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Sunrise over the Amazon. Image by Rhett Ayers Butler

Why is rainfall declining in the Amazon? New research says deforestation is the leading driver

Rhett Ayers Butler 2 Sep 2025
Banner image of a firefighter trying to extinguish a wildfire as a helicopter flies over Athens on July 26, 2025, by AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis.

Climate change intensified wildfire weather in Greece, Türkiye and Cyprus: Study

Kristine Sabillo 28 Aug 2025
Banner image of waves near Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour following Typhoon Wipha, July 20, 2025. Image by AP Photo/Vernon Yuen.

How science links extreme weather disasters to climate change: Interview with WWA’s Clair Barnes

Kristine Sabillo 25 Aug 2025
Prayer flags in Mustang.

Escalation in tourism, climate change leaves Nepal’s Mustang in fragile state

Abhaya Raj Joshi 22 Aug 2025

Respite, for now, for bird migration hotspot at heart of Sri Lanka’s wind power dispute

Malaka Rodrigo 20 Aug 2025
Sea fans in a coral reef in San Pedro, Belize. Image by Fabrice Dudenhofer / Ocean Image Bank.

Belize project seeks out heat-resilient corals to protect its reefs

Marco Lopez 19 Aug 2025
A barberfish (Johnrandallia nigrirostris) swimming through Pocillopora corals in Panama's Coiba National Park.

Microbiomes may be corals’ secret weapon against climate change: Study

Marlowe Starling 14 Aug 2025
Banner image of motorists riding through a flooded road caused by heavy monsoon rain in Lahore, Pakistan, on July 10, 2025. Image by AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary.

Deadly monsoon rains in Pakistan made worse by climate change: Study

Kristine Sabillo 7 Aug 2025

Power poop saves the day (cartoon)

Rohan Chakravarty 5 Aug 2025
Heavy rainfall in Colombia and Venezuela caused deadly landslides and widespread flooding in June. A new analysis now points to rapid urbanization, deforestation, mining and overgrazing as having reduced the region’s climate resilience. 
 “The rapid growth of population and informal settlements in areas prone to landslides, particularly in Colombia, puts people and infrastructure at risk,” the World Weather Attribution (WWA), a network of scientists evaluating extreme weather events, said in its latest rapid analysis. It said the informal communities are growing as people seek livelihoods in cities or are displaced due to conflict. Roop Singh, report co-author from the Netherlands-based Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said at a media briefing that pasture- and agriculture-driven deforestation rose over the past two decades, increasing “the risk of landslides because tree roots are no longer binding and anchoring the soils.”
 The heavy rains during the last week of June triggered widespread flooding and damage in Colombia; a landslide in Antioquia department killed 27 people. In Venezuela, rivers overflowed, and smaller landslides cut off rural communities. WWA said in its report that rains in these regions had persisted since April, and that the June rain fell on already saturated ground where the deadly landslide occurred, and in rivers with already high levels of water. The scientists examined the total rainfall from April-June this year over the Magdalena River catchment in Colombia and the Falcón and Maracaibo basins in Venezuela. They also studied data on the accumulated rainfall from June 20-24 in the affected states in the Venezuelan Llanos, a grassland plain. “Neither events were particularly extreme,” Mariam Zachariah, co-author and research associate at Imperial College London, said at the briefing. The WWA analysis showed the heavy rain that fell in June is common, expected every 10 years in Colombia and every three years in Venezuela. The scientists also used climate models to understand the influence of human-induced climate change on the rains, but the findings were inconclusive. Instead, the models projected a drying trend for Colombia and mixed results for Venezuela. Friederike Otto, co-author and climate science professor at Imperial College London, said not being able to show clear linkages to climate change doesn’t mean there’s no influence. The researchers attributed some of the uncertainty to a lack of long-term observational weather data and weather stations in the region. “Unfortunately, extreme weather is not well understood in northern South America,” Paola A. Arias, a professor at the University of Antioquia, said in a statement. “We urgently need more investment in climate science to understand shifting risks and prepare for what’s ahead. More science will save lives." Zachariah said Colombia and Venezuela must prepare for both rainfall and drought, and build resilience to extreme weather. Banner image: People look at their destroyed home after a deadly landslide was triggered by heavy rain in Colombia’s Antioquia department on June 25, 2025. Image by AP Photo/Fredy Amariles.

Deadly landslide and flooding in Colombia and Venezuela linked to rapid urbanization

Kristine Sabillo 18 Jul 2025
Amanda L. Cordeiro (left), a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Minnesota and Daniela F. Cusack, Associate Professor in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at Colorado State University at one of their research sites to investigate how root systems react to climatic changes.

Tropical forest roots show strain as changes aboveground filter below

Petro Kotzé 15 Jul 2025

The world’s children suffer brunt of wildfire smoke health impacts

Anna Dulisse 14 Jul 2025
A man fans himself on a hot day in Retiro Park in Madrid, Spain, on June 28, 2025. Image © Paul White/AP.

Extreme heat kills at least 2,300 in European cities, study estimates

Shanna Hanbury 14 Jul 2025
Most of the lightning strike victims tend to be farmers and fishers.

Study links surge in lightning disasters in Bangladesh to transboundary air pollution

Mahadi Al Hasnat 11 Jul 2025
Corals and fish in Lighthouse Reef atoll, Belize.

Restoration, protection aim to save Belize’s coral reef from extreme heat and disease

Marco Lopez 9 Jul 2025
Paddle boarders over a coral reef in Indonesia.

Will temperate seas act as refuge for coral reefs? Not in time, study says

Edward Carver 8 Jul 2025
Riding through a locust swarm in Lekiji, Samburu County, Kenya.

Agencies race to prevent new food crisis as locusts return to northern Africa

Stephanie Achieng’ 3 Jul 2025
Clown anemonefish live symbiotically with anemone

When heat waves hit, clownfish shrink to survive, study finds

Keith Anthony Fabro 18 Jun 2025
California Wildfires in August 2018.

Climate futures: What’s ahead for our world beyond 1.5°C of warming?

Claire Asher 12 Jun 2025
Banner image of a glacier in Greenland from NASA Earth Observatory via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain).

Record-breaking heat wave due to climate change hits Iceland & Greenland: Scientists

Kristine Sabillo 11 Jun 2025
Students in Afghanistan walk to school in a sand storm during a drought in 2019.

Climate futures: World leaders’ failure to act is pushing Earth past 1.5°C

Claire Asher 11 Jun 2025
Rescuers evacuate people from a flooded hospital following landslides and flash flooding in India's northeast state of Manipur, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Donald Sairem)

Heavy rains inundate northeast India

Kristine Sabillo 6 Jun 2025
Banner image of Mokwa after the flooding, by the Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency via X.

Hundreds die after flash floods tear through Nigerian market town

Kristine Sabillo 5 Jun 2025

Is rising CO2 really bad for the world’s drylands? Mongabay podcast probes

Mongabay.com 4 Jun 2025
Banner image of a 2018 flood in Vietnam (for representation only) by Eleveneighteen via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Heavy rainfall in Vietnam & China causes flash floods, landslides

Kristine Sabillo 20 May 2025

Even in intact Amazon forests, climate change affects bird populations: Study

Suzana Camargo 14 May 2025
Market in Treicheville, Abidjan, 2017.

In Côte d’Ivoire a changing climate hits farmers and markets alike

Gael Zozoro 9 May 2025
The sun sets New York City. Lengthy record-setting heat waves can be costly, greatly increasing ozone and other air pollutants, resulting in deaths and hospitalizations, while also straining energy grids, transportation networks and water supplies. Image by Johannes Plenio (@jplenio) via Unsplash.

Science lays out framework to assess climate liability of fossil fuel majors

Justin Catanoso 9 May 2025

Winter warming and rain extreme events pose overlooked threat to Arctic life

Elizabeth Devitt 2 May 2025
Sheep near Nieuwoudtville, South Africa. Image by Leonie Joubert for Mongabay.

PHOTO ESSAY Wind-blown sand scouring life off a Southern African landscape

Leonie Joubert 30 Apr 2025
Drought in Bangladesh.

Global warming hits hardest for those who can’t escape it

John Cannon 24 Apr 2025

Elevator to extinction (cartoon)

Rohan Chakravarty 16 Apr 2025

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