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Climate Change

Page Updated:
Feb. 26, 2026

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• • Satellites Reveal New Climate Threat to Emperor Penguins

  Ice loss in the Antarctic Ocean May Be Killing the Sea Birds During Their Molting Season

  
  

  Feb. 26, 2026 -Each year for millennia, emperor penguins have molted on coastal sea ice that remained stable until late summer—a haven during a span of several weeks when it’s dangerous for the mostly aquatic birds to enter the ocean to feed because they are regrowing their waterproof feathers.

  But as overall Antarctic sea ice extent dwindled to record lows in recent years, some of the frozen penguin platforms melted earlier than ever, forcing the weakened birds into smaller areas and possibly to a premature death in the icy ocean, according to British Antarctic Survey geographer Peter Fretwell, who helped pioneer counting emperor penguins from space.

• • Climate Change Costs Us Twice As Much As
  Previously Thought When You Factor in the Ocean

  A New Calculation Includes Ocean Ecosystems When Assessing the Monetary Impact of Climate Change

  
  

  Feb. 25, 2026 -How much money is climate change costing humanity? The social cost of carbon, a term for the monetary damages caused by excess carbon emissions, provides one answer.

  That calculation has traditionally disregarded the impacts that climate change has on the ocean—until now.

  “Once you see it, you cannot unsee it,” said Bernie Bastien-Olvera, a climate change scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

• • Chronic Ocean Heating Fuels ‘Staggering’ Marine Life Loss

  Fish Levels Fall By 7.2% With as Little as 0.1C of Warming Per Decade

  
  

  Feb. 25, 2026 -Chronic ocean heating is fuelling a “staggering and deeply concerning” loss of marine life, a study has found, with fish levels falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade.

  Researchers examined the year-to-year change of 33,000 populations in the northern hemisphere between 1993 and 2021, and isolated the effect of the decadal rate of seabed warming from short shifts such as marine heatwaves. They found the drop in biomass from chronic heating to be as high as 19.8% in a single year.

• • Yes, Indiana Maple Syrup is a Thing. But Climate Woes Could Change That

  Researchers Fear That Maple Syrup Production Could Become Impossible in Indiana By the end of the Century
  
  {IndyStar}
  
  

  Feb. 23, 2026 -On dark winter nights, Indiana sugar maker Emily Blackman sometimes finds her husband, Robert, pacing the floor of their home in Clark County, anxiously thumbing through the forecast on his cell phone, checking to see what the weather might have in store for the family's maple trees.

  Syrup production is a fickle business, subject to the whims of the climate — and Emily has known this for most of her life. She and her sister, Jen Reisenbichler, grew up tapping trees and chopping firewood on the family's Salem maple farm. When their parents sold the property in 2013, the sisters and their husbands snatched it up. The two families have been running LM Sugarbush ever since.

• • Nobel Laureate Invents Machine That Harvests Water From Dry Air

  Omar Yaghi’s Invention Uses Ambient Thermal Energy and Can Generate Up to 1,000 Litres of Clean Water Every Day

  
  

  Feb. 22, 2026 -A Nobel laureate’s environmentally friendly invention that provides clean water if central supplies are knocked out by a hurricane or drought could be a life saver for vulnerable islands, its founder says.

  The invention, by the chemist Prof Omar Yaghi, uses a type of science called reticular chemistry to create molecularly engineered materials, which can extract moisture from the air and harvest water even in arid and desert conditions.

• • Under Water, In Denial: is Europe Drowning Out the Climate Crisis?

  Even as Weather Extremes Worsen, the Voices Calling For the Rolling Back of Environmental Rules Have Grown Louder and More Influential

  
  

  Feb. 21, 2026 -In the timeless week between Christmas and the new year, two Spanish men in their early 50s – friends since childhood, popular around town – went to a restaurant and did not come home.

  Francisco Zea Bravo, a maths teacher active in a book club and rock band, and Antonio Morales Serrano, the owner of a popular cafe and ice-cream parlour, had gone to eat with friends in Málaga on Saturday 27 December. But as the pair drove back to Alhaurín el Grande that night, heavy rains turned the usually tranquil Fahala River into what the mayor would later call an “uncontrollable torrent”. Police found their van overturned the next day. Their bodies followed after an agonising search.

• • What Does Ice On Lake Superior Tell Us About Climate Change?

  As of Feb. 5, Nearly Half of Lake Superior is Covered Ice According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab
  
  {MPRnews}
  
  

  Feb. 20, 2026 -The last time Lake Superior completely froze over was 30 years ago in 1996. Around that time, Lake Superior was consistently at least 75 percent frozen over. Now, 75 percent coverage is rare, only happening about once every four years.

  Ice on the Great Lakes, and Lake Superior specifically, is a great way to measure climate for our region. MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner spoke with UMD professor Jay Austin, about what ice coverage can tell us about climate change.

• • Europe Defies Trump Team Over IEA Climate Fight

  European Leaders Pushed Back After Energy Secretary Chris Wright Threatened to Quit the Agency For Using Climate Modeling in Its Forecasts
  
  {E&E NEWS}
  
  

  Feb. 19, 2026 -European leaders expressed growing defiance Wednesday toward the Trump administration’s efforts to stymie messaging about climate change by the world’s premier energy organization.

  It came a day after Energy Secretary Chris Wright threatened to quit the International Energy Agency for including “climate stuff” in its data analyses for renewables, fossil fuels and global carbon emissions.

• • US Succeeds in Erasing Climate From Global Energy Body’s Priorities

  Trump’s Energy Chief Had Threatened to Leave the International Energy Agency If It Continued to Focus On Climate
  
  {POLITICO}
  
  

  Feb. 19, 2026 -The United States has succeeded in removing climate change from the main priorities of the International Energy Agency, following a tense ministerial meeting in Paris that reflected a dramatic shift in political mood around the clean energy transition.

  In the chair’s summary released at the end of the two-day meeting, addressing climate change is not listed among the agency’s priorities. Instead, the document focuses on energy security, resilience, critical minerals and electricity systems.

• • The Island With an Air-Conditioned
  ‘Forest’ to Cope With Scorching Summers

  Being Out in the Open is Something to Be Endured Rather Than Enjoyed
  
  {CNN}
  
  

  Feb. 19, 2026 -When summers hit Qatar, most people retreat indoors during the heat of the day, sheltering at home or work with the aircon cranked high or visiting super-cooled shopping malls — and driving between them in cars chilled to refrigerator temperatures.

  Until now. On Gewan Island – the latest addition to a man-made archipelago off the coast of the capital city Doha — visitors can comfortably stroll outside in the middle of a summer’s day thanks to a surprising innovation: an air-conditioned “forest.”

• • Fire-Prone Weather Days On the Rise As Planet Heats Up

  The Annual Number of Synchronous Days With Fire-Prone Weather – When Multiple Places Have the Right Conditions For Fires to Occur Within a Few Days of Each Other – Went From an Average of 22 Between 1979 and 1984 to More Than 60 Days in 2023 and 2024
  
  {EARTH.ORG}
  
  

  Feb. 19, 2026 -The number of days with fire-prone conditions globally has nearly tripled in the past 45 years, with more than half of that increase linked to human-caused climate change, according to a new study.

  Fire-prone conditions arise when elevated temperatures are accompanied by dry and windy weather. Dry leaves and vegetation acts as fuel, while strong winds can spread wildfires further and faster, making them more difficult to control. Such conditions have been blamed for several recent wildfires events, from those in Los Angeles in January 2025 to the more recent ones affecting southern Australia.

• • Drought Deepens Hunger in Northern Kenya

  As Aid Cuts Bite
  
  
  

  Feb. 19, 2026 - Four years after a record drought devastated northern Kenya, failed rains are once again causing starvations, with aid cuts forcing agencies to scale back their efforts and feed fewer people.

  In the barren plains of Turkana county, 76-year-old widowed grandmother Echakan Amaja sits outside her mud hut in Loperot village, surviving on foraged gingerbread fruit and the scant aid rations she can get her hands on.

• • Climate Change Adding Weeks of ‘Coffee-
  Harming Heat’ in Major Growing Regions

  The May Not Be More Coffee In Brazil (and Other Places)
  
  {DAILY COFFEE NEWS}
  
  

  Feb. 19, 2026 -A new analysis found that climate change has already added weeks of “coffee-harming” heat to the world’s main coffee-producing regions, threatening future supply and the livelihoods of millions of smallholder coffee farmers.

  Released today by the policy-neutral nonprofit Climate Central, the analysis found that the number of days topping the heat-stress threshold increased across all 25 coffee-producing countries studied, representing 97% of global coffee production.

• • Methane Hunters Track Swamp Gas That Is Driving Climate Warming

  Methane Emissions From Wetlands Are Rising Faster Than Those From Industrial Sources

  
  

  Feb. 18, 2026 -Two scientists were stuck in a swamp. To free their boat, one grabbed a metal pole, the other a paddle, and the two pushed into the mud with all their strength. As the boat floated free, bubbles of gas rose from the muck below.

  “That’s methane,” Gage Hunter yelled.

  Mr. Hunter, a graduate student, and Manab Dutta, a postdoctoral researcher, were hunting for methane, a potent greenhouse gas produced by bacteria living in this boggy wildlife reserve not far from New Orleans.

• • Scientists May Have Just Solved One of the
  Strangest Mysteries of Greenland’s Ice Sheet

  Below the Surface, Greenland’s Ice Appears to Be Churning Up, a Process One Scientist Described as Akin to a “Boiling Pot of Pasta”

  
  

  Feb. 18, 2026 -Hidden underneath the surface of Greenland’s ice, there are strange, vast structures known as “plumes.” But for years, scientists didn’t know how these curious forms came to be—until now. A new study published in the journal Cryosphere reveals that the structures may have been caused by thermal convection in a process similar to the churning of the hot rock in Earth’s mantle.

  Convection is caused by temperature differences within a material. Hot material rises, and cool material falls—driving a cycling, or convection. The same phenomenon appears to occur in ice, too, indicating that parts of the ice sheet may be softer than scientists realized. That’s important for one crucial reason: we know that Greenland’s ice sheet is rapidly melting. And as the climate warms, scientists are racing to understand how exactly it will melt and how fast.

• • How Climate Change Made Deadly Floods in Spain Even Worse

  In 2024 Extreme Rain and Floods Hit the Spanish Region of Valencia, Killing More Than 230 People in the Country

  
  

  Feb. 17, 2026 -In October 2024 the Spanish region of Valencia was smothered in a downpour of biblical proportions. In just a few short hours, more rain fell on the region than would in an average year. The precipitation triggered a string of flash floods that swept away bridges and cars and even derailed a train. More than 230 people in Spain were killed in the deluge. At the time, scientists speculated that climate change had fueled the event—and now a new study reveals how much it did so.

  The study shows that, because of climate change, the rate of intense rainfall was about 21 percent higher over a six-hour period in Valencia than it would have been without the influence of climate change.

• • Lake Erie’s Storm Surges Become More Extreme

  Officials Are Designing New Ways to Protect Shorelines From Sudden Flooding and Longer Storm Seasons
  
  
  

  Feb. 17, 2026 -This winter’s bitter cold spell has turned Lake Erie into a glacial landscape, with the entire body of water almost completely frozen and mountains of blue-tinted ice up to 25 feet tall lining the shore.

  High winds have played a major role in the ice drama. A satellite image by NOAA this month revealed a stunning 80-mile crack in the hardened tundra-like surface of the lake, caused in part by winds. Other images show tsunami-like waves of ice, driven by high winds, pushing mounds of what’s known as brash ice onto the near shore.

• • We’re Not Yet Experts At Guiding Planes to Avoid Contrails

  We Should Start Doing it Anyway

  
  

  Feb. 17, 2026 -Nudging aircraft onto slightly different paths to avoid contrail formation could slash climate warming due to aviation over the next 25 years almost in half, according to a new study. The analysis suggests the main risk lies in not acting fast enough.

  Contrail avoidance “represents a clear, near-term climate opportunity for aviation and swift, coordinated international action could make a meaningful difference,” says study team member Jessie Smith, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge in the UK.

• • One in Nine New Homes in England Built in Flood Risk Areas

  Figures From Aviva Also Show Number of Homes Being Built in Risky Areas is Rising

  
  

  Feb. 17, 2026 -One in nine new homes in England built between 2022 and 2024 were constructed in areas that could now be at risk of flooding, according to new data.

  The figures show the number of homes being built in risky areas is on the rise – a previous analysis showed that between 2013 and 2022, one in 13 new homes were in potential flooding zones.

• A Greenland Sled Dog Champion Fears
For His Culture As Climate Change Melts the Ice

The Rising Temperatures in Ilulissat are Causing the Permafrost to Melt, Buildings to Sink and Pipes to Crack




Feb. 16, 2026 -For more than a thousand years, dogs have pulled sleds across the Arctic for Inuit seal hunters and fishermen. But this winter, in the town of Ilulissat, around 300km (186 miles) north of the Arctic Circle, that’s not possible.

Instead of gliding over snow and ice, Kristensen’s sled bounces over earth and rock. Gesturing to the hills, he said it’s the first time he can remember when there has been no snow — or ice in the bay — in January.

• • Nearly Half of Americans Think They'll See
  Catastrophic Impacts Of Climate Change In Their Lifetimes

  Check Out the Poll Numbers
  
  {YouGov}
  
  

  Feb. 17, 2026 -Most Americans say the world's climate is changing and nearly half think they will see catastrophic effects of climate change during their lifetimes. Majorities say the U.S. should do more to address climate change, should increase or keep current environmental regulations, and should use more solar and wind energy. More Americans say stricter environmental standards would help the U.S. economy than say stricter standards would hurt it.

  What you need to know about Americans' views on climate change and the environment, as of the February 13 - 16, 2026 Economist / YouGov Poll:

• • Climate Change Could Make This Horrific
  New Jersey Wildlife Disease Worse

  The Garden State is Home to Ranavirus, a Pathogen Capable of Killing Amphibians En Masse

  
  

  Feb. 17, 2026 -It was May 2011 when herpetologist Robert Zappalorti called scientists about the tadpoles.

  Researchers at Montclair State University went to see for themselves. At the site in Ocean County, New Jersey, they found green frog tadpoles that looked like something out of a medical drama or a frog horror film—lethargic and swollen, with red lesions on their skin.

• • Cyclone Gezani Leaves 59 Dead in Madagascar,

  Displaces More Than 16,000

  
  

  Feb. 16, 2026 -At least 59 people died when Cyclone Gezani struck Madagascar last week, the disaster management office said on Monday, as it assesses the impact of the second tropical storm to hit the Indian Ocean island nation this year.

  The cyclone displaced 16,428, while 15 people remain missing, 804 were injured and 423,986 were classified as affected by the disaster, the National Bureau for Risk and Disaster Management (BNGRC) said.

• • New Zealand Hit By Storms and Widespread Floods

  Low Pressure System Funnels Rain Over Already Saturated Areas, Compounding Risk of Further Flooding

  
  

  Feb. 16, 2026 -A deep area of low pressure to the south-east of New Zealand’s North Island swept into the region on Sunday, bringing heavy rain, gale-force winds and dangerous coastal swells that lashed exposed shorelines. The storm triggered power outages, forced evacuations and damaged infrastructure, with further impacts likely on Monday as the system lingers for a time, before tracking southwards later.

  Its arrival came after days of widespread flooding in the ?torohanga district, where a man was found dead after his vehicle became submerged in flood waters. Some areas recorded more than 100mm of rain in 24 hours on Thursday, with Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and the Bay of Plenty bearing the brunt of the deluge.

• • How Climate Change Will Affect Colorado Skiing

  Endangered Snowpack
  
  {The Denver Post}
  
  

  Feb. 15, 2026 -Colorado’s iconic alpine ski resorts are used to wild changes in weather — from massive blizzards to snow droughts in the 1970s that left hills bare in February.

  But how will they handle the long-term warming trends expected from climate change?

  Higher temperatures will become more common at the beginning and end of the season, scientists say. Those warmer temperatures will result in rain increasingly replacing snowfall in the fall and spring, especially at lower elevations. Snow will melt faster in the spring, chipping away at late-season ski days. Changes are already noticeable outside the core winter months.

• • Why Changes in a Florida Ocean
  Current Could Wreak Havoc Worldwide

  Scientists Differ Over Whether or How Fast it May Occur

  
  

  Feb. 15, 2026 -At 2 a.m., oceanographer Ryan Smith was headed into his 12th hour of work with little sleep when trouble started.

  From the rear deck of the University of Miami’s research boat, he guided the vessel’s winch to lower a cage containing 14 long, gray tubes, collectively weighing about 1,000 pounds, hundreds of meters deep into the Atlantic Ocean, to record the temperature, salinity and density of the water. But after running smoothly for the first two-thirds of the trip, the sensors now suddenly stopped transmitting data.

  There was no time for a hiccup. With urgency mounting, Smith signaled to bring the cage to the surface.

• • For Maine’s Lakes, Shorter Ice Seasons Mean
  Loss of Water Quality, Winter Traditions

  Now, Maine’s Lakes Have 25 Fewer Ice Days Per Winter

  
  

  Feb. 14, 2026 -Ice fascinates Richard Behr.

  Almost every winter day, the 66-year-old central Maine resident checks out satellite images of some of his favorite lakes and ponds for “wild” skating. He drives out to check ice thickness in person and shares condition reports with his fellow skaters on Facebook. He reads articles about ice science before bed.

  “I don’t have to be on the ice to enjoy the sport,” Behr said. “I love talking about it. I drive my wife crazy.”

• • Mamdani’s New Chief Climate Officer Wants
  to Make New York a ‘Better Place to Live’

  Louise Yeung Hopes to Bolster NYC’s Response to Climate Change to Better Address Safety, Health and the City’s Affordability Crisis

  
  

  Feb. 14, 2026 -In Louise Yeung’s decade of work in New York City government, she has helped rebuild flood infrastructure after Hurricane Sandy, worked to make streets and tunnels more resilient to climate change and ensured that the city’s financial investments aligned with its climate goals.

  In her new role as Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s chief climate officer, Yeung aims to help New Yorkers see how climate change impacts their daily lives.

  “Climate change is such a cross-cutting issue,” Yeung said. “It really does have a daily impact on how people can feel safe, how people can feel healthy and how people can live a life with dignity.”

• • Thermal Drone Footage Shows Musk’s
  AI Power Plant Flouting Clean Air Regulations

  Images Confirm xAI Continues to Defy EPA Regulations in Mississippi to Power Its Flagship Datacenters

  
  

  Feb. 13, 2026 -Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company is continuing to fuel its datacenters with unpermitted gas turbines, an investigation by the Floodlight newsroom shows. Thermal footage captured by Floodlight via drone shows xAI is still burning gas at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi, despite a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling reiterating that doing so requires a state permit in advance.

  State regulators in Mississippi maintain that since the turbines are parked on tractor trailers, they don’t require permits. However, the EPA has long maintained that such pollution sources require permits under the Clean Air Act.

• • Economics Has Failed On the Climate Crisis

  This Complexity Scientist Has a Mind-Blowing Plan to Fix That

  
  

  Feb. 12, 2026 -It’s a mind-blowing idea: an economic model of the world in which every company is individually represented, making realistic decisions that change as the economy changes. From this astonishing complexity would emerge forecasts of unprecedented clarity. These would be transformative: no more flying blind into global financial crashes, no more climate policies that fail to shift the dial.

  This super simulator could be built for what Prof Doyne Farmer calls the bargain price of $100m, thanks to advances in complexity science and computing power.

• • The Desert Is Getting Too Hot For Joshua Trees

  Can We Just … Move Them?
  
  {NATIONAL GEORAPHIC}
  
  

  Feb. 12, 2026 -Six years ago, Jeremiah Joseph was driving through a thick stand of Joshua trees during the early morning hours. The arms of the trees stretched out of the darkness and into the light cast by his car’s headlights, and for a split second, he thought they were people trying to flag him down.

  Joseph, a member of the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone tribe in California, had spent his whole life surrounded by Joshua trees, but he says that morning was the first time he took a serious interest in them. That same year, the tribe had received 38 Joshua trees that were dug up to make room for a highway expansion project. Joseph was part of the group tasked with replanting them, and he began to learn more about the dire fate facing this species: Without human intervention, both the eastern and western subspecies of Joshua trees face a perilous future.

• • Trump Administration Erases the
  Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change

  The EPA Rejected Bedrock Scientific Finding That Greenhouse Gases Threaten Human Life

  
  

  Feb. 12, 2026 -President Trump on Thursday announced he was erasing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

  The action is a key step in removing limits on carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases that scientists say are supercharging heat waves, droughts, wildfires and other extreme weather.

• • Climate Action is the Antidote to Global
  ‘Chaos and Coercion,’ Says UN Leader

  Simon Stiell’s Speech Came the Same Day EPA Said It Would Eliminate the Legal Basis For Its Ability to Fight Climate Change
  
  {GREENWIRE}
  
  

  Feb. 12, 2026 -United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell is pitching climate action as an antidote to the instability and tumult besetting the global order.

  In a message delivered Thursday in Turkey, host of this year’s U.N. climate talks, he called on countries to pull together and deliver their climate pledges with greater speed and urgency.

  “In the face of the current chaos, we can, and must, drive forward a new era of international climate cooperation,” said Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

• • China Could Reach Peak Greenhouse
  Gas Emissions Sooner Than Beijing Planned

  Falling Emissions From the World’s Biggest Greenhouse Gas Emitter Could Mean a Global Turning Point

  
  

  Feb. 11, 2026 -Planet-warming emissions from China, currently the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluter, have continued to flatline or fall as cleaner forms of energy outpace coal and gas generation, according to a new analysis published Wednesday.

  If the trend continues, China’s emissions from energy production could peak in the next two years, representing a major structural change in global fossil fuel use and a critical milestone in the effort to slow atmospheric warming.

• • Scientists Thought They Understood Global Warming

  Then the Past Three Years Happened

  
  

  Feb. 11, 2026 -According to a Washington Post analysis, the fastest warming rate on record occurred in the last 30 years. The Post used a dataset from NASA to analyze global average surface temperatures from 1880 to 2025.

  “We’re not continuing on the same path we had before,” said Robert Rohde, chief scientist at Berkeley Earth. “Something has changed.”

• • In South Africa's Affluent Western
  Cape, Farmers Lose Cattle to Drought

  Scientists Say Intensity of Both North and South is Increasing

  
  

  Feb. 12, 2026 -In South Africa's most visited and affluent province, Western Cape, one of the worst droughts in living memory is drying up dams, scorching grass and killing livestock, prompting the government to declare a national emergency this month.

  Scientists say climate change is causing worsening droughts in the province, which draws tourists to its vineyards, beaches and the lush slopes of Table Mountain above Cape Town, but lies on the edge of the advancing semi-desert Karoo. In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.

• • Dozens of Places Will Be Too Warm to Host the Winter Olympics

  This Will Happen In Just 25 Years
  
  {CNN}
  
  

  Feb. 10, 2026 -Jessie Diggins is an endurance athlete. The Olympic cross-country skier describes the intensity of suffering her sport can inflict as a “pain cave.” It doesn’t frighten her; she’s used to digging deep, she can control the pain. What does terrify her, however, is how rapidly her sport is changing because of something completely out of her control: climate change.

  She sees the effects everywhere. “I’ve raced World Cups where it was pouring rain and there was barely a strip of snow to ski on, entire seasons were reshaped overnight,” Diggins said. It’s become impossible to hold a winter sporting event without fake snow, she wrote in a blog.

• • The Conservative Activists Behind One of Trump’s Biggest Climate Moves

  Four Trump Allies Have Been a Driving Force Behind the Administration’s Efforts to Rollback a Key Climate Regulation

  
  

  Feb. 10, 2026, By Lisa Friedman -President Trump campaigned on a platform of climate denial and a promise to reverse federal policies aimed at protecting the planet. But even experts have been stunned at the magnitude of the environmental protections he has unraveled and the speed with which his administration has acted.

  As Maxine Joselow and I report, the swift and meticulous dismantling of climate rules we are now seeing did not happen by chance. It was set in motion by a cadre of conservative lawyers who served in the first Trump administration and spent years honing arguments to block government regulations of climate pollution.

• • Antarctica’s Best Ocean Explorers Have Whiskers and Love to Lounge

  Seals Can Collect Data in Waters That Ships Could Never Reach

  
  

  Feb. 10, 2026 -To recruit the Antarctic expedition’s newest deputy scientist, Ji-Yeon Cheon had to approach the candidate carefully, from behind.

  Step by gentle step, Ms. Cheon walked sideways across a patch of sea ice, avoiding eye contact. Once she was close, she held a five-foot blowpipe to her lips and shot a dart filled with sedative into the animal’s blubbery, speckled-gray rump.

• • Economic Growth Is Still Heating the Planet. Is There Any Way Out?

  Rising GDP Continues to Mean More Carbon Emissions and Wider Damage to the Planet. Can the Two Be Decoupled?

  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -During Cop30 negotiations in Brazil last year, delegates heard a familiar argument: rising emissions are unavoidable for countries pursuing growth.

  Since the first Cop in the 1990s, developing nations have had looser reduction targets to reflect the economic gap between them and richer countries, which emitted millions of tonnes of CO2 as they pulled ahead. The concession comes from the idea that an inevitable cost of prosperity is environmental harm.

• • There Are More Signs of a Coming El Niño
  That Could Trigger Record Global Warmth

  It Could Have Wide-Reaching Impacts Across the Planet

  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -For the second time in as many months, a wind burst occurred in a remote part of the western Pacific Ocean during January — and odds are rising that it will trigger a significant change in the planet’s weather patterns later this year.

  These wind bursts — which are breaking records for their strength — are pushing some of the world’s warmest ocean water from the West Pacific south of Guam toward South America, a phenomenon that signal a shift toward a planet-warming El Niño.

• • Climate Change Fueled Deadly
  January Wildfires in Argentina, Chile

  “Human-Induced Climate Change Made the Weather That Accompanied Recent Wildfires In Chile and Argentina About 2.5 to 3x More Likely”
  
  {EARTH.ORG}
  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -Recent deadly wildfires in parts of Argentina and Chile would have been less likely to occur in a cooler world, according to a new study.

  New research by the World Weather Attribution group concluded that reduced rainfall and elevated temperatures created the perfect conditions for the wildfires to spread. The blazes ripped through the Andean foothills of central-southern Chile and across northern Patagonia in Argentina, affecting dense native forests, national parks, and small rural and tourist communities along the Chile–Argentina border.

• • Accelerated Global Warming Could
  Lock Earth Into a Hothouse Future

  Scientists Say Warming is Increasing Faster Than At Any Time in At Least 3 Million Years

  
  

  Feb. 11, 2026 -If you think of Earth’s climate system as a backyard swing that’s been gently swaying for millennia, then human-caused global warming is like a sudden shove strong enough to disrupt the usual arc and buckle the chains.

  And if humans keep heating the planet with greenhouse gas pollution, the climate swing could lock Earth into a hothouse trajectory, as parts of the system feed on their own momentum, even if emissions are reduced later, an international team of scientists warned Wednesday in a new paper published in the journal One Earth.

• • EPA to Repeal Its Own Conclusion That Greenhouse
  Gases Warm the Planet and Threaten Health

  The Decision is the Legal Framework That Allows the EPA to Regulate Emissions. Its Reversal Could Upend Many Climate Change Policies
  
  {NBC NEWS}
  
  

  Feb. 10, 2026 -The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday plans to repeal the legal framework that underpins its power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

  "President Trump will be joined by Administrator Lee Zeldin to formalize the rescission of the 2009 Obama-era endangerment finding,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing on Tuesday. “This will be the largest deregulatory action in American history, and it will save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations.

• • Why This Country Declared an Ocean
  Current Collapse a National Security Risk

  The Disruption of a Current That Carries Heat North From the Tropics Would Make Much of the World Hotter, While Turning Iceland Into “One Giant Glacier”

  
  

  Feb. 10, 2026 -It is just one scenario among many, but by far the most cataclysmic.

  Sometime over the next 100 years, human-driven warming could disrupt a vital ocean current that carries heat northward from the tropics. After this breach, most of the world would keep getting hotter — but northern Europe would cool substantially, with Iceland at the center of a deep freeze. Climate modeling shows Icelandic winter extremes plunging to an unprecedented minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Sea ice could surround the country for the first time since it was settled by Vikings.

  “At that point, Iceland would be one giant glacier,” said Hildigunnur Thorsteinsson, the director general of the Icelandic Meteorological Office.

• • What Over a Century of Ice Data Can
  Tell Us About the Great Lakes’ Future

  Using Old Records, Scientists Created a New Dataset On How Ice Coverage Has Shifted Since 1897. Researchers Are Already Using It to Study a Declining Fish Species

  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -Michigan researchers have gone back in time to get a picture of how ice cover on the Great Lakes has evolved since the late 19th century.

  Using historical temperature records from weather stations around the region, researchers improved their understanding of where ice might have formed and for how long it lasted — spanning the last 120 years.

• • There Are More Signs of a Coming El Niño
  That Could Trigger Record Global Warmth

  A Record Wind Burst is a Key Sign of a Coming El Niño. It Could Have Wide-Reaching Impacts Across the Planet

  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026 -For the second time in as many months, a wind burst occurred in a remote part of the western Pacific Ocean during January — and odds are rising that it will trigger a significant change in the planet’s weather patterns later this year.

  For the second time in as many months, a wind burst occurred in a remote part of the western Pacific Ocean during January — and odds are rising that it will trigger a significant change in the planet’s weather patterns later this year.

• • Don’t Let Climate Fatalism Become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

  The Idea That It’s “Too Late” to Reduce Emissions Fuels Cynicism and Despair, Putting Us On an Even Worse Trajectory.

  
  

  Feb. 9, 2026, By Hannah Ritchie -I read Mark Lynas’s book “Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet” when I was 14 years old, and it scared the life out of me. Lynas takes the reader on a journey of what to expect from a world that’s one degree warmer, two degrees, three degrees, all the way up to six degrees. By the middle of the book, your blood pressure is high; by the end, you’re on the floor.

  It is a well-researched book that offers us a window into many possible futures. Fortunately, the scientific consensus has moved away from the most extreme scenarios since its publication. Unfortunately, a lot of the public messaging has not. Many people believe a pathway to 5°C or 6°C is already locked in, and the only thing we can do now is prepare for the worst.

  Let’s look at what the latest science says about where we might end up by 2100.

• • Many Kids Feel Hopeless About Climate Change

  Here's What Helps
  
  {CBC News}
  
  

  Feb 5, 2026 -Despite being concerned about the high use of fossil fuels and non-renewable resources, 14-year-old Midu Nguyen remains hopeful that the world will take action on climate change.

  To her, it’s all about perspective. She takes the same approach to it as she does to tests at school.

  “If you have a test and you don’t want to study for it because you think you’re already going to fail it, then you will fail,” she said in an interview with CBC News.

  “If you change that mindset and think, I will be able to change this, then I think you can really do that.”

• • MaiStorm Leonardo Flooding Kills Man in
  Portugal, Woman Swept Away in Spain

  Two Reservoirs Close to Overflowing Near Jerez

  
  

  Feb. 5, 2026 -Storm Leonardo pounded the Iberian peninsula with torrential rains on Thursday, prompting more flood warnings, as a man was killed by a deluge in Portugal and Spanish rescuers searched for a woman swept away by a river as she tried to save her dog.

  Leonardo is the latest in a wave of half a dozen winter storms to hit Portugal and Spain since the start of 2026, killing several people, ripping roofs off homes and flooding towns.

• • A Polar Bear Paradox is Unfolding in the Arctic

  Against the Backdrop of Arctic Warming, Polar Bears in Norway’s Far North Are Gaining Fat and Feeding On New Prey

  
  

  Feb. 4, 2026 -As polar bears across the Arctic watch their sea ice habitat disappear, here’s something they might be wishing for: A one-way ticket to Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.

  There, on a collection of rocky islands perched at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, polar bears are fatter than they were two decades ago, showing no signs of the distress hitting polar bear populations in parts of Canada and the U.S., scientists wrote last week in Scientific Reports.

• • Landslides On One Side, Floods On the Other

  The Costa Rican Village Desperate to Escape the Climate Crisis

  
  

  Feb. 3, 2026 -In Emilio Peña Delgado’s home, several photos hang on the wall. One shows him standing in front of a statue with his wife and oldest son in the centre of San José and smiling. In another, his two sons sit in front of caricatures from the film Cars. For him, the photos capture moments of joy that feel distant when he returns home to La Carpio, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Costa Rica’s capital.

  Delgado migrated with his family from Nicaragua to Costa Rica when he was 10, as his parents sought greater stability. When he started a family of his own, his greatest hope was to give his children the security he had lacked. But now, that hope is often interrupted by the threat of extreme weather events.

• • Deep Inside an Antarctic Glacier,
  a Mission Collapses at Its Final Step

  Scientists Lost Their Instruments Within Antarctica’s Most Dangerously Unstable Glacier

  
  

  Feb. 2, 2026 -A daring attempt to study Antarctica’s fast-melting Thwaites Glacier collapsed over the weekend after the scientists’ instruments became entombed within the half-mile-thick ice.

  A team of British and South Korean researchers was trying to install instruments beneath the immense glacier, where they would collect data, the first of its kind, on the warm ocean waters that are melting away the ice at a rate of hundreds of feet per year.

• • Morocco Evacuates 50,000 as Flooding
  Threatens City After Weeks of Heavy Rain

  Officials Said the Floods Were Partly Triggered By Water Released From the Nearby Oued Makhazine Dam

  
  

  Feb. 2, 2026 -Morocco has evacuated more than 50,000 people, nearly half the population of the northwestern city of Ksar el-Kebir, as flooding driven by weeks of heavy rain threatened to inundate the city, state media said on Monday.

  "The city has become a ghost town," local resident Hicham Ajttou told Reuters by phone. "All markets and shops are closed and most residents have either left voluntarily or been evacuated."

• • With Waters Rising, Pennsylvania’s
  Historical Treasures Must ‘Adapt or Collapse’

  As Climate Change Supercharges Floods and Rainfall, the State’s Water-Adjacent Landmarks Are Especially Vulnerable

  
  

  Feb 1, 2026 -Karen Young stood in a cavernous room perched on the edge of the Schuylkill River that was once a public swimming pool.

  Abandoned in 1972 after a hurricane, the old natatorium is part of the Fairmount Water Works, an interpretive center and event venue housed in a 200-year-old structure that powered Philadelphia’s municipal water system for almost a century. The room is trapped in time: The paint is peeling, rust crawls across the ceiling and the bleachers sit empty next to the pool’s drained basin.

• • Something Dark Is Growing on
  Greenland’s Ice. And Melting It Faster

  New Studies Show How Algae Grows On Ice and Snow, Creating “Dark Zones” That Exacerbate Melting in the Consequential Region

  
  

  Jan. 30, 2026 -On snow it’s green or red. On ice it’s a brownish gray. And it’s melting the frozen mass that encases Greenland faster and faster.

  As a warming climate eats away at the ice that covers most of the world’s largest island, algae blooms are speeding up that process, according to two new studies. Greenland is shedding hundreds of billions of tons of ice every year and raising sea levels as it does.

• • ‘Ghost Forests’ Are Even More Widespread Than We Thought

  How Scientists Recently Mapped Millions of Dead Trees Along the Atlantic Coastline, and What It Tells Us About the Changing Climate

  
  

  Jan. 30, 2026 -From above, there’s no mistaking the loss.

  More than 11 million points pepper a map of the East Coast, each representing a once-living tree, in a trail of mortality stretching from South Carolina to Maine.

  “We can pretty confidently say we can count basically every dead tree,” said Xi Yang, a University of Virginia professor and one of a team of researchers whose recent work has helped shed new light on the proliferation of what are known as “ghost forests.”

• • Climate Change Is Fueling Extremes, Both Hot and Cold

  The Possibility of Snow in Tampa, Fla. Record Heat and Fires in Australia

  
  

  Jan. 29, 2026 -On a typical winter day, the Arctic air that has gripped much of the United States this week should be a few thousand miles to the north, sitting atop the North Pole.

  But as man-made climate change continues to disrupt global weather patterns, that mass of cold air, known as the polar vortex, is straying beyond its usual confines.

• • A Nor’easter Will Bring Snow and Flooding

  What to Expect In Your Area

  
  

  Jan. 29, 2026, -Blizzard conditions, damaging winds, coastal flooding and dangerous cold are all expected along the East Coast this weekend as a powerful nor’easter rapidly intensifies into a bomb cyclone.

  The storm’s heaviest snow will fall across the Carolinas, where swaths of 3 to 6 inches are likely, as well as along the coastline from southeast Virginia to southeast Massachusetts — with localized amounts eclipsing 6 inches.

• • The World Is Hitting Point of No Return on Climate

  With Warming Set To Pass The Critical 1.5-Degree Limit, Scientists Are Warning That the World Is On Course to Trigger Tipping Points That Would Lead to Cascading Consequences
  
  {Yale Environment-360}
  
  

  Jan 28, 2026 -he world is poised to overshoot the goal of limiting average global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as for the first time, a three-year period, ending in 2025, has breached the threshold. And climate scientists are predicting devastating consequences, just as the world’s governments appear to have lost their appetite for tackling the emissions that are causing the warming.

  The 1.5-degree target was set at the Paris Climate Conference a decade ago, at the insistence of more vulnerable nations, to forestall severe weather impacts and potential runaway warming that could lead to exceeding irreversible planetary tipping points. But climate scientists say that 10 years of weak action since mean that nothing can now stop the target being breached.

• • Western States Face 'Snow Drought'
  as Snowpack Hits Record Lows

  Despite the Recent Winter Storm, Colorado, Utah and Other Western States Are Severely Lacking In Mountain Snow
  
  {NBC NEWS}
  
  

  Jan 28, 2026 -Last weekend’s winter storm may have covered much of the country in a glut of snow and ice, but the season has not delivered out West, where several states face a snowpack drought.

  In Colorado, the snowpack is “the lowest on record for this point in the season,” said Peter Goble, the assistant state climatologist. “All of our mountain ranges are well below normal.”

• • Rainforests Can Rebound—But Not
  as Quickly as the Climate Clock is Ticking

  Left Alone, Tropical Forests May Recover—But..

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026 -Lots of people are rooting for logged tropical forests to grow back. Here’s one way to jumpstart it: Add a splash of nitrogen.

  Perhaps it should come as no surprise that a key component in agricultural fertilizer would help trees grow faster. But new research clarifies how much it helps and for which forests, as well as suggesting ways to give forests a boost without the ecological damage that can come with fertilizers.

• • Court the Netherlands to Protect
  a Caribbean Island From Climate Change

  Bonaire, a Dutch Overseas Territory, Deserves the Same Protections as Europe, the Ruling Said.

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026, -A Dutch court ruled on Wednesday that the Netherlands violated the human rights of residents of the tiny Caribbean island of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, by failing to protect them from the effects of climate change.

  The Hague District Court ordered the national government to set binding targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions within 18 months and to draft a detailed adaptation plan for Bonaire to be implemented within four years. The court found that the government had discriminated against the approximately 26,000 residents of Bonaire by failing to come up with such a plan, despite the well-known dangers of global warming.

• • Life On an Antarctic Glacier

  After Working and Camping For a Week On Thwaites Glacier, Scientists Were Ready to Start Drilling Into the Ice

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026, - On Tuesday, a week after scientists from Britain and South Korea pitched tents on Antarctica’s remote Thwaites Glacier, they were pretty much ready to start drilling into the half-mile-deep ice.

  The multiday drilling operation would be the culmination of the eight-week voyage of the icebreaker Araon. If successful, it would allow the researchers to lower instruments through the glacier into the ocean below, providing never-before-seen data on how the water is melting the ice from the bottom up. This melting contributes to global sea-level rise by allowing the part of the glacier still sitting on land to slide more rapidly into the ocean..

• • Weekend Winter Storm That Battered Eastern
  U.S. Was Supercharged By Climate Change

  A Warmer Atmosphere Can Hold More Moisture, and That’s Why Last Weekend’s Winter Storm Dumped More Snow, Sleet and Freezing Rain Than Similar Weather Systems Might Have In the Past

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026 -If you live in the eastern U.S., you are likely among the millions dealing with the aftereffects of the heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain that buried the region over the weekend. And while it may be extremely cold, new research reveals that last weekend’s weather was in fact supercharged by global warming.

  Some of the hardest hit places saw more than two feet of snowfall, while up to an inch of ice from freezing rain shut down roads and cut power throughout the Southeast. No doubt, this storm was big. It was always going to pack a punch—but it dumped more frozen precipitation than it would have if the storm had occurred decades earlier. It may seem paradoxical that a warming climate could mean heavier snowfalls, but hotter, albeit still below freezing, temperatures are nonetheless a recipe for more snow.

• • Australian Heatwave Fans Bushfires, Towns Evacuated

  Melbourne Endures Hottest Day in 17 Years

  
  

  Jan. 27, 2026, -A major heatwave across Australia's southeast stoked bushfires, forced hundreds of residents in rural towns to evacuate and brought record-breaking temperatures, with Melbourne recording its hottest day in nearly 17 years.

  Temperatures in parts of Melbourne, the capital city of Australia's second-most populous state of Victoria, exceeded 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

• • Can Cities Build Their Way Out of Both
  the Housing and the Climate Crises?

  Cities Can Deliver Millions of New Homes Without Exhausting the World’s Carbon Budget—If They Abandon Carbon-Intensive Construction Norms

  
  

  Jan. 27, 2026 -Building things in cities accounts for 10-20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study, and could soon gobble up the entire remaining carbon budget available to keep global warming within 2° C.

  “Construction emissions are an important but often-overlooked part of the climate change picture,” says study team member Keagan Rankin, a graduate student at the University of Toronto. “Cities have a lot of control over what gets built in the future, so they are in a good position to reduce construction emissions, but they have historically overlooked construction emissions in their decarbonization plans.”

• • Scientists Record Coldest Ocean Temperature Ever in Earth's History

  And Wonder How Life Survived

  
  

  Jan. 27, 2026, -About 700 million years ago, Earth was entombed in a veneer of ice?hundreds of feet?thick—a frozen state scientists refer to as “Snowball Earth.” Oceans cooled but managed to retain some heat to avoid freezing.

  Now, researchers have an estimate—published in Nature Communications—of how cold and salty oceans were during this period.

  By analyzing data from rock deposits, the study’s authors estimate that sea temperatures were 5°F (minus 15°C). That’s about 22°F (12°C) cooler than even the coldest ocean temperatures today. The study also notes salinity was more than four times higher, allowing the ocean to get extremely cold without freezing. These estimates suggest all the microbes, phytoplankton, algae, and sponges that lived on Earth during this time endured even harsher conditions than scientists suspected.

• • Smothering, Bullying, Stabbing: How It Feels
  to Be In One of the Hottest Places on Earth

  Everything Felt Like It Was Swelling, and Despite My Diligent Consumption of Water and Hydralyte, I Couldn’t Quite Escape the Persistent, Low-Level Nausea

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026, By Stephanie Convery -My mother grew up in Warracknabeal, a speck of a town four hours from Melbourne, Australia, in the wide, wheat country of the Wimmera – that part of Victoria where the sky starts to stretch, where you can see weather happening 100 kilometres away.

  Once or twice a year, our family would pack into the rattling old LandCruiser and drive up to visit my grandmother. It can’t always have been blistering weather but my memories of those trips are shot through with summer heat: the peeling paint of my grandmother’s house, the blasted-dry grass of the reserve over the road and its ancient metal monkey bars, so hot they burned your hands. Once, a dust storm blew up while we were there, engulfing the small weatherboard house in howling dirty orange.

• • What Happens to the Human Body In 49C Heat?

  Australians Are Finding Out

  
  

  Jan. 28, 2026 -Australia’s southern states are scorching in extreme heat that was expected to break temperature records in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales.

  January and all-time records were forecast to be set, with temperatures approaching 50C across inland areas, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

• • Searching For Life Across the Planet’s Frigid Frontiers

  To Understand the Massive Changes Afoot in the Warming Polar Regions, Oceanographer Allison Fong Hunts For the tiniest clues

  
  

  Jan. 27, 2026, -The northern and southern reaches of our planet are heating up faster than anywhere else on Earth. While researchers already know that the region is poised to change dramatically—with ice melting and sea levels rising—there’s a larger question of just what species may survive under those new conditions. Which is how microbial oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer Allison Fong found herself wearing a dry suit and 80 pounds of scuba gear underneath a 26-foot-thick ice floe in the Arctic Ocean, clutching a glorified turkey baster.

  Fong was using the enormous syringe to slurp up a thin film of tiny organisms living in the floe’s underbelly. These microbes, like photosynthetic phytoplankton and sea ice algae, are “fundamental to the habitability of Earth,” she says. By studying them, we can understand how ecosystems are thriving—or not—and how different parts of the planet will transform as climate change accelerates.

• The National Climate Change Assessment
• 6 Things We Can Do About Climate Change
• Climate Change Positive Thoughts (free e-Book)
• Get the Climate Lab Book
• Interactive Climate Map 2050 (CC Consequences)
• The People's Dosier on Climate Change

• Global Warming Report from NOAA
• Another Good Global Warming Resource
• More Climate Change Resources
• NY Times Climate Forward: (Climate Change Q&A)
• Carbon Fee & Dividend Video
• Interactive Air Pollution Map 2100