Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific developments and more. About 252 million years ago, a natural disaster struck the planet, wiping out more than 90% of all life. The mass extinction that ended the Permian is known as the Great Extinction and was the … Read more
As extreme heat breaks records around the world, a little-reported fact offers some hope for cooling cities: Even during the most intense periods of extreme heat, some city blocks never experience heat wave temperatures. How is this possible? Civilizations have recognized the power of cities to heat and cool themselves for centuries. City architects in … Read more
As La Niña continues to strengthen in the tropical Pacific, meteorologists warn the climate pattern could leave California facing another drought in the coming months. La Niña is the drier component of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, system that drives climate and weather patterns around the world. Its warm, humid counterpart, El Niño, … Read more
In a remarkably candid essay in the March issue of Nature, one of the world’s top climate scientists raised the alarming possibility that global warming is outpacing experts’ ability to predict what will happen. “The 2023 temperature anomaly came out of nowhere, revealing an unprecedented knowledge gap, perhaps for the first time in about 40 … Read more
Climate records are crashing at a breakneck pace. The world has just experienced its hottest day on record, amid a string of record-breaking months that followed the planet’s hottest year on record. But how does this cascade of new highs in the era of modern record-keeping relate to Earth’s deeper history? Those who reconstruct what … Read more
BENI MELLAL, Morocco (AP) — In the relentless heat of Morocco’s Middle Atlas, people slept on rooftops. Hanna Ouhbour also needed shelter, but she waited outside a hospital for her diabetic cousin, who lay in a room without air conditioning. On Wednesday, 21 people died in the heat at Beni Mellal’s main hospital, where temperatures … Read more
City travel in summer can be a nightmare, with temperatures already at heatwave heights rising to practically inhumane levels, especially for Londoners travelling on the Tube. How best to navigate a journey that will have you melting into a pool of sweat, when the destination is an office with arctic air conditioning? The usual way … Read more
For decades, the prospect of walking along winding, thyme-scented paths on sun-drenched Mediterranean islands has attracted Brits and other people from Europe’s cold north. But rising temperatures due to global warming are making large parts of southern Europe virtually inaccessible to hikers during the hottest summer months, experts say. The dangers of extreme temperatures have … Read more
The rich oil states of the Persian Gulf have big plans for the future. They want to attract more and more tourists and investors, organize major sporting events, build new cities and diversify their economies and make them less dependent on oil. But they face a looming threat from which they cannot easily escape: the … Read more
The deadly heat wave that has ravaged large parts of Mexico, Central America and the southern US in recent weeks has become 35 times more likely due to human-induced global warming, according to research from leading climate scientists at World Weather Attribution (WWA). Tens of millions of people suffered dangerous day and night temperatures as … Read more