Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Man, 68, was left searching for help in 116F weather after his car became stuck in mud along remote park road A French tourist recently died in Death Valley national park after a car mishap left him stranded in 116F (47C) weather. The visitor, identified as 68-year-old Pierre Michel Formosa, was traveling with another French man along the park’s remote West Side Road when their vehicle became stuck in mud near Queen of Sheba Mine Road. Continue reading...

On a panel show last week, everyone in the audience wanted to talk about the climate emergency, but the lines rolled out by a Tory MP simply dissolved on contact with reality As it is August, and everyone with stronger opinions is currently on holiday, last week I went on Any Questions?, the BBC Radio 4 panel show. I had prepared beforehand with a friend whose life’s work it is to make sure people don’t say anything stupid on the radio (or TV), and we’d talked about everything – the strait of Hormuz and energy prices; bus fare caps and the relative price of eggs; racism in the press and in public life; the AI bubble and the next financial crash; how many bathrooms Harry and Meghan currently have in the US, and whether a property even exists in the UK with that amount of toileting hardware. Predictably, perhaps, the audience’s questions did not spread themselves neatly across the full suite of current affairs, though Harry and Meghan’s return did come up – it was more a matter of which question about the climate crisis best represented the fact that everyone wanted to talk about the climate crisis. The news had just dropped that El Niño would deliver us an unprecedentedly wet autumn, but that was unlikely to soothe the parched earth of the record-breakingly hot, dry summer. Crops are failing, the land is on fire and nobody has not noticed. Continue reading...

Average sea surface temperature outside polar regions was 21.1C on Saturday, latest data finds The world’s oceans were hotter than ever previously recorded on Saturday, according to the latest data. The average surface temperature was 21.1C, with the rising marine heat a stark indicator of the climate crisis. More than 90% of the heat trapped by carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning enters the oceans. The Guardian’s climate forum 2026 On Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington, and our panel of experts – including Professor Andy Haines, Katie White MP, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening. Book tickets here or at guardian.live Continue reading...

The Democratic and the Republican candidate each blame the other for the bungled recovery effort after storm struck region Two years after North Carolina suffered the worst natural disaster in its history when Hurricane Helene struck the state’s western half, life in the hardest-hit areas appears back to normal. Downtowns are lively, blocked roads have been reopened and rivers are flowing below their banks. But the telltale evidence of the disaster’s expensive impacts can still be seen – from “for rent” signs in storefronts whose businesses never came back to debris from the storm still lurking in some waterways. And in the race for North Carolina’s US Senate seat, it’s almost as if the hurricane never left. Continue reading...