The U.N. weather agency is reporting that 2023 was the driest year in more than three decades for the world's rivers, as the record-hot year underpinned a drying up of water flows and contributed to prolonged droughts in some places.
Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported on Monday, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity.
The new chief of the World Meteorological Organization said it looks to her that the rate of human-caused climate change is accelerating and that warming has triggered more Arctic cold outbreaks in North America and Europe, weighing in on two issues that divide climate scientists.
The United Nations weather agency is reporting that glaciers shrank more than ever from 2011 and 2020 and the Antarctic ice sheet lost 75 percent more compared to the previous ten years, as it released its latest stark report about the fallout on the planet from climate change.
The U.N. weather agency says 2023 is all but certain to be the hottest year on record and warns of worrying trends that suggest more floods, wildfires, glacier melt and heat waves in the future.
Earth has sweltered through its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Weather disasters are striking the world four to five times more often and causing seven times more damage than in the 1970s, the United Nations weather agency reports.