Explore the Climate section of The Pulse for in-depth coverage of global warming, environmental change and climate solutions.
On the morning of Tuesday, August 11, 2026, the river running past the houses stood at about 4 feet. A year earlier, on the same morning…
A group of kayakers camped at the mouth of an Alaska fjord woke to water running through their campsite. Their gear was already gone into the…
A thin ribbon of asphalt is all that separates two bodies of water on this stretch of sand. This week, the ocean kept crossing it. Water…
The water at Harlan County Lake was busy with gulls. Then the clouds built fast, the way they do on the Great Plains in early fall.…
On October 12, 2026, Manaus went dark in the middle of the day. Thick smoke from fires burning across the surrounding rainforest blanketed the city of…
The sea at Isla Cañas does not usually rise without warning. But on a Friday afternoon in October, it did. Water crept past the tideline and…
A pilot flying over Michigan’s Upper Peninsula spotted a wisp of smoke no bigger than a backyard bonfire. It covered two or three acres that Friday…
A traffic camera at Primm Boulevard and Interstate 15 caught it first. Floodwater standing across the road near the California line. By mid morning on October…
A doorbell camera near Scottsdale caught the flash. Then came the color. Not white, not yellow, but a vivid turquoise green, cutting across the desert sky…
The ridge above French Gulch, California looked close to boxed in on Monday afternoon. Air tankers had laid retardant across the slope. From a distance it…
With 20 named storms and nine hurricanes, the 2026 Pacific season has become a “conveyor belt” of destruction — and experts warn the worst may still…
At 5:34 on the morning of March 25, 1993, the Willamette Valley moved. Most of Oregon was asleep. Schools were closed for spring break, which is…
Rediscovered after 30 years, a forgotten Australian forest experiment challenged what scientists knew about logging and carbon storage When researchers pushed through the overgrown access road…
Tropical trees in South America “drink” in the dark — and carry a genomic secret that could unlock drought-resistant crops Around 1800, Alexander von Humboldt placed…
An intense but short-lived severe weather event affected the south coast of New York, causing convective rainfall and tornadoes. A vortex that developed over the ocean…
In general, August will be one of the last months of the year when most people think about snow in Anchorage. Average snowfall for this time…
People began noticing the hail noise. Ice hitting metal. Ice on glass. Ice on farm buildings, machine sheds, and grain bins. Then the hailstones started getting…
The storms developed about three hours apart, but both went on to cause widespread damage across western South Dakota. The first storm initiated in the northern…
Thunderstorms often cause damage across large areas. This one didn’t. Close to Clovis, New Mexico, there was a remarkable example of a descending wind blast that…
High above the North Pole, a new atmospheric system is quietly taking shape — a vast, spinning column of cold air already building faster and stronger…
Most surveys of tornadoes are initiated by damage to trees, overturned buildings, or scattered debris across a landscape. The first indication of this particular tornado (waterspout)…
A dense column of water vapor was captured by an atmospheric balloon released from Davenport, Iowa. The sounding exceeded the daily precipitable-water record for that calendar day.…
This is the season when the huge expanse of the Great Lakes is affected by the cold air of fall. In the summer months, a large…
Greenland’s newest giant iceberg survived a collision with a remote Arctic island and kept drifting south as scientists tracked its every move. In August 2026, a…
Thousands of North Georgia residents have been noticing a change in the smell and taste of their municipal tap water in fall. The water out of…
Summer along the U.S. West Coast sees northerly winds that generate upwelling of deeper water to the surface. The water from the deeper levels of the…
Every tsunami warning system has the same structural weakness. The instruments sit in the water, so the wave has to physically arrive at one before anybody…
Two oceans moved in lockstep for 400 years — until human emissions began quietly pulling them apart in a way no volcanic eruption ever managed. Since…
A warming Pacific is throwing up an invisible “shield” over the Atlantic. The quietest hurricane season in decades may be just the beginning — a record-shattering…
Indonesia’s hidden underground fires are spreading beneath the world’s largest tropical peatlands as El Niño drought and a drying Indian Ocean push the 2026 season toward…
Years of declining water levels finally caught up with the last public boat ramp at Lake McConaughy. August 15 marked the official closing of the last…
Extreme heat and persistent drought defined much of Florida’s summer in 2026. Normally, drought conditions disappear during the summer months due to daily thunderstorms, tropical moisture,…
At 5:26 in the morning, the north wall of Tracy Arm let go. A slab of mountain roughly 80 million cubic yards in volume dropped into…
A narrow fjord in southeast Alaska, gray water, cliffs on both sides, low cloud sitting on them. High on one wall there is a line where…
At 6,288 feet, Mount Washington in New Hampshire experiences an abrupt transition into autumn. As summer warmth fades, September brings freezing fog, sharp temperature drops, and…
Southern California is entering the season when Santa Ana winds typically occur, bringing dry conditions that can disrupt travel and elevate wildfire risks. Those winds can…
A boat basin on the far north coast of California, a little before three in the morning. The water in it is not rising or falling…
Weeks of scarce rainfall are leaving a visible mark on both Lake Minnetonka and Minnehaha Creek. The Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD) closed Gray’s Bay Dam…
Two of Michigan’s lakes saw out-of-season cold air moving in over the waters. Unstable weather conditions developed across the eastern parts of the state. National Weather…
The Great Lakes may not be known for Tornado Alley-style storms, but they still produce remarkable weather events. Few weather events are as disruptive as the…
During the summer of 2026, some of the best fishing for trout occurred on the rivers of Yellowstone National Park. However, due to warmer than usual…
Southern California’s weather has been quite different recently. The hot summer weather that dominated much of the year has given way to cool mornings, breezy afternoons,…
Seattle’s fall has arrived: warm, dry air gives way almost overnight to cold rain and grey skies One week, Seattle residents are still reaching for sunscreen.…
Arctic sea ice is at a critical juncture as the annual melting season approaches its end and winter conditions begin returning to the region. Each year,…
Across the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans this summer, two separate temperature anomalies are intensifying at the same time — and forecasters are paying close attention…
At the edge of Arctic sea ice, where frigid pack ice gives way to open ocean, something unexpected was happening in the air above. On sunny…
Water started flowing out of Alaska’s wilderness on August 12, creating yet another major flood in Juneau and pushing the Mendenhall River toward a crest of…
Drive through Duplin County, North Carolina, and the county announces itself before you see a single barn. The smell hits first — thick, inescapable, somewhere between…
The storm was already gone. Sky clearing, wind dropping, the lakefront back to something people would walk on. Then the water started moving on its own, up…
Sea ice north of Alaska shifted from above-normal conditions to below-average levels during the first half of August. It went from being significantly above normal in…
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