Month: February 2026

    Dramatic shifts in fast-flowing air currents high above Australia are driving the country’s recent wave of severe droughts, heatwaves and catastrophic bushfires, according to new research published by academics writing in The Conversation. The study, authored by Milton Speer and Lance M. Leslie, links major changes in upper-atmospheric jet streams to persistent rainfall deficits across southern Australia over the past decade. Researchers say the findings underscore how climate change is reshaping large-scale weather systems, with profound consequences for water security, agriculture and bushfire risk. Jet Streams Shift South About 8 to 10 kilometres above the Earth’s surface, narrow bands of powerful westerly winds known as jet streams steer rain-bearing system...

    Spain is stepping up efforts to protect the public from climate-related disinformation, announcing plans to tighten accountability for digital platforms in the wake of recent emergencies that exposed the rapid spread of false claims online. The move follows the European Union’s endorsement of the UN Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change and builds on enforcement measures under the bloc’s landmark Digital Services Act. Advocates say Spain’s initiative marks a turning point in how governments address the growing intersection of climate policy, public safety and online misinformation. The announcement was highlighted in an update by Climate Action Against Disinformation, whose co-authors Dana Schran and Philip Newell argue that climate disinformation...

    Climate change is adding weeks of harmful heat to the world’s coffee-growing regions each year, threatening harvests and contributing to volatile prices, according to a new analysis by Climate Central. The report finds that all 25 major coffee-producing countries responsible for about 97% of global supply experienced additional “coffee-harming” heat between 2021 and 2025 due to carbon pollution-driven warming. Coffee is one of the world’s most consumed beverages, with more than 2 billion cups drunk daily. But rising temperatures and extreme weather are making it increasingly difficult to grow the crop, particularly in tropical regions known as the “bean belt.” Using observed temperature data and counterfactual modeling through its Climate Shift Index, Climate C...

    When industrial disasters strike from chemical fires and oil spills to freight train derailments the immediate damage is often only part of the crisis. Toxic releases, combustion byproducts and environmental contamination can create complex and long-lasting risks to public health, ecosystems and corporate reputations. In a new briefing, experts from TRC Companies, Inc. detail nine essential considerations for managing fires, spills, leaks and derailments, emphasizing the need for disciplined science, rapid action and transparent communication. Authored by Michael E. Stevens, Heath Howard and Dr. Dennis Paustenbach, the guidance draws on decades of experience investigating hundreds of chemical exposure incidents across the United States. The first priority follo...

    China’s meteorological authorities have activated a Level-IV emergency response as strong winds, sandstorms and a cold wave are forecast to impact large swathes of northern China from Friday through Sunday. The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) announced the emergency measure amid expectations of widespread hazardous weather linked to powerful winds and blowing dust. On Friday, the National Meteorological Center issued yellow alerts for strong winds and sandstorms, along with a blue alert for a cold wave. According to the National Meteorological Center, strong winds are forecast to affect multiple regions, including Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Shaanxi. Parts of north China, the country’s northeast, and the Shandong Peninsula ar...

    Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology have made a major breakthrough in explaining a long-standing climate mystery: why parts of the Pacific Ocean have cooled over the past 45 years despite ongoing global warming. Their findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, mark the first time a climate model has successfully reproduced the observed cooling in the eastern tropical Pacific and the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean. The “Pacific puzzle” For more than a decade, scientists have struggled to explain why the eastern tropical Pacific and parts of the Southern Ocean have cooled while most of the planet has warmed. Conventional climate models used in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project which inform assessme...

    One of the saltiest stretches of the global ocean is undergoing a striking transformation. The Southern Indian Ocean off the southwest coast of Australia has become significantly fresher over the past six decades, a change researchers link directly to global warming. According to a study published on February 3 in Nature Climate Change, the expanse of highly saline water in the region has shrunk by nearly 30 per cent since the 1960s. The research, led by scientists at University of Colorado Boulder, describes the shift as the most rapid increase in freshwater observed anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere. The scale of the change is dramatic. Researchers estimate the freshening is equivalent to adding about 60 per cent of Lake Tahoe’s volume in freshwater to the reg...

    Deep beneath the vast expanse of the Greenland Ice Sheet, scientists have uncovered evidence of a phenomenon more commonly associated with Earth fiery interior than with frozen landscapes: thermal convection. In a study published in The Cryosphere, researchers report that strange, plume-like structures detected in radar surveys of northern Greenland are likely caused by slow, heat-driven churning within the ice itself a process that resembles the roiling motion of molten rock in Earth’s mantle. The unusual formations were first identified in 2014 through ice-penetrating radar, which allows scientists to peer deep into the ice sheet by tracking how radio waves reflect off internal layers. These layers, formed from ancient snowfall compacted over thousands of years,...

    As climate change redraws the Antarctic coastline, it may also be unveiling something far more contentious than bare rock: mineral wealth long locked beneath ice. A new study published in Nature Climate Change projects that up to 120,000 square kilometres of new ice-free land an increase of roughly 550 per cent could emerge across Antarctica over the next three centuries under warming scenarios. The research, led by Erica M. Lucas and colleagues, combines advanced sea-level modelling with ice-sheet melt projections to map how retreating ice and shifting shorelines will reshape the continent. The findings suggest that newly exposed terrain will appear in all regions with existing territorial claims, as well as in the currently unclaimed sector of West Antarctica. A...