In addition to the attribution analysis we also assess how the likelihood of the same event occurring is changing in the future under an additional degree of global warming, leading to a 2 degree warming relative to pre-industrial. In all available models with the future scenario the probability ratio increase further by a factor very comparable to the ratio of increase resulting from the degree of warming up to today, suggesting that drought risk in this area scales linearly with warming, at least for warming up to 2°C (Figure 2, bottom). Figure 2 top provides an overview of the multi-method results for changes in return periods depicted as probability (risk) ratios with 95% uncertainty intervals; bottom image provides an overview of the multi-method results for changes in return periods depicted as probability (risk) ratios with 95% uncertainty intervals in a world with GMST of 2 degrees. Vulnerability and exposure Next we investigate the appropriateness of the equally spaced five degree exposure bins by examining three alternatives: (i) bins of length three degrees, (ii) bins of length five degrees but with a threshold of 29 °C and, separately, (iii) a threshold of 31 °C. We find that all three alternatives produce similar marginal effects of temperatures and warming impacts as our preferred model (Supplementary Figs. 5 and 6).

Lobell, D. B. & Asseng, S. Comparing estimates of climate change impacts from process-based and statistical crop models. Environ. Res. Lett. 12, 015001 (2017). Though Pilgrim shuts down at the end of May, the plant will continue to use water from Cape Cod Bay for a few years during decommissioning. The updated permit is expected to spell out what the plant can and cannot discharge during this period. While Cape Town’s population continues to grow, the City has been internationally recognised for its water conservation and demand management practices which have stabilized water demand growth to around 2% per annum. However, this hasn’t been sufficient to avoid the impacts of the current drought due, in part, to changing risks and tends to have a disproportionate negative impact on poorer households (Mahlanza et al., 2016). In addition to increasing water efficiency, and implementing water restrictions and tariffs to manage demand, the City explored options for augmenting the water supply (e.g. desalination plants), but these are not anticipated to significantly augment water supply until at least 2019. It all started in 2015, when the city of Cape Town experienced the onset of an unusually challenging and long-lasting drought. It played out as three consecutive years of low and unpredictable rainfall during the winter rainfall period. The drought mainly affected the Western Cape region, where Cape Town is the largest city with its four million inhabitants. Eventually, the drought caused severe water shortage in the entire region. The situation worsened, and in January 2018 the local government made an urgent call to residents and businesses to reduce their water usage, and started preparing contingency plans for a possible “Day Zero.” It seemed like Cape Town could become the first large metropolitan area to completely run out of water. But the apocalyptic scenario never happened. So how did Cape Town avoid it? For the six-month anniversary of Hurricane Ian’s strike on Southwest Florida, environmental journalism students in the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications reported on the state’s barrier islands — including the first interactive public map detailing the islands; whether they are inhabited; and a trend of increasing population growth despite increasing risks.Spano, D., Duce, P., Snyder, R. L. & Cesaraccio, C. An improved model for determining degree-day values from daily temperature data. Int. J. Biometeorol. 45, 161–169 (2001). Severe weather —thunderstorms that produce tornadoes, damaging wind, and/or hail—account for nearly half of all billion-dollar weather disasters in the U.S. since 1980. Guillod, B. P. (2017) weather@home 2: validation of an improved global–regional climate modelling system. Geoscientific Model Development, 10: 1849-1872. doi: 10.5194/gmd-10-1849-2017

In 2011, an environmental consulting group, Normandeau Associates, analyzed Pilgrim’s impingement data from 1980 to 2010. They found that on average, 46,000 fish are trapped in the plant’s screens annually. But there’s a lot of variability from year to year: About 4,000 fish were impinged in 1980 while 302,000 — the highest recorded number available — were impinged in 2005.Severe weather is complicated. CAPE is just one ingredient in the severe weather recipe, and it’s unclear how other ingredients could respond to additional warming. In Rio de Janeiro, educational activities were held at the Museum of Tomorrow, and in the northeastern city of Salvador, a public class on environmental preservation was held after the morning protest.

Africa is likely to be the continent hit hardest by climate change. The region is vulnerable to droughts, heat and floods and many countries have a low capacity for adaptation because of poor governance and poverty, limiting individual choices.

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Cold-stunning events sometimes affect sea turtles elsewhere, such as along the Gulf coast off Florida and Texas, but they are generally short-lived, the result of a sudden cold snap. The challenge in Massachusetts, researchers say, is that turtles washing up on shore have largely been exposed to long-term hypothermia. Courtesy At left, a door with the floodgates uninstalled. At right, popped in to prepare for flooding.