Here’s How Climate Change Could Turn U.S. Real Estate Prices Upside Down
If Florida gleaned anything from Hurricane Andrew, the intensely powerful storm that tore a deadly trail of destruction across Miami-Dade County almost exactly 25 years to the day that Hurricane Harvey barreled into the Texas coastline, it was that living in areas exposed to the wrath of Mother Nature can come at a substantial cost. At the time… Read More
Here’s How Climate Change is a ‘Death Sentence’ in Afghanistan’s Highlands
The central highlands of Afghanistan are a world away from the congested chaos of the country’s cities. Hills roll across colossal, uninhabited spaces fringed by snow-flecked mountains, set against blistering blue skies. In this spectacular, harsh landscape, one can pinpoint more or less where human settlement becomes impossible: at an altitude… Read More
Global Warming Is Fueling Arizona’s Monstrous Monsoons
Summer in Arizona and throughout the Southwest is monsoon season, which means a daily pattern of afternoon thunderstorms, flash floods, dramatic dust clouds and spectacular displays of lightning over the desert. As the climate changes, Arizona’s monsoon rainfall is becoming more intense even as daily average rainfall in parts of the state has … Read More
Climate Change Means More Fuel for Toxic Algae Blooms
For two days in early August 2014, the 400,000 residents in and around Toledo, Ohio, were told not to drink, wash dishes with or bathe in the city’s water supply. A noxious, pea green algae bloom had formed over the city’s intake pipe in Lake Erie and levels of a toxin that could cause diarrhea and vomiting had reached unsafe levels. The bloom… Read More
Antarctica’s Ice-Free Areas to Increase By 2100
Climate change will cause ice-free areas on Antarctica to increase by up to a quarter by 2100, threatening the diversity of the unique terrestrial plant and animal life that exists there, according to projections from the first study examining the question in detail. If emissions of greenhouse gasses are not reduced, projected warming and changes … Read More
Global Sea Level Rise Accelerates Since 1990
The rise in global sea levels has accelerated since the 1990s amid rising temperatures, with a thaw of Greenland's ice sheet pouring ever more water into the oceans, scientists said this week. The annual rate of sea level rise increased to 3.3 millimeters (0.13 inch) in 2014 — a rate of 33 centimeters (13 inches) if kept unchanged for a century… Read More
Climate Change Altering Droughts, Impacts Across U.S.
As a major drought devastated the West and Midwest beginning in 2012, farmers racked up billions of dollars in crop losses and water managers grappled with possible water shortages for millions of people as reservoirs dried up in the heat. That drought is now gone. But scientists have found that the dry spell showed unusual wild extremes of … Read More
Desert Basins Could Hold ‘Missing’ Carbon Sinks
Deserts across the globe may contain some of the world’s “missing” carbon sinks — land masses scientists had not previously identified that absorb carbon from the atmosphere, according to researchers at China’s Lanzhou University. A study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience found that closed, or endorheic, basins in deserts — areas… Read More
