Tornadoes, Heat-Related Deaths, and Hurricanes
An extreme weather-packed slideshow of the week's top climate news.… Read More
Congo Waits on Funding for Largest Hydropower Project
The dream of harnessing the mighty Congo with the world's largest set of dams has moved closer, with the World Bank and other financial institutions expected to offer finance and South Africa agreeing to buy half of the power generated. In the past 60 years French, Belgian, Chinese, Brazilian and African engineers have all hoped to dam the river. … Read More
Weather Satellite Outage Points to Larger Problems
The sick satellite, which engineers are working to fix, is responsible for observing weather systems across the eastern U.S. and the Atlantic Ocean, and is known as GOES-13, or “GOES East.” It is a geostationary satellite, which means that it stays in a fixed orbit at an altitude of about 22,300 miles above the equator, allowing it to keep a consta… Read More
Optimism for Crops in Midwest; Dire Straits in the West
When it comes to this year’s drought, it seems like good news never arrives without bad news to match it. Even as drought receded from the Upper Midwest this week, conditions deepened and intensified all across the Southwest. Any optimism that may emerge for crops in the Midwest from this week’s rains is balanced by the dire conditions of pastures … Read More
2013 Hurricane Season Could Be Extremely Active: NOAA
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that the 2013 hurricane season, which begins on June 1, is likely to be somewhere between active and extremely active, with between 13 and 20 named storms – those with sustained winds above 39 m.p.h. By comparison, in 2012 — the year of Isaac and Sandy — there were 19 named storms … Read More
Oklahoma Tornado Shows Progress in Weather Warnings
Despite the utter devastation left in the wake of the massive tornado that tore through Moore, Okla., the deadly storm, in many ways, helped showcase how far scientists have come in providing communities early tornado warning signs. In an era of budget cuts that threaten things such as new weather satellites and improved hurricane prediction, … Read More
Limiting Methane Leaks Critical to Gas, Climate Benefits
Knowing how much methane is leaking from the natural gas system is essential to determining the potential climate benefits of natural gas use. Climate Central’s extensive review of the publicly available studies finds that a pervasive lack of measurements makes it nearly impossible to know with confidence what the average methane leak rate is for … Read More
Making Sense of the Moore Tornado in a Climate Context
The devastating Moore, Okla., tornado now joins the ranks of America’s strongest and deadliest twisters on record, coming almost exactly two years after a deadly tornado struck Joplin, Mo. In trying to make sense of the Moore tornado, here are some of the things we know and don't know about tornadoes, and whether and how climate change may be inf… Read More
