“More than half of the surface of the world’s oceans have experienced excessively warm temperatures since 2014 — with extreme marine heat now the ‘new normal’.
“This is the warning of researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, who analysed a century-and-a-half’s worth of global marine temperature data.”
“Coral reefs that anchor a quarter of marine wildlife and the livelihoods of more than half-a-billion people will most likely be wiped out even if global warming is capped within Paris climate goals, researchers said Tuesday.
An average increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels would see more than 99 percent of the world’s coral reefs unable to recover from ever more frequent marine heat waves.”
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220201-corals-doomed-even-if-global-climate-goals-met-study
“Climate change: Deal to help end deforestation misses first deadline just months after it was signed at COP26.
“At the Glasgow talks, a group of donor countries promised $500m (£370m) to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to protect the Congo Basin. The pact was part of a package of deals to end deforestation by 2030…”
“Greenland’s immense ice sheet has lost enough ice in the past 20 years to submerge the entire United States in half a metre of water, according to data released this week by Danish researchers.
“The climate is warming faster in the Arctic than anywhere else on the planet and melting ice from Greenland is now the main factor in the rise in the Earth’s oceans, according to NASA.”
“Almost all of the glaciers touching the ocean in the Northern Hemisphere are losing huge amounts of ice to climate change, a new study has shown.
“Most are losing ice and the few that have gained ice are destined to melt rapidly, the researchers warn.”
“Russian citizens can now claim one free hectare of land in its Arctic zone as the government seeks to expand its development of the fast-warming region…
“The Far East and Arctic Hectare programs’ online portal boasts of success stories including an eco-glamping resort in Chukotka, a strawberry plantation in the Khabarovsk region and an Arctic poultry farm.”
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/01/russia-gives-away-free-arctic-land-to-citizens-a76223
“A significant decline in otter numbers in Wales is a “warning” over the state of the UK’s rivers, researchers have said. Otter numbers have dropped 20 percentage points since 2010…
“The reason for the decline is unclear, but could be related to the pollutants in the river ecosystem.”
“Flowers arriving a month early in UK as climate heats up.
“The researchers examined 420,000 recorded dates of first flowering for more than 400 species, dating to 1793. The average date for the first blooms was about 12 May up to 1986, but since then the date has been pushed forward to 16 April.”
“It seems the January blues were blown aside last month as England enjoyed the sunniest start to a year on record. The country saw an average of 80.7 hours of sunshine last month, according to the Met Office.”
“Portugal’s government is restricting the use of some reservoirs for hydroelectric power and irrigation amid an unusual winter drought.
“Portugal’s weather agency said that… all the country was enduring some degree of drought because of relatively low rainfall since November. It said 45% of the land was in “severe” or “extreme” drought.”
“Wave of fires in Malaga: new fire in Ermita de los Verdiales and another in Ojén after several in Axarquía [Spain]…
“The affected area is the same one that burned during the early morning of January 23. The flames could be seen from different parts of the city and that night the wind was whipping, so the firefighters had to work hard to quell the flames.”
https://www.elespanol.com/malaga/20220201/declarado-incendio-forestal-ojen-malaga/646935503_0.html
“Italian teams join fight to put out Swiss forest fire…
“The fire has been raging since Sunday morning on Monte Gambarogno, near Lake Maggiore in the southern Swiss canton of Ticino which borders Italy.
“Several dozen people have been evacuated from their homes, but no injuries have been reported.”
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/italian-teams-join-fight-to-put-out-swiss-forest-fire/47311684
“Six feared dead in Mozambique floods. The accidents on the Zambezi and Revuboe rivers came in the wake of Tropical Storm Ana, which pummeled the region last week, leaving 86 dead in Mozambique, Madagascar and Malawi.”
https://guardian.ng/news/world/six-feared-dead-in-mozambique-floods/
“Tropical Cyclone Batsirai strengthens as it approaches a Madagascar landfall.
“Tropical Cyclone Batsirai continues to strengthen as it approaches a Madagascar landfall in the coming days. CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri breaks down the potential impacts.” [Video]
“‘We relied on the lake. Now it’s killing us’: climate crisis threatens future of Kenya’s El Molo people.
“Lake Turkana’s shores have been home to the El Molo for millennia but as rising waters swallow homes and sacred sites they face losing everything… Lake Turkana, a Unesco world heritage site, has increased in area by more than 10% over the last decade…”
“Freezing winter weather in war-torn northwestern Syria killed two infants in separate displaced persons camps, a doctor and a war monitor said Tuesday.
“Record-breaking temperatures and heavy snowstorms have swept across much of the Middle East, from Gaza to Turkey, in recent weeks. The cold and snow have hit many impoverished Syrians and Lebanese hard.”
“Exceptional heat on 1 February in Oman. Rustaq, also thanks to a local fohn wind from the Jabal al Shams Mts. rose to 36.6C [97.9F] which is 1.6C above the January national record of the country,but 1 day later.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1488595508235055120
“At least 30 homes made of light and concrete materials were destroyed by what residents described as a “tornado” that hit seven villages in Maguindanao [Philippines] Tuesday evening.
“Mindato Malasigan, municipal disaster risk reduction and management officer for Kabuntalan Mother in Maguindanao, said Wednesday the affected families were temporarily staying in their relatives’ homes.”
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1548815/tornado-hits-maguindanao-villages-destroys-32-homes
“Flooding cuts off key railway supply routes in central Australia.
“Supply chains already stretched due to Covid-related staff shortages have been severed after floods in South Australia washed away parts of the railway linking the eastern states with Western Australia and the Northern Territory.”
“Melbourne’s hot January nights smash record…
“Melburnians have endured a run of unbearably sticky nights, notching up a mean minimum temperature – the coldest it gets at night – of 18.3 degrees over January, the warmest average minimum for any month since records began in 1855. Last month’s figure beat the previous record by about 4 degrees.”
“Fears of power outages as ‘unusual’ weather combination ramps up Queensland heat. Tropical humidity is set to hit south-east Queensland this week, raising concerns of large-scale power outages as Queenslanders try to stay cool…
“The heatwave has stretched inland to the central highlands, with Lockington recording 41.7C [107.06F] at 11 am on Tuesday morning.”
“Ecuador floods: At least 18 dead after record rainfall causes landslides and 10ft waves of mud…
““We saw this immense black river that was dragging along everything, we had to climb the walls to escape,” resident Alba Cotacachi, who evacuated her two young daughters from their home, told Reuters news agency.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/ecuador-flooding-latest-news-deaths-b2005615.html
“Death toll from landslides, flooding climbs to 24 in Brazil… as firefighters continued pulling bodies from the mud…
“”(I’m looking for) my nephew, his wife and a 2-year-old child,” Cicero Pereira, 54, told The Associated Press beside a disaster site in the city of Franco da Rocha. “They said the bodies are still there under the mud, but until now they couldn’t recover them.””
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/sao-paulo-god-minas-gerais-b2004695.html
“Two days of heavy rains and the resulting floods have killed at least three people in Haiti, according to the head of the country’s civil protection authority.
“The death toll was reported on Tuesday, hours after rescuers began evacuating people in high-risk zones, where thousands of homes have been flooded and some 2,500 families have been displaced.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/1/at-least-three-dead-in-haiti-floods-official
“Havana just got its coldest temperature in more than 80 years: 3.2C / 37.8°F…
“31st January it was cold in the tropics. Temperature dropped to 4.5C at Freeport, Grand Bahama,the lowest in decades…
“…in Cuba it was 2.8C at Bainoa (monthly record tied) and 3.2C in the Havana Marti Int. AP, lowest temperature since the 1.6C of January 1940.”
https://twitter.com/bhensonweather/status/1488248042230673409
“‘It’s not good.’ What the driest January in Fresno history tells us to expect this summer…
“Red flags are going up for farmers, firefighters, and everyone else in the central San Joaquin Valley [California] after January officially tied the record for the driest on record in the region, and a once-massive Sierra snowpack continues to melt away.”
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/weather-news/article257927993.html
“Hundreds of flights cancelled as major winter storm prepares to sweep US.
“The major winter storm is expected to affect a huge swath of the US, with heavy snow starting in the Rockies and freezing rain as far south as Texas… The forecast comes nearly a year after a catastrophic winter storm devastated the Texas power grid, causing hundreds of deaths.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/01/winter-storm-texas-snow-ice-rockies-midwest
“Lightning bolt extending across 3 US states sets global record.
“The bolt of lightning stretching for 768km across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi in April 2020 is the new world record holder for the longest flash, WMO says… beating the previous record set on October 31, 2018, in Brazil of 709km (440.6 miles), the United Nations agency said on Tuesday.
“This astonishing image shows a new Saharan dust storm moving over the west coast of Africa over to the Atlantic Ocean – the third such storm in less than two weeks…
“NASA scientists, using a combination of satellite data and computer models, predict that Africa’s annual dust plumes will actually shrink to a 20,000-year minimum over the next century as a result of climate change and ocean warming.”
You can read the previous ‘Climate’ thread here. I’ll be back tomorrow with an ‘Economic’ thread.
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