storms

As Rowan Jacobsen reports in FERN's latest story, published with Scientific American, research done over the last decade has made clear that "living shorelines" are far better at protecting the coastline from the devastating floods and tidal surges caused by the huge storms of the climate-change era than seawalls and other "armored" shorelines. (No paywall)

The world’s oceans are heating up 13 percent faster than previously thought, says a study published in the journal Science Advances. Ocean temperatures are considered a reliable indicator of the earth’s overall rate of climate change, since 90 percent of any extra heat is absorbed by the ocean, writes John Abraham, a thermal sciences professor at University of St. Thomas and one of the study's authors, in The Guardian.

The White House wants to cut funding 17 percent at the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA), one of the government’s chief resources for climate science, according to a budget memo from the Office of Management and Budget obtained by The Washington Post.

The strength of the El Niño or La Niña weather phenomenon in December can help predict the frequency of tornadoes and crop-damaging hailstorms in the southern and central Plains and parts of the South, says the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Atmospheric physicists at the University of Toronto say global warming will increase water evaporation from the oceans but will not increase the number of storms per year.