The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
This annual statement confirms that 2016 was the warmest year on record, approximately 1.1 °C above the pre-industrial period, and 0.06 °C above the previous highest value set in 2015. Noteworthy extreme events in 2016 included severe droughts that brought food insecurity to millions in southern and eastern Africa and …
Tropical cyclones and sea level rise cause major problems including beach erosion and damage to infrastructure in coastal areas. Inexpensive but effective plans for coastal protection will be needed by small island nations and developing countries. Natural breakwater formed by reefs is more cost-effective in coastal protection than the construction …
Without major efforts to rebuild Louisiana’s wetlands, particularly in the westernmost part of the state, there is little chance that the coast will be able to withstand the accelerating rate of sea-level rise, a new Tulane University study concludes. The study by researchers in Tulane’s Department of Earth and Environmental …
Future extreme sea levels (ESLs) and flood risk along European coasts will be strongly impacted by global warming. Yet, comprehensive projections of ESL that include mean sea level (MSL), tides, waves, and storm surges do not exist. Here, we show changes in all components of ESLs until 2100 in view …
Mangrove plantation belts are expected to act as natural infrastructural buffers against coastal hazards. However, their performance will not endure over time if the platform is not appropriately designed. In fact, despite massive funds dedicated to the rehabilitation of mangrove forests, the long-term survival rates of mangroves are generally low. …
Global profits from fishing could grow by tens of billions of dollars if depleted fish stocks were allowed to recover, bolstering the livelihoods of millions of people and feeding the world’s growing population, says this new study by the World Bank. Global marine fisheries are in crisis: 90 percent are …
Sea-level rise is a global problem, yet to forecast future changes, we must understand how and why relative sea level (RSL) varied in the past, on local to global scales. In East and Southeast Asia, details of Holocene RSL are poorly understood. Here we present two independent high-resolution RSL proxy …
Some 14,000 km from Japan, a 33-member team is researching a wide range of issues on global warming at Showa Station, Japan’s Antarctic research center. A key pursuit in the research is how global warming is affecting the continent, premised on the notion that rising sea temperatures may be causing …
Climate change is now influencing all extreme weather events – with some of the most severe climate impacts occurring in 2016, the latest report has found. Cranking Up The Intensity: Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events finds that while the links between climate change and some extreme weather events such …
Sweden set a goal on Thursday of phasing out greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, among the most ambitious by any developed nation and ignoring uncertainty about climate change policies under U.S. President Donald Trump. Seven of eight parties in the Nordic nation's parliament - all but the far-right Sweden Democrats …
The Network of Regional Governments for Sustainable Development publishes the "Regions Adapt 2016" report. The report, developed with the collaboration of the Carbon Disclosure Project, contains an assessment of the risks arising from climate change and the adaptation actions that the 27 states and regions that make up this platform …
This paper examines the impact of global sea level rise (SLR) on the economic growth, migration, and tourism from various empirical studies and consolidates several sea level projections by 2100 under different scenarios. The paper points out that the regions or countries most vulnerable to SLR include atoll countries and …
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the largest potential sources of rising sea levels. Over the past 40 years, glaciers flowing into the Amundsen Sea sector of the ice sheet have thinned at an accelerating rate, and several numerical models suggest that unstable and irreversible retreat of the …
Climate change is the ultimate threat multiplier. It will aggravate fragility, contribute to social upheaval and even violent conflicts. The problem is the seven compound risks that emerge when the impacts of climate change interact with problems that many weak states are already facing. Single-sector interventions alone will not suffice …
This report provides regional sea-level rise scenarios and tools for coastal preparedness planning and risk management in the United States. It refines six global sea level rise scenarios (Low, Intermediate Low, Intermediate, Intermediate High, High, and Extreme) decade by decade. The report provides a range of possible scenarios and the …
Climate-fragility risks are a major security challenge for Japan and the Asia-Pacific region. Japan can build on important lessons learned from other G7 countries such as Germany and the USA as well as its own experiences and significant strengths in fields such as Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) to address these …
Coastal areas have been centers of human activity throughout history and current trends indicate that migration toward these zones is continuing. The main reason for this is that the rich variety of ecosystems and habitats in coastal zones provides a range of goods and services critical to human sustenance and …
Small Pacific island states could be hit by more tropical cyclones during future El Nino weather patterns due to climate change, scientists said on Tuesday. El Nino is a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific occurring every two to seven years which can trigger both floods and drought in …
Mass loss from the West Antarctic ice shelves and glaciers has been linked to basal melt by ocean heat flux. The Totten Ice Shelf in East Antarctica, which buttresses a marine-based ice sheet with a volume equivalent to at least 3.5 m of global sea-level rise, also experiences rapid basal …
The location and persistence of surface water (inland and coastal) is both affected by climate and human activity and affects climate, biological diversity and human wellbeing. Global data sets documenting surface water location and seasonality have been produced from inventories and national descriptions, statistical extrapolation of regional data and satellite …
