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Human-caused climate change very likely increased the severity of heat waves that plagued India, Pakistan, Europe, East Africa, East Asia, and Australia in 2015 and helped make it the warmest year on record, according to new research published today in a special edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.  

The fifth edition of Explaining Extreme Events from a Climate Perspective presents 25 peer-reviewed research papers that examine episodes of extreme weather of 2015 over five continents and two oceans. It features the research of 116 scientists from 18 countries analyzing both historical observations and changing trends along with model results to determine whether and how climate change may have influenced the event.

Hace un par de semanas se tuvo una reunión de alcaldes en la ciudad de México, para muchos pasó desapercibido este acontecimiento, para otros fue oportunidad de sacarse la foto y para los más otra esperanza adicional para que los cambios que muy lentamente se están dando en las ciudades del mundo desarrollado puedan también darse en las ciudades del mundo en desarrollo y con más hincapié en CDMX. Esta es la sexta vez que se reúnen los alcaldes del mundo y ahora le tocó ser a CDMX el anfitrión, los 5 eventos previos además de este han sido coordinados por las Naciones Unidas como respuesta a la premisa de que para el 2030 más de la mitad de la población del mundo vivirá en ciudades y por eso es importante conocer las mejores prácticas ambientales que están teniendo diversas ciudades del mundo para darle a sus habitantes una calidad de vida mejor. El grupo “C40” agrupa actualmente a 70 de las ciudades más importantes del mundo en las cuales habitan alrededor de 600 millones de personas y representan un cuarto del PIB global, así que no estamos hablando de una reunión de mínima importancia, sino de un evento que cambiará la forma en que se desarrolla la CDMX

A new study finds local weather may play an important role in Americans’ belief in climate change. The study, published on Monday, found that Americans’ belief that the earth is warming is related to the frequency of weather-related events they experience, suggesting that local changes in their climate influence their acceptance of this worldwide phenomenon. 

“One of the greatest challenges to communicating scientific findings about climate change is the cognitive disconnect between local and global events,” said Michael Mann, associate professor of geography at George Washington University and co-author of the paper. “It is easy to assume that what you experience at home must be happening elsewhere.”

A team of international scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has uncovered the earliest direct evidence of humans processing plants for food found anywhere in the world.

Researchers at the Organic Geochemistry Unit in the University of Bristol's School of Chemistry, working with colleagues at Sapienza, University of Rome and the Universities of Modena and Milan, studied unglazed pottery dating from more than 10,000 years ago, from two sites in the Libyan Sahara.

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have shown that a change in weather patterns, brought on by the 'Godzilla' El Niño of 2015, fuelled the Zika outbreak in South America. The findings were revealed using a new epidemiological model that looked at how climate affects the spread of Zika virus by both of its major vectors, the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) and the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus).

The model can also be used to predict the risk of future outbreaks, and help public health officials tailor mosquito control measures and travel advice.