer, access to climate.gov – one of the most widely used portals of climate information on the internet – was thwarted by the Trump administration, and its production team was fired in the process.

Some experts tee up public comment on EPA report calling fossil fuel concerns overblown, as others fast-track review

Rising temperatures are causing water to evaporate and driving humans to extract more groundwater, which is moving freshwater from the land to the seas and creating a "continental drying" trend..

Even if agricultural practices adapt in response to higher temperatures, five of the world's six main staple crops will suffer severe losses due to climate change. Global corn yields are projected to fall by about 12 or 28 per cent by the end of the century