El Niño May Break a Record and Reshape Weather around the Globe – Scientific American

Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean from mid-January through February 2022 compared to the long-term average. East of the International Dateline (180˚), waters remained cooler than average, a sign of La Niña (Graphic courtesy of Climate.gov, based on data from NOAA’s Environmental Visualization Lab)

Seven years ago an exceptionally strong El Niño took hold in the Pacific Ocean, triggering a cascade of damaging changes to the world’s weather. Indonesia was plunged into a deep drought that fueled exceptional wildfires, while heavy rains inundated villages and farmers’ fields in parts of the Horn of Africa. The event also helped make 2016 the planet’s hottest year on record. Now El Niño is back…

Every Coastal Home Is Now a Stick of Dynamite – the Atlantic

Aerial view of the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy to the New Jersey coast, Oct. 30, 2012. (DVIDSHUB: U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Mark C. Olsen CC BY 2.0 via Flickr).

Wealthy homeowners will escape flooding. The middle class can’t.

The Langfords got out of Houston just in time. Only two months after Sara and her husband, Phillip, moved to Norfolk, Virginia, in June 2017, Hurricane Harvey struck, destroying their previous house and rendering Sara’s family homeless…

Cyclone Biparjoy: India, Pakistan evacuate more than 170,000 – BBC News

The long-lived cyclone, Biparjoy is expected to make landfall near the border of India and Pakistan (courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).

Gale force winds and heavy rains are lashing coastal parts of north-west India and southern Pakistan as a powerful cyclone makes landfall.

Forecasters say it could be the area’s worst storm in 25 years and warned it threatens homes and crops in its path.

The cyclone is due to barrel through parts of India’s Gujarat state and Sindh province in Pakistan….

How does sea level rise challenge modern notions of property lines? – Los Angeles Times

Pirate Tower, Laguna Beach, California (by CC BY-NC 2.0 Wayne Hsieh via Flickr).

The (California) Coastal Act is a remarkable commitment to the public trust doctrine, which traces back to Justinian I, who declared in 533 C.E. that “the following things are natural law common to all: the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the seashore.” This notion — that certain lands should be held in trust by the government for the benefit of all people — evolved into English common law, which the United States then adopted and California later wrote into its state constitution…

How Can Nature Protect People Against Sea-Level Rise? – Frontiers for Young Minds

Flooding (by Creazilla Open-Source License).

Now that Earth’s climate is changing, sea-level rise and storms are becoming more intense and frequent, which increases the risk of flooding. Therefore, we need to develop bigger flood-defense structures to stay safe from flooding. However, this is very expensive. Is there an alternative? It may sound surprising, but nature can help us out…

Rising Sea Levels Will Isolate People Long Before They’re Underwater – Hakai Magazine

Sea fog envelopes a rocky segment of coastline at low tide near Fundy National Park in Alma, New Brunswick (by Eric Van Lochem, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia).

Time and tide wait for no man. Neither does sea level rise. The Chignecto Isthmus—the low marshy strip connecting New Brunswick and Nova Scotia—may be one of the most vulnerable places in Canada to sea level rise. At just 21 kilometers wide, the interprovincial land bridge is battered on its southwestern flank by the famously extreme tides in the Bay of Fundy. Protected by a network of earthen dikes first constructed in the 1600s, “the tops of the dikes are only a little higher than the spring high tides,” says Jeff Ollerhead, a coastal geomorphologist…“If we have a big storm,” he says, “water will go over the dikes.”

In the Bahamas, a Constant Race to Adapt to Climate Change – the New York Times

The western edge of the Abaco's on the way into Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas (by Daniel Piraino CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via Flickr).

Rising seas and the ongoing threat of hurricanes and storm surges have forced the Caribbean nation to become a laboratory for climate adaptation.

At the United Nations climate summit in Egypt last year, Prime Minister Philip Davis of the Bahamas emerged as one of the most impassioned speakers among the more than 100 heads of state in attendance.

“We have to believe that a safer, better future is possible,” he told the gathering. “We believe that action — real, concerted action — can save the planet and save our human race…”

El Niño and extreme Atlantic Ocean heat are about to clash – the Conversation

Air Mass RBG imagery of Southeastern United States, June 1, 2023 (courtesy of NOAA-GOES-EAST public domain).

Globally, warm sea surface temperatures that can fuel hurricanes have been off the charts in the spring of 2023, but what really matters for Atlantic hurricanes are the ocean temperatures in two locations: the North Atlantic basin…This year, the two are in conflict – and likely to exert counteracting influences on the crucial conditions that can make or break an Atlantic hurricane season. The result could be good news…But forecasters are warning that that hurricane forecast hinges on El Niño panning out…