Climate Watch: From Wildfires to Water Shortages, Belgium Is Treating Earth Changes as a Security Risk
Zakiya Lathan, News Editor, Digital and Audio Belgium has appointed its first Chief Planetary Officer, giving Earth-system science a new place in government risk planning as heat, drought, wildfire and ecological disruption increasingly converge. Belgium has given an unusual new title to the director of its Climate Risk Assessment Center: Chief Planetary Officer. Luc Bas, […]
Climate Watch: Record Ocean Heat Signals Growing Strain on Earth’s Climate System
Credit: Max | Unsplash The world’s oceans have reached their highest average surface temperature in the modern observational record, providing another measure of how much heat has accumulated in Earth’s climate system — just as an unusually powerful El Niño intensifies across the Pacific. Earth’s oceans have set another climate record, with the daily […]
Climate Watch: As Drought Deepens, Fungal Spores May Become a Growing Health Threat
Dust storms can carry more than soil. Scientists are investigating how drought, heat and cycles of rain followed by dry weather may increase human exposure to disease-causing fungal spores. Climate change may be creating an unusual public health hazard in the American West: conditions capable of putting disease-causing fungal spores into the air. BBC Science […]
Climate Watch: As Rivers Shrink, Europe’s Nuclear Plants Face an Emerging Climate Risk
Low river levels across Central Europe are disrupting nuclear power generation, illustrating how climate-driven environmental change is testing infrastructure designed for a different climate. Europe’s prolonged heatwave and worsening drought are exposing an often-overlooked consequence of climate and environmental change: the vulnerability of nuclear power plants that rely on rivers for cooling. Across Central Europe, […]