France asks EU for help while Spain declares national emergency around Madrid, as marine heatwave sees parts of Mediterranean Sea 5C hotter than normal
Brutal heat torching southern Europe has forced about 30,000 people to flee wildfires in France and Spain as a marine heatwave scalds the Mediterranean and researchers warn that “Dantesque” scenarios cannot be ruled out as infernos worsen.
France has requested assistance from the European Union to help it deal with a major wildfire near the country’s Atlantic coast, while Spain has declared a national emergency in the Madrid region and in the province of Avila, because of several wildfires burning out of control.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
Thousands flee wildfires in France and Spain as temperatures reach extreme levels in southern Europe
07/23/2026 - 06:46
07/23/2026 - 05:00
I first noticed it a couple of weeks ago on the streets of Cardiff – and it felt alarmingly wrong
When the wind is warm, you know something is up. Naturally, I have been well aware of the awful reality of the climate crisis, but it has taken the warmth of the wind to really panic me. Not the endless 30C+ days, the desiccated garden, the tap slowing to a drip. No, it is the warm wind blowing on me. I can just about manage in punishing heat, even though it is particularly suffocating when the air is still. But I thought I had a tacit agreement with the British climate that at least when there was a breeze it would cool me down a bit. When a breeze warms me up, here in the UK anyway, it feels nothing less than un-British, and I wonder if we really are getting into the end of days.
I first noticed it a couple of weeks ago on the streets of Cardiff. I turned a corner on St Mary’s Street and there it was, a strong gust of properly warm wind, right in my face and down into my lungs. Reeling, gasping a little, I looked around for the idling bus that had surely generated this unpleasant blast of air. But this wind hadn’t emanated from a bus’s rear, for there was no bus in sight. It was the weather and it felt alarmingly wrong.
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07/23/2026 - 05:00
In Guatemala’s Maya biosphere reserve local people are making a living from trees at the same time as increasing forest cover, showing nature is best protected by those who depend on it
The low rumbling grows louder until a huge harvester crashes into the open, dragging a 15-metre trunk of mahogany in its wake. The tractor manoeuvres before releasing its load and shovelling it like a matchstick on to a growing pile of lumber at the edge of the clearing. Then, with a crunch of gears and a belch of diesel, it turns and lurches back into the forest.
This is sustainable forestry at its most brutal, yet in a few weeks’ time silence will return to this pocket of tropical forest in Guatemala’s Maya biosphere reserve (MBR). Nature will be left to reclaim the land and chainsaws won’t return for at least four years, as part of a strict management plan that is helping to buck the trend of rampant deforestation.
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07/23/2026 - 02:10
Business minister Robyn Cahill wants to make NT ‘datacentre capital of the globe’, but Environment Centre says scientific claim is ‘completely cooked’
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A Northern Territory minister has been criticised for scientifically inaccurate claims that groundwater in the Northern Territory needs to be used to prevent the Earth’s magnetic poles from flipping.
The NT minister for trade and business, Robyn Cahill, made the claim while speaking in Darwin last week about the government’s push to make the territory “the datacentre capital of the globe”.
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07/23/2026 - 00:00
Exclusive: Analysis of NHS England data reveals stark impact of air pollution in deprived areas
Children living in the poorest areas across England are 40% more likely to be admitted to hospital for respiratory infections, an analysis of NHS England data shows, with experts raising the alarm on the impact of air pollution on young people’s health.
The analysis, based on data obtained via freedom of information requests by the charity Impact on Urban Health, revealed 1,941 out of every 100,000 children living in the most deprived fifth of England were admitted to hospital for respiratory illnesses in 2024-25.
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07/19/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 20 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00225-x
Combining nature conservation with maritime spatial planning in Northern Europe
07/16/2026 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 17 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00230-0
Shifting baselines and maritime jurisdiction in the Pacific
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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