A United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report released this Wednesday warns that global temperatures are set to exceed the critical 1.5 degrees Celsius limit above pre-industrial levels. To mitigate the severity and duration of this overshoot ... [1873 chars]

UN Report: Urgent Cuts Needed to Limit Global Warming, Avoid Catastrophe - A United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report released this Wednesday warns that global temperatures are set to exceed the ... Get Latest News on International only on lokmattimes.com

Lokmat Times

UN Report: Urgent Cuts Needed to Limit Global Warming, Avoid Catastrophe

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Money Mules
1. The number of young people who have been approached to act as a money mule has increased, with one in three aged between 18 and 34 saying they would consider it in ex... [3418 chars]

An increase in money mules, global warming in danger and US-Russia talks.

TheJournal.ie

The 9 at 9: Wednesday

Avoiding 1.5 C of warming above pre-industrial levels is now impossible, and a new pathway to limit peak warming and then bring temperatures back down will be needed, according to an annual UN report on global climate action.
The UN's proposed new be... [4591 chars]

Avoiding 1.5 C of warming above pre-industrial levels is now impossible, and a new pathway to limit peak warming and then bring temperatures back down will be needed, according to an annual UN report on global climate action.

CBC.ca

UN retreats from 1.5 C global warming limit and proposes a plan B

The world is moving in the right direction towards relying less on fossil fuels and more on renewable energy, thereby cutting the planet-warming emissions that are causing more frequent and intense extreme weather all over Europe.
But we must move mu... [5403 chars]

“Every additional fraction of a degree and additional year of warming above 1.5°C increases climate impacts and risks, such as the deadly floods, heatwaves and wildfires that have plagued many nations this year”.

Euronews

'This is possible': Emissions must fall by 18% in next 4 years to limit worst impacts of global warming

Synopsis
Global warming is now projected to exceed previous estimates, with average temperatures expected to rise significantly. Urgent and stringent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are crucial to achieve best-case outcomes by mid-century. Current n... [2475 chars]

Global warming is now projected to exceed previous estimates, with average temperatures expected to rise significantly. Urgent and stringent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are crucial to achieve best-case outcomes by mid-century. Current national emissions reduction plans fall far short of the necessary targets outlined in the recent UN report. As countries prepare for COP31 in Turkey, the need for decisive action becomes increasingly urgent.

The Economic Times

Ahead of COP31, UN sees higher global warming, even in best-case scenario

LONDON – Global warming is now projected to exceed previous estimates, with even the most optimistic scenario seeing average temperatures rise to 1.7-1.8 deg C above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, a UN report showed on Oct 21.
Despite a rapid ... [1791 chars]

The most optimistic scenario will see average temperatures rise to 1.7-1.8 deg C above pre-industrial levels. Read more at straitstimes.com.

The Straits Times

UN sees higher global warming, even in best-case scenario

By Simon Jessop
LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Global warming is now projected to exceed previous estimates, with even the most optimistic scenario seeing average temperatures rise to 1.7-1.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, a ... [1870 chars]

By Simon JessopLONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Global warming is now projected to exceed previous estimates, with even the most optimistic scenario seeing average temperatures rise to 1.7-1.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, a UN report showed on Wednesday. Despite a rapid expansion of renewable energy and climate policies that are reducing emissions in many countries, the report said "urgent and stringent" cuts were still needed to achieve that best-case outcome.

Al-Monitor

Global commitments to cut planet-heating emissions are falling far short of the Paris climate goals and put the world on course for 2.6C warming this century, the UN warned Wednesday.
The report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) lays... [4436 chars]

Global commitments to cut planet-heating emissions are falling far short of the Paris climate goals and put the world on course for 2.6C warming this century, the UN warned Wednesday. The report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) lays bare the chasm between rhetoric and action when it comes to tackling global warming, and the challenge before political leaders at November's COP31 climate summit.

World falling 'dangerously short' on climate action: UN chief

LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Global ​warming is now projected to exceed previous estimates, with even the most ‌optimistic scenario seeing average temperatures rise to 1.7-1.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, a UN report show... [1888 chars]

Global ​warming is now projected to exceed previous estimates, with even the most ‌optimistic scenario seeing average temperatures rise to 1.7-1.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, a UN report showed on Wednesday.

Reuters

By Simon Jessop
LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Global warming is ⁠now ⁠projected to exceed previous ⁠estimates, with even the most optimistic scenario seeing average temperatures rise ​to 1.7-1.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by mid-century... [1923 chars]

US News is a recognized leader in college, grad school, hospital, mutual fund, and car rankings. Track elected officials, research health conditions, and find news you can use in politics, business, health, and education.

U.S. News & World Report

UN Sees Higher Global Warming, Even in Best-Case Scenario

Climate change has, and will continue to, affect communities in every corner of the world. But climate change's impact is by no means evenly distributed. Topography and geographic coordinates alone make some parts of the world more vulnerable to the consequences of climate change than others–but as certain cities are demonstrating, when it comes to climate change, physical location is not destiny.
Around the world, major urban areas are investing in services and infrastructure to adapt to the new realities of climate change and mitigate some of the most devastating impacts. In the United States, coastal cities from Charleston, South Carolina to San Francisco, California are building seawalls to reduce the threat of rising sea-levels and storm-surge flooding. Phoenix, Arizona, where temperatures regularly rise into the triple-digits, launched the permanent Office of Heat Response and Mitigation, a publicly-funded agency tasked with reducing the public health hazards posed by extreme heat. In Los Angeles, improved monitoring technology and construction methods are being employed to reduce wildfire risk.
Through these and other similar methods, major U.S. cities–highly-exposed or otherwise–are taking measures to reduce the threat posed by climate change.
Using data from AlphaGeo, a geo-spatial risk analytics firm, Climate Crisis 247 identified the major U.S. cities doing the most to prepare for climate change. We ranked all 10 U.S. cities with available data on the efficiency of their climate change mitigation efficiency. We also included each city's natural vulnerability index score, and their current vulnerability index accounting for the adaptation measures they have implemented. Efficiency scores were calculated by dividing the difference in pre- and post-vulnerability hazard scores and multiplying by 100. A full methodology is available here. Supplemental data on population are five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey.
10. Chicago
Climate change adaptation efficiency score: 33.3 out of 100
City's vulnerability to climate hazards with implemented adaptation measures: 8 out of 100 (4 ppt. reduction in vulnerability)
City's baseline vulnerability to climate hazards: 12 out of 100
City population: 2,711,226
9. San Antonio
Climate change adaptation efficiency score: 37.1 out of 100
City's vulnerability to climate hazards with implemented adaptation measures: 22 out of 100 (13 ppt. reduction in vulnerability)
City's baseline vulnerability to climate hazards: 35 out of 100
City population: 1,479,835
8. Miami
Climate change adaptation efficiency score: 38.7 out of 100
City's vulnerability to climate hazards with implemented adaptation measures: 19 out of 100 (12 ppt. reduction in vulnerability)
City's baseline vulnerability to climate hazards: 31 out of 100
City population: 459,745
7. Houston
Climate change adaptation efficiency score: 41.7 out of 100
City's vulnerability to climate hazards with implemented adaptation measures: 21 out of 100 (15 ppt. reduction in vulnerability)
City's baseline vulnerability to climate hazards: 36 out of 100
City population: 2,328,253
6. Washington D.C.
Climate change adaptation efficiency score: 43.8 out of 100
City's vulnerability to climate hazards with implemented adaptation measures: 18 out of 100 (14 ppt. reduction in vulnerability)
City's baseline vulnerability to climate hazards: 32 out of 100
City population: 681,294
5. Dallas
Climate change adaptation efficiency score: 44.7 out of 100
City's vulnerability to climate hazards with implemented adaptation measures: 21 out of 100 (17 ppt. reduction in vulnerability)
City's baseline vulnerability to climate hazards: 38 out of 100
City population: 1,307,930
4. Phoenix
Climate change adaptation efficiency score: 47.8 out of 100
City's vulnerability to climate hazards with implemented adaptation measures: 24 out of 100 (22 ppt. reduction in vulnerability)
City's baseline vulnerability to climate hazards: 46 out of 100
City population: 1,642,323
3. Philadelphia
Climate change adaptation efficiency score: 50.0 out of 100
City's vulnerability to climate hazards with implemented adaptation measures: 17 out of 100 (17 ppt. reduction in vulnerability)
City's baseline vulnerability to climate hazards: 34 out of 100
City population: 1,579,706
2. New York
Climate change adaptation efficiency score: 52.8 out of 100
City's vulnerability to climate hazards with implemented adaptation measures: 17 out of 100 (19 ppt. reduction in vulnerability)
City's baseline vulnerability to climate hazards: 36 out of 100
City population: 8,483,844
1. Los Angeles
Climate change adaptation efficiency score: 53.8 out of 100
City's vulnerability to climate hazards with implemented adaptation measures: 18 out of 100 (21 ppt. reduction in vulnerability)
City's baseline vulnerability to climate hazards: 39 out of 100
City population: 3,857,263

Climate change has, and will continue to, affect communities in every corner of the world. But climate change's impact...

Major US Cities Doing The Most To Prepare For Climate Change

The midterm elections are less than a month away, and 35 seats in the U.S. Senate, as well as all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, will be on the ballot. While climate change is not as big an issue for voters this year as the economy or healthcare, it remains very much in the political conversation. According to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 41% of registered voters say the environment and climate policy are "very important" to their vote next month.
But like many issues in American politics, views on climate change are highly polarized along partisan lines. The same Pew poll found that only 15% of registered Republicans see climate and the environment as very important, compared to 66% of registered Democrats. While Republicans may be less likely to vote based on environmental considerations, deep red districts are no less susceptible to climate hazards than Democratic districts.
According to a recent study conducted by the non-profit research and advocacy group Climate Central, all 435 U.S. congressional districts are warmer now than they were in 1970, with the average temperature rising by about 2.8°F. Notably, the fossil fuel industry has gained influence on Capital Hill, contributing tens of millions of dollars to sitting members of congress. Many of these same lawmakers represent communities where climate change is driving temperatures up far faster than average.
Using data from Climate Central, Climate Crisis 247 identified the fastest warming congressional districts where elected representatives are receiving the most from the fossil fuel industry. We reviewed data on the 10 members of congress who have received the most in lifetime donations from oil and gas companies, and ranked the districts they represent on average temperature increases between 1970 and 2025. All data on political contributions from the fossil fuel industry are from the Center for American Progress. Data on average temperature change is from Climate Central.
10. Louisiana's 1st Congressional District
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +2.1°F (84% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +0.3°F
Congressional representative: Rep. Steve Scalise (R)
Political contributions received from the fossil fuel industry: $2.7 million
9. Montana's 1st Congressional District
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +2.4°F (106% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +-0.1°F
Congressional representative: Rep. Ryan Zinke (R)
Political contributions received from the fossil fuel industry: $1.0 million
8. Virginia's 9th Congressional District
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +2.6°F (90% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +0.3°F
Congressional representative: Rep. Morgan Griffith (R)
Political contributions received from the fossil fuel industry: $ 625,606
7. Texas' 14th Congressional District
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +2.7°F (77% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +0.6°F
Congressional representative: Rep. Randy K. Weber, Sr. (R)
Political contributions received from the fossil fuel industry: $ 591,103
6. Missouri's 8th Congressional District
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +2.8°F (83% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +0.5°F
Congressional representative: Rep. Jason Smith (R)
Political contributions received from the fossil fuel industry: $ 583,077
5. Oklahoma's 1st Congressional District
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +2.8°F (90% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +0.3°F
Congressional representative: Rep. Kevin Hern (R)
Political contributions received from the fossil fuel industry: $ 638,737
4. Pennsylvania's 16th Congressional District
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +3.1°F (86% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +0.4°F
Congressional representative: Rep. Mike Kelly (R)
Political contributions received from the fossil fuel industry: $ 714,888
3. Louisiana's 4th Congressional District
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +3.2°F (73% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +0.9°F
Congressional representative: Rep. Mike Johnson (R)
Political contributions received from the fossil fuel industry: $ 812,622
2. Texas' 21st Congressional District
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +3.4°F (68% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +1.1°F
Congressional representative: Rep. Chip Roy (R)
Political contributions received from the fossil fuel industry: $ 671,905
1. Texas' 19th Congressional District
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +3.5°F (74% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +0.9°F
Congressional representative: Rep. Jodey Arrington (R)
Political contributions received from the fossil fuel industry: $ 734,820

The midterm elections are less than a month away, and 35 seats in the U.S. Senate, as well as...

Fastest Warming Congressional Districts Where Politician Is Funded By Fossil Fuel Industry

Climate change is profoundly affecting species worldwide and poses a major threat to their long-term persistence. Although trees may have the potential for rapid adaptation to changing climates, empirical evidence remains limited, and whether these long-lived organisms can adapt quickly enough to keep pace with ongoing climate change is still an open question. To investigate real-time responses to contemporary climate change, we combined genomic data from 82 range-wide populations of the widespread tree Pinus pinaster Ait. with intensive sampling of two successive cohorts from two natural populations. Using an original genotype-environment association (GEA) approach to quantify climate (mal)adaptation, we found that most individuals from both target populations showed evidence of an adaptive lag to current climatic conditions, and are predicted to face substantial risk of maladaptation under future climates. Importantly, changes in genomic composition at climate-associated loci between cohorts were consistent with rapid evolutionary responses to ongoing climate change and could not be explained by neutral demographic processes alone, as supported by forward-time genetic simulations. We also observed a lower realised genetic load in the younger cohort, suggesting that the dynamics of deleterious mutations may change with climatic pressure. Our work provides evidence suggesting genetic responses to contemporary climate change within a single generation, including signals of rapid evolutionary changes in genomic composition at climate-associated loci and signatures of purifying selection, despite widespread adaptive lag to current climates. These findings challenge the view that trees only respond slowly to environmental change and highlight the need to integrate evolutionary dynamics into predictive models of species persistence under future climates.

Climate change is profoundly affecting species worldwide and poses a major threat to their long-term persistence. Although trees may have the potential for rapid adaptation to changing climates,…

Rapid evolutionary responses to climate change in maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Ait.) despite widespread adaptive lag

The Ankara Climate Transition Forum, held in the runup to next month's COP31 UN Climate Change Conference, to be hosted in the southern Turkish city of Antalya, kicked off on Thursday in Ankara, the nation's capital.
The forum aims to showcase local climate action initiatives for Antalya, in line with the COP31 Presidency's goal of delivering a conference focused on implementation, with participation from EU representatives, the UN Development Program, municipalities, international financial institutions, and scientists.
Halil Hasar, head of climate change at Türkiye's Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Ministry, said at the forum's opening that tackling climate change requires collective action.
Stressing the importance of early warning systems and data, Hasar said: 'One neighborhood is facing a heat wave, while another is dealing with rain and flooding. We are living in a different era where even normal conditions are changing.'
Hasar said 2024 was Türkiye's hottest year on record, while 2025 was its driest.
He said long-term precipitation levels have fallen 28%, adding that rainfall of 300 kilograms (661 pounds) per square meter in a single day reflects the consequences of the climate crisis rather than ordinary precipitation.
Hasar stressed the importance of local climate action and science-based planning, saying preventive measures could reduce costs.
He said Türkiye would showcase pilot projects at the conference in Antalya, adding: 'We will try to demonstrate these efforts to everyone through a pilot project in Antalya at COP31.'
COP31, the UN Climate Change Conference, is due to be held on Nov. 9-20 in Antalya on the Turkish Riviera, with Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum serving as president.
According to the UN, the conference 'is where the world comes together to agree on the actions to address the climate crisis, such as limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7F), helping vulnerable communities adapt to the effects of climate change, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.'
The conference will bring together world leaders and negotiators from the member states of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to further global progress, with business leaders, young people, climate scientists, Indigenous peoples, and civil society 'sharing insights and best practices to strengthen global, collective, and inclusive climate action,' the UN added.

The Ankara Climate Transition Forum, held in the runup to next month's COP31 UN Climate Change Conference, to be hosted in the southern Turkish city of Antalya, kicked off on Thursday in Ankara, the…

Türkiye prepares local climate action projects for COP31 Climate Change Conference

Why are we constantly trying to prove human influence in extreme weather events when we already know that fossil fuel-driven climate change has fundamentally altered the climate system?
In a Nature Climate Action comment released two weeks ago, my colleagues and I propose a significant normative shift in climate attribution science—and ultimately, in how we talk about climate change. Rather than repeatedly asking and testing for human influence in climate or weather extremes, scientists should begin by assuming that fossil fuel-driven climate change impacts every event to some extent.
Our climate system—the atmosphere, ocean, and land—has been fundamentally changed due to decades of fossil fuel-driven climate change. For example, due to warmer temperatures, the atmosphere can now hold more water, leading to an intensification of the global water cycle. In addition to an expanding Hadley Circulation, there is evidence of a poleward shift of the westerly jet streams, which changes weather patterns over the US. In the oceans, which have absorbed 92% of the heat added to the climate system from fossil fuel-caused warming, more frequent and intense marine heatwaves are occurring globally.
Given humans' clear role in fundamentally changing the system, my colleagues and I attempt to shift the norms within attribution science and chart out a path that more directly achieves climate action and climate justice initiatives.
What is climate attribution science?
Climate attribution science is a mature sub-field of climate science that has been tested and perfected over the last two decades. For example, extreme event attribution answers the question in many instances, 'how much more intense was this extreme event due to fossil fuel-driven climate change?' Or, 'how much more frequent will this extreme event become due to fossil fuel-driven climate change?'
Scientists have now published hundreds of attribution studies, many finding conclusive evidence that extreme heat and rainfall, tropical cyclone rainfall, and weather conditions that produce wildfires in the western U.S. are exacerbated by human-caused climate change.
Yet still, scientists, journalists, and media frequently ask after an extreme event, 'did climate change contribute to this?' The answer is yes. According to the latest IPCC report, 'It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land… climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe.' The emission of heat-trapping gases into our atmosphere has fundamentally changed how our climate system works. We no longer need to ask, 'was this influenced by climate change?' We can instead assume there was some influence, and instead ask, 'how? And to what extent?' And the urgent question, 'what do we do about it?'
Big Oil learned from Big Tobacco
Why are we in this mess to begin with? It all has to do with 'doubt' in the science, manufactured by Big Oil. According to a report released by my colleagues, Big Oil knew that the burning of fossil fuels would lead to climate change as early as the late 1950s, but instead of acting on this knowledge to change their business model to reflect the science, they began sowing doubt in the science in order to continue profiting off of the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.
Scientists have been in this position—where an industry spreads lies to confuse people about settled scientific facts—before. In the mid-20 th century, a buildup of evidence linking smoking to lung cancer led tobacco companies to deliberately spread misinformation that cast doubt on the established medical science, allowing them to profit off the sale of their product despite known deadly health impacts.
Today, the fossil fuel industry is using the same methods as Big Tobacco, and today's situation is actually far worse. Fossil fuel-driven climate change was well-understood in the 1980s, and President George H. W. Bush famously pushed for action on the climate crisis, contributing to the formation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Big Oil responded by deliberately spreading misinformation, including questioning the scientific basis of climate science and citing the economic cost of switching away from fossil fuels without accounting for the costs of climate change itself. This was done through advertorials and the funding and amplifying of junk science, which Exxon and other companies were working to create and spread by the late 1990s.
Why does this matter for attribution science? The fact is that climate scientists are constantly held back by persistent disinformation spread by the fossil fuel industry. A substantial amount of resources and capacity have been spent to replicate and communicate the same research and conclusions that have been well understood for decades, when scientists could have instead been innovating climate science more rapidly.
It's also clear that advancements in attribution science could strengthen climate litigation. In response, conservative groups are continuing to spread the lie that climate science isn't settled, and legislators are openly questioning the validity of attribution science in proposed legislation that would grant Big Oil legal immunity.
The future of attribution science
With this NPJ Climate Action comment, we argue for moving beyond repeating well-established conclusions of climate change, which is exactly what Big Oil wants us to do. We don't need to redo the science that a given extreme heatwave is influenced by fossil fuel-driven climate change when it already occurs in a changed system!
The message here is not just for climate scientists, but also journalists, opinion leaders, and the general public. We should begin all analyses of extreme weather events from the established physical reality that all events occur within a fossil fuel-altered climate system. We no longer need to question if each event was influenced by climate change.
This normative shift enables scientists to focus on opportunities for innovation in attribution science that more directly address equitable climate action. For example, more scientists could shift their focus to improving both impact and source attribution science. Impact attribution answers questions like, 'how many more deaths or how much more economic damage resulted from this extreme weather event due to fossil fuel-driven climate change?' Source attribution studies quantify oil and gas producers' individual contributions to climate trends and extreme events. As litigation pursues accountability for fossil fuel companies, source attribution studies can be key in informing these lawsuits.
As the impacts from fossil fuel-driven climate change continue to accelerate, it is up to scientists, communicators, and the public to break through the disinformation that bad actors continue to spread to slow down scientific advancement and climate action. Updating the norms of attribution science will allow for the science to continue to evolve and effectively respond to the climate crisis. Our climate science needs to be able to shed the dead weight of these tired, fossil fuel-interest-serving arguments, and instead to bring all its energy to helping create a lasting society for future generations.

It's time to break through fossil fuel industry's disinformation

Climate Change Is a Given in Every Extreme Weather Event, Why Do We Keep Needing to Prove It?

Credit: CC0 Public Domain
As human activity has increased temperatures globally, determining the costs directly incurred by climate change is challenging. The effects of climate change on extreme weather events—such as hurricanes and heat waves—can be locally specific and variable, and observations and climate modeling might not accurately capture those effects.
One way researchers attempt to estimate the costs of climate change is by comparing an actual extreme weather event to a hypothetical scenario in which climate change wasn't a factor. Extreme event impact attribution (EEIA) uses these comparisons to estimate the damage and costs associated with climate change. But multiple versions of EEIA exist: A frequency-change approach asks how much more likely an event was made by climate change, whereas an intensity-change approach asks how much more damaging an event was made by climate change.
These approaches can produce vastly different estimates of the costs of climate change. For example, 2017's Hurricane Harvey caused an estimated $90 billion in damage. A frequency-change approach estimated that 75% of these costs could be associated with climate change, but an intensity-change approach put the estimate at only 15%. If the two estimates were expected to agree, then this large discrepancy would seem to imply that at least one of the methods has technical limitations or is not theoretically valid.
To determine whether a method is theoretically valid, A. L. Match and colleagues introduce the framework of consistency in their article published in AGU Advances . A method is consistent if, when applied to a group of events over time, the total costs attributed to climate change by EEIA match the actual excess costs incurred. The researchers report that both frequency- and intensity-based approaches can be consistent. The consistency framework clarifies some of the specific conditions needed to capture excess costs coherently and accurately.
Because both methods can be consistent, and therefore valid, the costs of climate change from an individual event are inherently ambiguous, the authors say. They add that no technical breakthrough—or even perfect knowledge of climate and society—can eliminate this ambiguity, which could limit the ability of EEIA to inform adaptation, recovery or litigation.
A. L. Match et al., On the Inherent Ambiguity of Extreme Event Costs Attributed to Climate Change, AGU Advances (2026). DOI: 10.1029/2026av002546
Journal information: AGU Advances
effects of climate change Extreme Weather
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This story is republished courtesy of Eos, hosted by the American Geophysical Union. Read the original story here .

As human activity has increased temperatures globally, determining the costs directly incurred by climate change is challenging. The effects of climate change on extreme weather events—such as hurricanes and heat waves—can be locally specific and variable, and observations and climate modeling might not accurately capture those effects.

The ambiguous costs of climate change

In Penina Mwame Shedrack's classroom, students are learning to connect climate change to the world around them. They are thinking about how to conserve water, manage waste and turn organic waste into fertilizer. They are also learning how climate risks such as flooding and El Niño can affect their communities and why being prepared matters.
For Penina, a Geography and Business Studies teacher, these are signs of a deeper change: climate learning is becoming something students can understand, relate to and act on.
What is happening at Mtawanya is part of a wider effort in Tanzania to build climate change education into the education system helping teachers connect climate risks to everyday learning while generating evidence on what can work at scale.
Before the pilot, Penina's students were already planting trees and cleaning their surroundings. What changed was the understanding behind those actions. By integrating climate change into subjects they already study, the pilot helped students connect what they experience — from floods and El Niño to water, waste and preparedness — with what they learn in class.
'Before the pilot, many of my students understood climate change mainly as an issue linked to large industries and countries that produce high levels of emissions. They did not always see how it connected to the climate risks they experience in their own communities,' she says. 'Now they are making those connections. They understand that climate change affects their lives and communities, and that they have a role to play in preparing for its impacts and taking action.' From curriculum to classroom
The change at Mtawanya builds on a broader investment in climate education. UNICEF and partners supported the development of a new gender-responsive climate education curriculum framework for upper secondary education, together with teaching and learning materials, including digital resources.
The four-school pilot is putting that work into practice. Twenty-three teachers were trained to use the new materials and participatory approaches, generating practical evidence on what students respond to, what teachers need and how climate learning can be integrated into the existing curriculum.
At Mtawanya, students established a climate action club, teachers shared learning with the wider school community, and students began going beyond routine environmental activities to think more deliberately about climate preparedness and action. What they learn is also spreading through peer learning and school activities.
'The preparedness modules helped us understand climate risks such as flooding and El Niño. The students can now relate climate warnings to what is happening around them and understand why preparedness matters,' Penina says. 'The learning has changed me too. I used to burn vegetation when clearing my farm, but after understanding how this affects the soil and air, I stopped. Climate education should not only change what we know; it should change what we do.'
Across the four pilot schools, 403 students have been reached directly, 55 per cent girls, with a further 4,200 students, 50 per cent girls, reached through peer learning and school climate action activities.
But the significance of the pilot is not only the number of children reached. It is what the experience is showing about how climate education can work within the education system. Teachers have identified what helps including integrating climate concepts into existing subjects rather than adding another subject to an already crowded timetable as well as what needs to improve, such as time for practical action and clearer guidance for teachers. From pilot to system change
These lessons are now informing Tanzania's wider curriculum work. UNICEF and the Government are continuing dialogue with the Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE) on integrating the climate curriculum framework, learning materials and lessons into the education system. Evidence from the pilot is helping shape the next generation of climate education in Tanzania informing the final upper-secondary curriculum and teaching and learning materials, as well as the national Gender-Responsive Climate Change Education Framework. At the Government's request, this work is now being extended to primary education, building towards a coherent approach to climate learning across the full school curriculum, from primary through secondary.
For Penina, the change is already visible. It is in students thinking differently about water and waste, classmates discussing how to prepare for climate risks, and a teacher adjusting a practice on her own farm.
These may look like small changes. But they show what becomes possible when climate learning is connected to children's lives and when what is learned in classrooms can help shape a stronger education system for the future.

From curriculum to action:

A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding nearly 10 kph to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published on 14 October by scientists from World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 8 kph, a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fuelled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño – the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific – made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 31.2°C waters that were as much as 2°C warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse'
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' says climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto adds.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, says Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she says.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 1.4°C since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, says the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, says he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists – Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck – say they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters points to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 30 kph to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledges that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but says he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.

El Niño turbocharged the Pacific hurricane – but climate change had an even greater impact, scientists find.

Was El Niño to blame for Hurricane Polo's record-breaking storm?

New research found that a combination of climate change and El Niño drove the rapid intensification of Hurricane Polo last month—the longest-lasting Category 5 system ever recorded in the Pacific Ocean.
A joint report released Thursday by the science teams Climate Central and World Weather Attribution identified global warming caused by burning coal, oil, and gas as the larger factor. It boosted the storm's wind speeds by approximately 6 mph (nearly 10 kph).
A study co-author noted that El Niño contributed a bit less, adding around 5 mph (8 kph).
Ocean temperatures reached 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius)—up to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal—which fueled the storm, the study found. Climate change made those conditions 23 times more likely, while El Niño—the natural, temporary warming of parts of the Pacific—made them 14 times more likely.
Driven by a super-strong El Niño, this year has set records for the strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Hurricane Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 status in the Pacific at two and a half days.
"El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño," said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
"El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means every hurricane that occurs in the East Pacific now has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger," Otto added.
Researchers noted that Polo would have been a powerful storm even without climate change and El Niño. However, every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase potential damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
Although Hurricane Polo degraded significantly before making landfall in a sparsely populated region of Mexico, researchers remain intrigued by how the storm rapidly intensified from a tropical system into a top-tier Category 5 hurricane within roughly 24 hours.
The research places various atmospheric threats in context, according to Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit based in New Jersey.
"It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change," she said.
The analysis examined the warm waters that power tropical systems by gauging potential storm intensity. However, the work did not evaluate upper-level wind shear, where El Niño exerts a substantial influence.
While El Niño generally increases storm-dismantling high-altitude winds across the Atlantic, shifting wind patterns in the Pacific reduce the winds that otherwise weaken storms.
Two separate research groups measured atmospheric conditions differently and used distinct analytical methods, yet both arrived at the same overall conclusion, bolstering confidence in the findings. Nevertheless, the rapid study has not undergone scientific peer review, which remains the recognized gold standard.
To determine the extent of climate change's influence on Polo, both teams utilized the accepted scientific practice of comparing observations from our warmer modern climate against a modeled world that has not experienced 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) of warming since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Daniel Gilford, a scientist at Climate Central and co-author of the study, likened the atmospheric mechanics to road traffic. Wind shear from El Niño acts as a red light in the Atlantic, but becomes a green light in the Pacific.
In the Pacific, that green light gives permission to go, with waters warmed by both El Niño and climate change acting like a motorist flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who was not part of the study, said he was initially surprised that climate change was cited as a larger influence on Polo, "given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem."
However, three external scientists—Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania, and Carl Schreck of North Carolina State University—believed the research underestimates climate change's contribution to Polo's strength.
Masters cited Gilford's own 2024 study showing climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to Atlantic hurricanes between 2019 and 2023.
Gilford acknowledged Thursday's report could be slightly underestimating the impact of climate change, but explained he took a conservative approach while factoring in other conditions.

Both climate change and a strong El Niño combined to cause Hurricane Polo to explosively intensify from a tropical storm to a Category 5 monster in just 24 hours

El Niño and climate change unleash monster hurricane as scientists issue chilling warning

El Niño helped turn tropical storm into Category 5 monster in just 24 hours, experts say

Description
Climate change is one of the defining health challenges of our time. Join us for Protecting Health in a Changing Climate, a thought-provoking webinar exploring what a changing climate means for our health, our communities and the future of healthcare.
The webinar will bring together Associate Professor Zerina Lokmic-Tomkins and Dr Gongbo Chen to explore the latest evidence on climate-related health impacts, with a particular focus on vulnerable populations, maternal and child health, community resilience and the Asia-Pacific region.
The discussion will consider areas that can receive less attention in conversations about climate and health, including the impacts of climate change on pregnancy, early childhood and long-term health outcomes, as well as the increasing pressures climate-related events place on healthcare services.
What we'll explore
What the latest evidence tells us about the health impacts of a changing climate.
Climate-related health risks across the Asia-Pacific region, including impacts on vulnerable populations, maternal and child health, pregnancy and early childhood.
How climate-related hazards can affect access to healthcare, health outcomes and the delivery of health services.
Building climate-resilient healthcare systems and communities.
The role of health professionals in preparing for and responding to a changing climate.
How communities can adapt, build resilience and identify priorities for action.
Practical ways we can work together to protect health now and into the future.
An opportunity to connect and engage
The session will include interactive Poll Everywhere activities, providing an opportunity to test your knowledge, consider community priorities and explore perspectives on climate and health.
You can also submit a question when registering for the webinar. Selected questions will be grouped thematically and discussed during the live Q&A, with additional questions from the Zoom chat considered during the session.

Protecting Health in a Changing Climate Webinar

As human activity has increased temperatures globally, determining the costs directly incurred by climate change is challenging. The effects of climate change on extreme weather events—such as hurricanes and heat waves—can be locally specific and variable, and observations and climate modeling might not accurately capture those effects.
One way researchers attempt to estimate the costs of climate change is by comparing an actual extreme weather event to a hypothetical scenario in which climate change wasn't a factor. Extreme event impact attribution (EEIA) uses these comparisons to estimate the damages and costs associated with climate change. But multiple versions of EEIA exist: A frequency-change approach asks how much more likely an event was made by climate change, whereas an intensity-change approach asks how much more damaging an event was made by climate change.
These approaches can produce vastly different estimates of the costs of climate change. For example, 2017's Hurricane Harvey caused an estimated $90 billion in damages. A frequency-change approach estimated that 75% of these costs could be associated with climate change, but an intensity-change approach put the estimate at only 15%. If the two estimates were expected to agree, then this large discrepancy would seem to imply that at least one of the methods has technical limitations or is not theoretically valid.
To determine whether a method is theoretically valid, Match et al. introduce the framework of consistency. A method is consistent if, when applied to a group of events over time, the total costs attributed to climate change by EEIA match the actual excess costs incurred. The researchers report that both frequency- and intensity-based approaches can be consistent. The consistency framework clarifies some of the specific conditions needed to capture excess costs coherently and accurately.
Because both methods can be consistent, and therefore valid, the costs of climate change from an individual event are inherently ambiguous, the authors say. They add that no technical breakthrough—or even perfect knowledge of climate and society—can eliminate this ambiguity, which could limit the ability of EEIA to inform adaptation, recovery, or litigation. (AGU Advances, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026AV002546, 2026)
—Rebecca Owen (@beccapox.bsky.social), Science Writer
Citation: Owen, R. (2026), The ambiguous costs of climate change, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260328. Published on 16 October 2026.
Text © 2026. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

To put a price tag on climate change, some approaches focus on whether it made an event more likely, whereas others focus on whether it made an event more severe and damaging. A new study examines the validity of both approaches.

The Ambiguous Costs of Climate Change

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Both climate change and a strong El Niño combined to cause Hurricane Polo to explosively intensify from a tropical storm to a Category 5 monster in just 24 hours.

Study says global warming did more than El Niño to turbocharge Hurricane Polo

Popis
Although climate change education is still facing major barriers and challenges for teachers, few studies have investigated their self-efficacy and motivation to teach about climate change. This study investigated the impact of the 'Climate in Need' program on its participants' climate change knowledge, their climate change education self-efficacy, and their motivation to teach about climate change (N = 40). For this, a convergent parallel mixed-methods design, which combined quantitative and qualitative methods, was used: a pre/post survey and focus group interviews. The quantitative analyses showed significant increases in participants' overall climate change knowledge, although some conceptual confusion persisted despite the program's intervention. Further, a significant increase in the participants' self-efficacy was observed, as well as a substantial impact on motivation. These findings indicate that climate-change-focused professional development programs should incorporate activities addressing teachers' climate change misconceptions with a focus on their conceptual refutation. At the same time, programs should adequately cover action and effectiveness knowledge so that teachers are able to distinguish which mitigative actions have a greater impact. The findings also suggest that climate change education implementation should enable teachers to identify with the climate change topic by integrating it into their teacher identity.

Are We Ready to Teach About Climate Change? Increasing Teachers' Content Knowledge, Self-Efficacy and Motivation Through a Program on Climate Change

Türkiye's Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister and COP31 President Murat Kurum held an online meeting with Australian Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and UN climate chief Simon Stiell to discuss preparations for the UN climate change conference to be hosted in Türkiye next month. Kurum
"
We held a productive online meeting with Australian Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, where we discussed COP31 preparations and our Action Agenda,
"

Türkiye's Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister and COP31 President Murat Kurum held an online meeting with Australian Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and UN climate…

Turkish environment minister holds trilateral talks ahead of November's COP31 climate conference

Education has played an increasingly important role at the last five COP summits.
With just under a month to go until
COP31 in Türkiye,
Christine Özden, Global Director for Climate Education, who leads global advocacy for Cambridge, is optimistic about the potential for progress and the opportunity to influence global policy and dialogue.
Christine Özden, Cambridge's Global Director for Climate Education, who will be attending COP31
Christine Özden, Cambridge's Global Director for Climate Education, who will be attending COP31
Christine Özden said
: "The Turkish COP presidency's objective of
climate action education for all by 2035
provides a unique platform to move the education agenda forward even further, with a focus on climate literacy, informed decision making and adaptive capacity."
"Key decisions about the role of education policy and what it can achieve are made at COP. It remains the only multilateral process for climate and education stakeholders, the NGO community and civil society to come together."
"The education agenda has been an area of much consensus at COP. Its growing role is something we welcome, and we are optimistic that the priorities the Turkish presidency is setting out will serve to further accelerate a climate-ready future."
"We are optimistic that the priorities the Turkish presidence is setting out will serve to further accelerate a climate ready-future."
Many of these COP31 priorities mirror those of Cambridge's engagement work with teachers, students and policy makers. "The climate education dialogue has moved beyond awareness raising and is much more about clear targets, monitoring and reporting, integration and coordination, and the importance of even greater societal engagement," Özden added
Connections with Türkiye
Cambridge has done much to build momentum in the lead-up to COP31 - convening governments, climate experts and world leaders in education. We have worked closely with the COP presidency to promote their action area on youth and education, green skills and the transition economy.
From left to right: Gökhan Ünlüer, Eastern European Consultant for Cambridge International; Renata Schaeffer, Director of Global Engagement, Global Engagement Office, University of Cambridge; Christine Özden, Cambridge's Global Director of Climate Education; Steve Davison, Executive Director of Cambridge Zero; Mehmet Ali Kahraman, Director of COP31 Office; Prof Dr. Abdulmenaf Turan, Academic Adviser; and Emre Tanrıöver, Counsellor at the Turkish Mission to the UN in New York
From left to right: Gökhan Ünlüer, Eastern European Consultant for Cambridge International; Renata Schaeffer, Director of Global Engagement, Global Engagement Office, University of Cambridge; Christine Özden, Cambridge's Global Director of Climate Education; Steve Davison, Executive Director of Cambridge Zero; Mehmet Ali Kahraman, Director of COP31 Office; Prof Dr. Abdulmenaf Turan, Academic Adviser; and Emre Tanrıöver, Counsellor at the Turkish Mission to the UN in New York
Özden and other senior Cambridge leaders visited the Turkish Ambassador in March and then travelled to Türkiye in April, where she
met with the COP31 Presidency Office
and the Turkish higher education and international education community to engage on the priority themes of education and youth, and to understand how Cambridge expertise can support local and global objectives on the road to COP.
And in June, as part of
London Climate Action Week 2026
, Cambridge University Press & Assessment representatives joined
an international panel of senior leaders at the Turkish Ambassador's Residence in London
to explore education, skills and the circular economy.
These connections over the last year have built up momentum for a busy programme of events in Antalya in November.
A year of progress
Since
the last COP in Brazil
, Cambridge's focus has been on deepening the integration of climate change education across our curriculum, assessment, and learning materials; building deep, cross-sector collaboration; and partnerships and empowering young people with the skills they need in a rapidly changing world.
Quinn Runkle recently joined the organisation as Director of Climate Education and is leading efforts to integrate climate change, nature, and sustainability education across Cambridge's work.
Quinn Runkle said
, "We have a responsibility to prepare learners to thrive in a changing world. That means developing learners' understanding of, and ability to respond to, the defining challenges of our time: climate change, nature loss, and growing global instability. Education is an integral tool in mitigating, adapting to, and building resilience in the face of these crises.
"One month into my role, I'm heartened by the deep commitment to climate change education across Cambridge and energised by the shared vision for what more we can achieve.
"From Uzbekistan to Oman, it has been inspiring to learn how colleagues are working with governments to embed sustainability within national education reform. In the UK, the long-awaited introduction of the Natural History GCSE marks a step-change in young people's access to nature education. From the imagery used in our English language assessments to the rigour in our academic publishing, including landmark works such as the IPCC reports, it is clear that climate change is woven through the culture of Cambridge.
Quinn Runckle
,
Director of Climate Education
at Cambridge University Press & Assessment
Quinn Runckle
,
Director of Climate Education
at Cambridge University Press & Assessment
"I am thrilled to have the opportunity to bring these threads together and unlock even greater impact for learners, educators and education systems around the world."
Global issues: local solutions
Cambridge's approach to climate change education is holistic, multidisciplinary, and acknowledges the importance of both the global and the local. Much of our work aligns with the COP presidency's focus on climate literacy, informed decision-making and adaptive capacity.
Here are four examples of the Cambridge approach in action
:
1)
Our
Climate Change Education Framework
is used across our Cambridge International curricula to ensure learners develop the knowledge, skills and understanding required to empower learners to take action on climate change. Using a holistic approach, the framework is built around four dimensions: understanding, evaluating, caring, and responding.
2)
Cambridge Climate Quest
is a free eLearning programme that provides learners with a foundational awareness of climate change issues. Initially delivered in India, where it is set to empower over 100,000 learners. The programme is now expanding rapidly into Pakistan. It aims to develop young people's climate change literacy and foster climate action at the grassroots level.
3)
To help prepare young people for a changing world, the Ministry of Education of Oman partnered with Cambridge to introduce a
new Environmental Sciences subject
for Grade 11 and 12 students. The initiative gives learners the opportunity to explore climate change, sustainability and environmental challenges through a structured curriculum that links scientific understanding with real-world issues.
4)
Our new
National Curriculum Framework for Uzbekistan
embeds climate and green education as a priority across subject areas. Alongside inclusion, social and emotional learning and competency-based education, it aims to help Uzbekistan's 7 million learners develop the knowledge, skills and values needed to respond to future challenges. Themes such as climate change, wellbeing and social and emotional learning are not pulled out on their own. Instead, they are woven throughout lessons to help students understand how their knowledge applies beyond school.
Read more about climate education at Cambridge

Education has played an increasingly important role at the last five COP summits.With just under a month to go until COP31 in Türkiye, Christine Özden, Global Director for Climate Education, who leads…

Countdown to COP31

Both climate change and a strong El Niño combined to cause Hurricane Polo to explosively intensify from a tropical storm to a Category 5 monster in just 24 hours.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Both climate change and a strong El Niño combined to cause Hurricane Polo to explosively intensify from a tropical storm to a Category 5 monster in

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New research found that a combination of climate change and El Niño drove the rapid intensification of Hurricane Polo last month—the longest-lasting Category 5 system ever recorded in the Pacific Ocean.
A joint report released Thursday by the science teams Climate Central and World Weather Attribution identified global warming caused by burning coal, oil, and gas as the larger factor. It boosted the storm's wind speeds by approximately 6 mph (nearly 10 kph).
A study co-author noted that El Niño contributed a bit less, adding around 5 mph (8 kph).
Ocean temperatures reached 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius)—up to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal—which fueled the storm, the study found. Climate change made those conditions 23 times more likely, while El Niño—the natural, temporary warming of parts of the Pacific—made them 14 times more likely.
Driven by a super-strong El Niño, this year has set records for the strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Hurricane Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 status in the Pacific at two and a half days.
"El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño," said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
"El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means every hurricane that occurs in the East Pacific now has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger," Otto added.
Researchers noted that Polo would have been a powerful storm even without climate change and El Niño. However, every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase potential damage.
Although Hurricane Polo degraded significantly before making landfall in a sparsely populated region of Mexico, researchers remain intrigued by how the storm rapidly intensified from a tropical system into a top-tier Category 5 hurricane within roughly 24 hours.
The research places various atmospheric threats in context, according to Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit based in New Jersey.
"It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change," she said.
The analysis examined the warm waters that power tropical systems by gauging potential storm intensity. However, the work did not evaluate upper-level wind shear, where El Niño exerts a substantial influence.
While El Niño generally increases storm-dismantling high-altitude winds across the Atlantic, shifting wind patterns in the Pacific reduce the winds that otherwise weaken storms.
Two separate research groups measured atmospheric conditions differently and used distinct analytical methods, yet both arrived at the same overall conclusion, bolstering confidence in the findings. Nevertheless, the rapid study has not undergone scientific peer review, which remains the recognized gold standard.
To determine the extent of climate change's influence on Polo, both teams utilized the accepted scientific practice of comparing observations from our warmer modern climate against a modeled world that has not experienced 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) of warming since pre-industrial times.
Daniel Gilford, a scientist at Climate Central and co-author of the study, likened the atmospheric mechanics to road traffic. Wind shear from El Niño acts as a red light in the Atlantic, but becomes a green light in the Pacific.
In the Pacific, that green light gives permission to go, with waters warmed by both El Niño and climate change acting like a motorist flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who was not part of the study, said he was initially surprised that climate change was cited as a larger influence on Polo, "given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem."
However, three external scientists—Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania, and Carl Schreck of North Carolina State University—believed the research underestimates climate change's contribution to Polo's strength.
Masters cited Gilford's own 2024 study showing climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to Atlantic hurricanes between 2019 and 2023.
Gilford acknowledged Thursday's report could be slightly underestimating the impact of climate change, but explained he took a conservative approach while factoring in other conditions.

El Niño and climate change fuel monster hurricane, scientists warn

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
"El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño," said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
"El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger," Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
"It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change," she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, "given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem."
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to…

El Niño turbocharged the Pacific hurricane – but climate change had an even greater impact, scientists find.
A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding nearly 10 kph to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published on 14 October by scientists from World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 8 kph, a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fuelled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño – the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific – made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 31.2°C waters that were as much as 2°C warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
Related
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse'
"El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño," says climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
"El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger," Otto adds.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, says Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
"It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change," she says.
Related
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 1.4°C since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, says the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, says he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, "given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem."
But three other outside scientists – Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck – say they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters points to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 30 kph to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledges that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but says he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.

El Niño turbocharged the Pacific hurricane – but climate change had an even greater impact, scientists find.View on euronews

El Niño vs climate change: Which had more influence over the powerful Hurricane Polo?

WASHINGTON — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific. Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 m.p.h. (nearly 10 km/h) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 m.p.h. (8 km/h), a study co-author said. Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said. This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days. 'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution. 'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added. Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage. Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours. The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey. 'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said. The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms. The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science. To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times. How El Niño and climate change interact Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator. University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.' But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 m.p.h. (30 km/h) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023. Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press

A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.

Türkiye's Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister and COP31 President Murat Kurum held an online meeting with Australian Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and UN climate chief Simon Stiell to discuss preparations for the UN climate change conference to be hosted in Türkiye next month.
Kurum said on social media that the three officials discussed preparations for the UN climate conference as well as its Action Agenda.
"We held a productive online meeting with Australian Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, where we discussed COP31 preparations and our Action Agenda," Kurum said.
He stressed the importance of close cooperation with all parties to ensure that different perspectives contribute to the outcomes of the conference.
"Through very close cooperation, we want to engage with all parties and ensure that different ideas contribute to the COP31 outcomes," he said.
Kurum added that Türkiye was determined to make COP31 "a turning point" in global climate action, where concrete results are achieved, strong decisions are implemented, and international cooperation produces results on the ground.

APTOPIX Mexico Extreme Weather Polo
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
"El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño," said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
"El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger," Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
"It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change," she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, "given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem."
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Advertising
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
Advertising
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

New research found that a combination of climate change and El Niño drove the rapid intensification of Hurricane Polo last month—the longest-lasting Category 5 system ever recorded in the Pacific Ocean.
A joint report released Thursday by the science teams Climate Central and World Weather Attribution identified global warming caused by burning coal, oil, and gas as the larger factor. It boosted the storm's wind speeds by approximately 6 mph (nearly 10 kph).
A study co-author noted that El Niño contributed a bit less, adding around 5 mph (8 kph).
Ocean temperatures reached 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius)—up to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal—which fueled the storm, the study found. Climate change made those conditions 23 times more likely, while El Niño—the natural, temporary warming of parts of the Pacific—made them 14 times more likely.
Driven by a super-strong El Niño, this year has set records for the strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Hurricane Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 status in the Pacific at two and a half days.
"El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño," said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
"El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means every hurricane that occurs in the East Pacific now has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger," Otto added.
Researchers noted that Polo would have been a powerful storm even without climate change and El Niño. However, every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase potential damage.
Although Hurricane Polo degraded significantly before making landfall in a sparsely populated region of Mexico, researchers remain intrigued by how the storm rapidly intensified from a tropical system into a top-tier Category 5 hurricane within roughly 24 hours.
The research places various atmospheric threats in context, according to Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit based in New Jersey.
"It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change," she said.
The analysis examined the warm waters that power tropical systems by gauging potential storm intensity. However, the work did not evaluate upper-level wind shear, where El Niño exerts a substantial influence.
While El Niño generally increases storm-dismantling high-altitude winds across the Atlantic, shifting wind patterns in the Pacific reduce the winds that otherwise weaken storms.
Two separate research groups measured atmospheric conditions differently and used distinct analytical methods, yet both arrived at the same overall conclusion, bolstering confidence in the findings. Nevertheless, the rapid study has not undergone scientific peer review, which remains the recognized gold standard.
To determine the extent of climate change's influence on Polo, both teams utilized the accepted scientific practice of comparing observations from our warmer modern climate against a modeled world that has not experienced 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) of warming since pre-industrial times.
Daniel Gilford, a scientist at Climate Central and co-author of the study, likened the atmospheric mechanics to road traffic. Wind shear from El Niño acts as a red light in the Atlantic, but becomes a green light in the Pacific.
In the Pacific, that green light gives permission to go, with waters warmed by both El Niño and climate change acting like a motorist flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who was not part of the study, said he was initially surprised that climate change was cited as a larger influence on Polo, "given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem."
However, three external scientists—Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania, and Carl Schreck of North Carolina State University—believed the research underestimates climate change's contribution to Polo's strength.
Masters cited Gilford's own 2024 study showing climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to Atlantic hurricanes between 2019 and 2023.
Gilford acknowledged Thursday's report could be slightly underestimating the impact of climate change, but explained he took a conservative approach while factoring in other conditions.
The Independent is the world's most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary and analysis for the independently-minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.

El Niño helped fuel Category 5 hurricane in just 24 hours

Note: I will be posting the chapters of my book 'What you can do to Prevent Climate Change: A Practical Guide for Every Citizen' on Substack. Given that the full list is in Chapter 4, I will publish it in four parts.
I will publish my 7 books for paid subscribers. Alternatively, you can buy the books (in digital or paperback format) on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/stores/Luis-Fierro/author/B0GSXQ5QHP
⚡ Potential impact: High—collective political action drives systemic change.
Individual actions matter, but the most powerful driver of climate progress is collective political action that changes laws, regulations, and investment patterns at scale. Supporting organizations that advocate for strong climate policy amplifies your impact enormously.
Types of organizations worth supporting:
• Environmental advocacy groups: Sierra Club (sierraclub.org), Natural Resources Defense Council (nrdc.org), Environmental Defense Fund (edf.org), 350.org
• Youth climate organizations: Zero Hour (thisiszerohour.org), World's Youth for Climate Justice (https://www.wy4cj.org/)
• Climate science communication: Union of Concerned Scientists (ucsusa.org), Climate Reality Project (climaterealityproject.org, founded by Al Gore)
• Carbon pricing advocacy: Citizens' Climate Lobby (citizensclimatelobby.org), Carbon180 (carbon180.org)
• International climate justice: Climate Action Network International (climatenetwork.org), Women's Environment and Development Organization (wedo.org)
Legal advocacy: Earthjustice (earthjustice.org), ClientEarth (clientearth.org)

Chapter 4, part 3 (actions 15-21) of my book 'What you can do to Prevent Climate Change: A Practical Guide for Every Citizen'

7 more things you can do to prevent climate change

El Niño helped turn tropical storm into Category 5 monster in just 24 hours

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution. 'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.Decoding Polo's rapid strengtheningWhile Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours. The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science. To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.How El Niño and climate change interactStudy co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.' But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.___The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.

Study Says Global Warming Did More Than El Niño to Turbocharge Hurricane Polo

Are you noticing hotter summers, unusual rainfall, stronger heatwaves, or changing weather patterns? These changes may be connected to climate change, one of the biggest environmental challenges facing our planet. Climate change is mainly caused by human activities that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, especially burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests, and industrial activities. These gases trap heat, gradually warming the Earth and disrupting natural climate patterns. Understanding what causes climate change, how it affects our daily lives, and what we can do to reduce it is essential for protecting the environment and future generations. What Is Climate Change? Climate change refers to long-term changes in Earth's temperatures and weather patterns. These changes can occur naturally, but the rapid global warming observed since the industrial era is primarily driven by human activities. The Earth's climate naturally changes over time because of factors such...

Discover what causes climate change, how global warming affects our planet, and the simple steps you can take to help protect Earth's future.

What Causes Climate Change? Understanding the Main Reasons Behind Global Warming

Washington: A new study finds that
climate change
and
El Nino
combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying
Hurricane Polo
, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Nino contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Nino - the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific - made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Nino, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
"El Nino and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Nino," said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
"El Nino comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger," Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Nino, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart
Category 5 hurricane
in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
"It's a powerful reminder that even though El Nino right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change," she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Nino has a huge footprint. El Nino usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Nino decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Nino and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Nino can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Nino acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, "given how extreme this El Nino is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem."
But three other outside scientists - Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck - said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.

A recent study reveals that climate change and El Nino greatly influenced Hurricane Polo's intensity. The research shows climate change added about 6 mph to Polo's strength compared to 5 mph from El…

Study says global warming did more than El Nino to turbocharge Hurricane Polo

Climate change is taught as a global phenomenon, but young people around the world are living with its effects in their own regions. So, what should climate education look like now?
As young people (and political leaders) head to the United Nations' climate summit, UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) COP31 in Türkiye, we have been reflecting on what is happening in climate education in schools.
During a passionate address at the Pre-COP31 leaders' event in Fiji, Melelusi Sokotia, a 13-year-old student from Tuvalu's Nauti Primary School, urged global decision-makers to take climate action now.
Children stand along the banks of the Budhi Gandaki river in Nepal in the aftermath of a flashflood. Picture: Getty Images
While felt by youth all over the world, those living in the Global South have an urgency rooted in particular experiences of a changing climate.
Regional climate literacy
In August 2026, our SWISP (Speculative Wanderings in Space and Place) Lab visited schools in India as part of a climate education project with the Future Students team, based in the Melbourne Global Centre - Delhi.
During our creative climate education sessions, conversations kept returning to the same place: the Himalayas.
Heat, water, family, animals, food, trees, air and rhythms of everyday life were spoken about.
As were melting glaciers, changing monsoons and rivers that connect mountains to communities across South Asia.
In Australia, climate education has important foundations in science, geography and sustainability education, but there's an unfulfilled opportunity to think more expansively about what young people need to know, feel, question and imagine.
Students learn about temperature targets, emissions graphs, carbon footprints and future projections.
These are important, but what about climate change experienced through changing seasons, food systems, water availability, migration, community stories and cultural connections to place?
Our research shows that many young people want to explore uncertainties associated with their lived realities, rather than simply memorise scientific and geographical facts in school.
Our team at the SWISP Lab believes students need regional climate literacy. That means understanding climate change as a web of connections between people, places and systems, from their own backyard to the other side of the world.
Regional climate literacy encourages students to see climate change as a network of relationships linking people, places, and systems, near and far. Pictured: Floods in Kiribati / Getty Images
This is especially true when we understand that young people are not all encountering climate change in the same way.
Climate change is an everyday experience
SWISP climate education workshops do not begin with the global phenomenon of climate change.
They start by identifying participants' everyday experiences of climate change before connecting these experiences to local communities, national contexts and regional events.
This process can help to highlight the uneven distribution of the impacts of climate change which is dependent on a community's wealth, infrastructure, geography and politics.
When we start to engage with young people, we ask a different question:
When did you realise you lived in climate collapse, crisis, or catastrophe?
Not when did you first learn about climate change?
Not when did someone explain the science?
But when did you realise that you were already living within it?
In the Indian cities of Jaipur and Delhi, young people shared everyday experiences of heat, water, food, family and place. This opened up conversations about how glaciers, rivers, monsoons, cities and communities are all connected.
These stories may be personal and local, but lead to much larger questions.
Seeing climate connections unfold in the Himalayas
Just weeks after these conversations, catastrophic flooding struck Nepal.
The precise causes and sequence of events need careful scientific investigation.
But the scale of the melting, flooding and destruction has changed the way we talk about climate change because what happens in the mountains doesn't stay in the mountains.
Changes to glaciers, rainfall patterns and watershed systems can affect agriculture, energy production, urban development and livelihoods across national borders.
Student attends a SWISP Lab climate education session. Picture: SWISP Lab SWISP Lab attendees' reflections of climate education session. Picture: SWISP Lab
The Nepal floods raise an urgent educational question: What does climate education owe young people living within rapidly changing regions?
Our research shows that young people want opportunities to engage with exactly this kind of question. They want to explore this complexity.
But making sense of climate change means working with incomplete information and science that is still evolving. It also means grappling with vast amounts of data and complex systems, including political ones.
This involves a shift in how we think about climate literacy.
We need regional climate literacy
Regional climate literacy is the ability to understand how place, ecology, culture, infrastructure and power are connected.
Environment
Putting people at the centre of global climate efforts
It underpins the capacity for regional responses to local climate-related issues.
It involves learning how local experiences connect to regional systems and how environmental change travels across landscapes and communities.
For Australian students, these connections matter too.
Australia is deeply connected to the broader Asia and Southeast Asia Pacific region, and climate challenges increasingly emerge through these connections.
And this interdependence is now showing up not only in our environment and societies, but in our courts.
In 2026, Australia's High Court handed down a landmark judgment concerning the proposed expansion of the Mount Pleasant coal mine in New South Wales.
Australia's High Court ruled that environmental authorities assessing a coal mine expansion must consider emissions from burning its coal, even overseas. Picture: Courtesy of Climate Media Centre
The ruling confirmed that planning authorities cannot separate the local impacts of fossil fuel extraction from the emissions generated when those fossil fuels are burned overseas.
What is extracted in one place, consumed in another and released into a shared atmosphere returns as heat, fire, flood and drought.
Australia's climate future is inseparable from the region of which it is a part.
Teaching climate change through global statistics or local actions alone can obscure these relationships.
How do we prepare young people for a connected climate?
Education is critical in making regional relationships visible.
Politics & Society
What Australia's landmark climate ruling could mean for new fossil fuel projects
Regional climate literacy encourages students to see climate change as a network of relationships linking people, places, and systems, near and far.
The Taku Pakasoa Declaration: Strength in Unity (2026), which came out of a Pacific gathering ahead of the COP31 climate summit, underlines the urgency of recognising climate change as an interconnected ecological, cultural and political crisis.
If climate change does not stop at borders, neither can climate education.
We need a curriculum and ways of teaching and learning that connect scientific knowledge with cultural knowledge, the local with the regional, and imagination with action.
This will look different in communities already facing severe climate disruption than in those just starting to recognise their own part in it.
For Australian teachers, it means making room in every subject for young people to explore how our region is connected, think critically about uncertainty, learn from different ways of understanding the world, and imagine fairer, more liveable futures.

Climate change is taught as a global phenomenon. But young people are already living with its effects in their own regions, including heat, flooding and sea-level rises. University of Melbourne researchers ask, what should climate education look like now?

Climate change doesn't stop at borders. Neither should climate education

Washington: A new study finds that climate change and El Nino combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
ADVERTISEMENT Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Nino contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Nino - the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific - made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Nino, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days."El Nino and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Nino," said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution."El Nino comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger," Otto added.
ADVERTISEMENT Researchers found that without climate change and El Nino, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
ADVERTISEMENT
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
ADVERTISEMENT "It's a powerful reminder that even though El Nino right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change," she said.The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Nino has a huge footprint. El Nino usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Nino decreases the winds that weaken storms.
ADVERTISEMENT The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.How El Nino and climate change interactStudy co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Nino can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Nino acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, "given how extreme this El Nino is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem."But three other outside scientists - Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck - said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Climate change added about 6 mph to its already top-of-the-chart wind.

Abstract
With climate change, people increasingly experience extreme weather events. This requires ambitious adaptation on individual and collective levels. At the same time, right-wing populism is on the rise. This may come with climate change skepticism that may also affect flood and climate change risk perceptions. Using longitudinal data from the German Green-SOEP panel (n = 2744), we assessed how flood and climate risk perceptions, as well as perceptions of the importance of protection from climate change changed between 2020 and 2022, and how this change linked to the experience of a severe flood in 2021 and to political orientation. Personal and general flood risk perceptions increased, but not for people who identified with the climate-skeptical party 'Alternative for Germany' (AfD) in 2022. Personal flood risk perceptions, but not general flood risk perceptions, increased more for people who experienced the 2021 flood than for those who did not. This pattern did not extend to climate risk perceptions and the perceived importance of protection from climate change, which did not increase, not even among those who experienced the 2021 flood. For those who identified with the AfD in 2022, they even decreased. Future research, as well as climate risk communications and climate change adaptation efforts, need to address these dynamics of change in responses to floods and possibly extreme weather events across different population subgroups.

With climate change, people increasingly experience extreme weather events. This requires ambitious adaptation on individual and collective levels. At the same time, right-wing populism is on the rise. This may come with climate change skepticism that may also affect flood and climate change risk perceptions. Using longitudinal data from the German Green-SOEP panel (n = 2744), we assessed how flood ...

DIW Berlin: Change in flood and climate risk perceptions after the 2021 flood in Germany: A panel study

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Abstract
People living in poverty or who are marginalised are disproportionately impacted by climate change and have complex and intertwined civil law problems. Yet, little is known about how climate change modifies or exacerbates their legal issues, and how it complicates legal service delivery across the access to justice sector. Drawing on the perspectives of Australian lawyers, in this article I report on the findings of my qualitative mixed methods study about the nexus between climate change, civil legal need and access to justice. Data was obtained through a survey (n=49) and interviews with lawyers (n=16) from several Australian states and legal assistance services. Lawyers who participated in the study perceived climate change to be significantly affecting civil legal problems. This was supported by several observations, including: the increasing complexity of legal need; greater entanglement of legal, social and emotional issues; barriers to delivering legal services in disasters and in working with disaster-impacted communities; and laws and legal processes being unfit for purpose in a changing climate. Lawyers identified mould and extreme heat as specific climate impacts that decrease housing habitability and contribute to tenancy, neighbourhood and employment law problems, among others. Adopting a Capabilities Approach framework to evaluate study findings, I conclude that access to justice policy should view climate change as a driver of injustice and legal need.

How Does Climate Change Affect Access to Justice? Perspectives from Australian Lawyers on the Frontline

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Parliament has hosted the first East African Community's Children Summit for Climate Change, with legislators calling for children's inclusion in issues pertaining climate change.
The Chairperson of the Uganda Parliamentary Forum for Children (UPFC), Hon. Susan Abeja, said the summit aimed at urging East African governments to meaningfully involve children in developing policies and interventions to address climate change.
Abeja who is also the Otuke District Woman MP, said children are among those most affected by climate change, despite contributing the least to the crisis.
'Our position as the Forum is clear, children must not only be protected from the effects of climate change, they must be meaningfully involved in shaping the solutions,' she said adding that'Children are experiencing the consequences of environmental degradation, floods, droughts and other climate-related emergencies, despite having contributed the least to the causes of this crisis.'
Abeja was speaking at the inaugural summit held under the theme:'Children Leading East African Integration: Climate, Peace and Prosperity' held at Parliament on Friday, 16 October 2026.
The event was also attended by MPs under the Forum, MPs from the East Africa Legislative Assembly, the Deputy Secretary General for East African Community, Hon. Andrea Ariik Malueth and development partners.
Nakasongola County MP, Hon. Ivan Kyeyune commended the organisers for involving children in climate-change discussions, saying the initiative should challenge adults who have prioritised businesses at the expense of environmental crises.
'It is us the elders who have prioritized commercialised farming at the expense of wetlands. It is the elders that prefer having factories in wetlands, favoring job creation over environmental protection, yet our children suffer these effects including lack of water and food such that I have seen those who go to school without food,' Kyeyune said.
Kyeyune urged children to begin with practical actions within their communities, including each planting at least five trees.
The Chief of WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), Environment and Climate Change at UNICEF Uganda, Lalit Patra urged MPs to make commitments on climate change for implementation within their constituencies. Patra also asked MPs to establish climate change-youth groups in their constituencies to sustain their initiatives beyond the summit.
Representing the Ministry of Water and Environment, Dr. Flavia Byekwaso said the government must move to investing in climate-resilient schools and other public facilities while ensuring access to clean water and renewable energy.
She said children must be consulted during the formulation of climate-change policies, because they experience the effects of environmental degradation and will live longest with the consequences of decisions taken today.
The summit concludes with a Climate Champions Weekend on Saturday, 17 October 2026 where participants will plant 5,000 trees at Forest High School in Kasanda District.

Uganda: Members Of Parliament (Mps) Call For Children's Inclusion In Regional Climate Decisions. Parliament has hosted the first East African Community's Children Summit for Climate Change, with…

Uganda: Members Of Parliament (Mps) Call For Children's Inclusion In Regional Climate Decisions

You don't have to start from scratchEmma LawranceSenior research fellow in climate change and mental health, University of Oxford'The fact that you are worried means that you're paying attention, and you're not alone. Most respondents to global surveys are worried about climate change, and 89% want more government action.1'With rising impacts like heatwaves spiking emergency visits,2 doctors are often more aware than most of the consequences of a changing climate. The good news is that doctors are a trusted voice with real power and influence, and there are things you can do.'Learn about the links between climate change and physical3 and mental health.4 Your patients are likely to be affected in ways you may not realise. Many of the actions that societies need to take to cut emissions and prepare for a changing climate can also make people healthier (such as plant rich diets, greener cities, and more active forms...

How can I reduce my anxiety about climate change?

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .
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Climate change and El Nino increased hurricane intensity; global warming acted as the primary driver of storm strength - LA NACION

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage. Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times. How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longe

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely,
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Both climate change and a strong El Niño combined to cause Hurricane Polo to explosively intensify from a tropical storm to a Category 5 monster in just 24 hours | KNSS Radio

'Weather under Fire': The climate change film we've been waiting for
Due out in early 2027, it's the best climate change documentary I've ever seen. The producers need donations to finish it. The best climate change …
Read more on yaleclimateconnections.org

Yale Climate Connections - Due out in early 2027, it's the best climate change documentary I've ever seen. The producers need donations to finish it. The best climate change …

‘Weather under Fire': The climate change film we've been waiting for

Stockholm University
image:The Björkliden Valley showing microclimate contrasts between sunlit vs. shaded slopes. Climate change-driven changes in e.g. cloudiness or shrub cover may lead to different rates of warming on these different slopes. Photo:viewmore
The Björkliden Valley showing microclimate contrasts between sunlit vs. shaded slopes. Climate change-driven changes in e.g. cloudiness or shrub cover may lead to different rates of warming on these different slopes. Photo:
Credit: Jonas Lembrechts
Climate change can look very different at the scale of a forest, field or hillside. A new review shows how changes in vegetation and atmospheric conditions can cause local microclimates to warm at very different rates from the regional climate - and why this matters for understanding how biodiversity will respond to climate change.
Climate change is usually described using regional or global averages. But most organisms experience the climate much closer to the ground or within microhabitats, where temperature and other conditions can differ substantially from those measured by weather stations or represented in large-scale climate models.
This local climate, known as themicroclimate, does not necessarily change in the same way as the surrounding regional climate. In a new review published inGlobal Change Biology, researchers from around the world synthesise how climate change can alter microclimates and identify the processes responsible for these differences.
'Climate change is often described as a single number for a region. But organisms live in specific places – in a particular patch of forest or on a particular slope. The climate they experience can change at a very different rate from the regional average,' says Caroline Greiser, researcher at Stockholm University and lead author of the study.
Vegetation can change the local climate
One important driver is vegetation. Climate change can alter forests, shrublands and other vegetation, which in turn changes how much sunlight reaches the ground and how easily the ground loses heat to the atmosphere.
'Vegetation is not simply responding to climate change – it can also modify the climate experienced by organisms living under canopies,' says Greiser. 'When vegetation changes, it changes the local energy balance, and this can lead to very different temperature trends within the same landscape.'
In one of the model simulations presented in the review, the expansion of shrubs and trees into open steppes in Turkey substantially altered near-ground air temperatures. On the hottest days, shrub encroachment resulted in temperatures up to 16 degrees lower than those in open areas. In a regional warming scenario, the open areas would warm up much faster.
Clouds and other atmospheric changes matter too
Microclimate is also influenced directly by changes in atmospheric conditions. For example, cloud cover controls how much solar radiation reaches the Earth's surface. A reduction in cloudiness can substantially increase solar heating in sun-exposed locations, while shaded areas, such as forest interiors or pole-facing slopes, may be less affected.
The review shows how such changes can interact with topography, vegetation, soil moisture and other factors to produce increasingly different microclimatic conditions over relatively short distances.
Until recently, it has been difficult to study these changes over long periods and across large areas. New sensor networks, long-term datasets and mechanistic models are now making it possible to investigate how changes in the atmosphere and vegetation translate into the microclimates experienced by organisms.
'The processes that determine microclimate are complex and involve both atmospheric and biological systems. Understanding them therefore requires collaboration between atmospheric scientists and ecologists,' says Greiser.
Why microclimate matters for biodiversity
Understanding how microclimates change could improve predictions of how species and ecosystems respond to climate change. Regional climate data may suggest that an area is warming, while local conditions can remain relatively buffered - or change even more rapidly – because of vegetation, topography and atmospheric processes.
Accounting for this variation could improve predictions of future species distributions and ecological interactions, and help inform conservation and land management strategies that are adapted to local climate change.
'If we want to understand where species will persist and where they will be most vulnerable, we need to know not only how the regional climate is changing, but also how that change translates into the microclimates organisms actually experience,' says Greiser.
Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.71140
Literature review
Not applicable
Climate change experienced by life on Earth – drivers and mechanisms of future trends in microclimates
21-Oct-2026
Disclaimer:AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

Climate change can look very different at the scale of a forest, field or hillside. A new review shows how changes in vegetation and atmospheric conditions can cause local microclimates to warm at…

How life on Earth experiences climate change

'Climate Fault Lines: The New Political Economy of a Warming World'
Authors
'Climate Fault Lines: The New Political Economy of a Warming World'
Publisher
Princeton University Press
From the Author
'Six years ago, we came across a striking paper by a duo of Princeton economists, Esteban Rossi-Hansberg and José-Luis Cruz. They showed that climate change has profoundly unequal effects across the globe. The southern hemisphere — developing and developed countries alike — faced exceptional damage compared to places above the northern 35th parallel. How was this divide, what we call the climate fault line, going to affect politics?
'As political economists, we suspected that climate change's economic consequences would have political effects. Our book takes the geoscience of climate change, its economic consequences, and marries these models to politics.
'Our predictions contradict the received wisdom about climate politics. Whereas northern nations are thought of as the most climate-ambitious, we predict the opposite. The most climate-vulnerable countries — south of the fault line — have the most to lose in a warmer world and thus will become the most likely to act as climate change's effects manifest. Our data bear out our predictions in analyses of voters, businesses, cities, and countries.
'The world is not in the same boat. Rather than unify us to solve the problem, climate change is creating new political divides. There are unlikely bedfellows, like China, the U.S., and Russia, which are more aligned in terms of climate vulnerability, whereas Australia finds itself closer to South Africa and Brazil.
'Our last chapters explore how countries below the fault line can incentivize, persuade, or coerce those above the divide to mitigate more. The tragedy is that the climate-vulnerable have little leverage. Many of these rich industrial countries are powerful and are less motivated to adopt costly mitigation policies because they will be less affected. In this conflictual world, geoengineering may become inevitable.
'We hope our predictions are wrong, but our data tell us otherwise. It's possible that countries will not follow their material interests, but we think this unlikely.
'The world cannot count on climate change to shake politicians awake. Instead, the most likely path forward is for countries to see it in the self-interest of countries above the fault line to transition to renewable energy sources, motivated less by vulnerability than by the drive for energy independence and clean energy technology leadership..'
—Helen V. Milner
Headshot by Egan Jimenez.
Book cover courtesy of Princeton University Press.

Title'Climate Fault Lines: The New Political Economy of a Warming World' Authors'Climate Fault Lines: The New Political Economy of a Warming World' PublisherPrinceton University Press

Challenging the Conventional Wisdom of Climate Politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
The Associated Press

Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño made it 14 times more likely, according to a joint study by World Weather

New research found that a combination of climate change and El Niño drove the rapid intensification of Hurricane Polo last month—the longest-lasting Category 5 system ever recorded in the Pacific Ocean.
A joint report released Thursday by the science teams Climate Central and World Weather Attribution identified global warming caused by burning coal, oil, and gas as the larger factor. It boosted the storm's wind speeds by approximately 6 mph (nearly 10 kph).
A study co-author noted that El Niño contributed a bit less, adding around 5 mph (8 kph). People evacuate their homes as Hurricane Polo approaches Puerto San Carlos, Baja California Sur state (AP)
Ocean temperatures reached 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius)—up to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal—which fueled the storm, the study found. Climate change made those conditions 23 times more likely, while El Niño—the natural, temporary warming of parts of the Pacific—made them 14 times more likely.
Driven by a super-strong El Niño, this year has set records for the strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Hurricane Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 status in the Pacific at two and a half days.
"El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño," said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
"El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means every hurricane that occurs in the East Pacific now has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger," Otto added. A satellite image shows San Carlos, Baja California Sur, Mexico, September 29, 2026, after Hurricane Polo (Vantour)
Researchers noted that Polo would have been a powerful storm even without climate change and El Niño. However, every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase potential damage.
Although Hurricane Polo degraded significantly before making landfall in a sparsely populated region of Mexico, researchers remain intrigued by how the storm rapidly intensified from a tropical system into a top-tier Category 5 hurricane within roughly 24 hours.
The research places various atmospheric threats in context, according to Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit based in New Jersey. Marine ecology researcher Guillermo Torres prepares macroalgae for replanting as part of a restoration project on the Baja California Peninsula (AFP/Getty)
"It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change," she said.
The analysis examined the warm waters that power tropical systems by gauging potential storm intensity. However, the work did not evaluate upper-level wind shear, where El Niño exerts a substantial influence.
While El Niño generally increases storm-dismantling high-altitude winds across the Atlantic, shifting wind patterns in the Pacific reduce the winds that otherwise weaken storms.
Two separate research groups measured atmospheric conditions differently and used distinct analytical methods, yet both arrived at the same overall conclusion, bolstering confidence in the findings. Nevertheless, the rapid study has not undergone scientific peer review, which remains the recognized gold standard. Tropical Storm Rachel and El Nino fueled Kelvin waves pound the boardwalk in Long Beach (Reuters)
To determine the extent of climate change's influence on Polo, both teams utilized the accepted scientific practice of comparing observations from our warmer modern climate against a modeled world that has not experienced 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) of warming since pre-industrial times.
Daniel Gilford, a scientist at Climate Central and co-author of the study, likened the atmospheric mechanics to road traffic. Wind shear from El Niño acts as a red light in the Atlantic, but becomes a green light in the Pacific.
In the Pacific, that green light gives permission to go, with waters warmed by both El Niño and climate change acting like a motorist flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who was not part of the study, said he was initially surprised that climate change was cited as a larger influence on Polo, "given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem." People look at a barge, back right, stranded on a dry riverbed of the Kapuas River amid a drought in Sekadau, West Kalimantan, Indonesia (AP)
However, three external scientists—Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania, and Carl Schreck of North Carolina State University—believed the research underestimates climate change's contribution to Polo's strength.
Masters cited Gilford's own 2024 study showing climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to Atlantic hurricanes between 2019 and 2023.
Gilford acknowledged Thursday's report could be slightly underestimating the impact of climate change, but explained he took a conservative approach while factoring in other conditions.

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Leaders of the Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology, Environment and Marine Sciences, along with the Climate Change Department ( Ministry of Agriculture and Environment ), jointly announced the climate change scenarios for Vietnam. Photo: HOANG HIEP
The 2025 version of Vietnam's climate change scenario continues to build upon the results of previous versions while updating with the latest scientific findings; applying a new generation of climate models and shared socio- economic scenarios; improving methodology, data, and resolution; and supplementing and detailing information on climate factors, extreme weather events, sea level rise, and flooding risks.
At the same time, this is also the first time the scenario has provided information based on global warming thresholds, developed in-depth scenarios for urban areas, and initially assessed the impact of climate change on several sensitive sectors.
These results contribute to improving risk assessment capabilities and supporting the development and selection of adaptation solutions appropriate to each industry, sector, and locality. Representatives from the Institute of Meteorology , Hydrology, Environment and Marine Sciences present the content of the report on climate change scenarios for Vietnam. Photo: HOANG HIEP
Speaking at the launch event, Dr. Mai Kim Lien, Deputy Director of the Climate Change Department, requested that units and localities study and effectively utilize this updated edition to better serve the development and adjustment of strategies, plans, and socio-economic development plans in the coming period, while also effectively supporting related research and training activities.
In addition, provincial and city-level departments and agencies, as well as commune and ward-level governments, need to proactively utilize information from the scenarios to integrate them into local planning, plans, and action programs for responding to climate change.
Research institutes and universities need to coordinate closely with the Climate Change Department and the Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology, Environment and Marine Sciences to promote communication and widely disseminate information about the scenarios to the community.
Leaders, scientists, and environmental experts need a clearer understanding of the climate change landscape in Vietnam, thereby improving the effectiveness of responses, closely aligning with global scientific advancements, and advising on the development of a comprehensive socio-economic development strategy for the future. Delegates attend the presentation of Vietnam's climate change scenarios. Photo: HOANG HIEP
According to Associate Professor Pham Thi Thanh Nga, Director of the Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology, Environment and Marine Sciences, compared to the updated 2020 scenario, this edition adds much important information such as: thermal radiation, wind intensity, humidity, etc.
The scenario also initially assesses the impact of climate change on infrastructure, agricultural production, healthcare and public health (disease outbreaks), and the risk of flooding, among other areas.
Information on climate change scenarios is integrated on the website: https://kichbanbdkhvn.mae.gov.vn/ and detailed by locality, making it convenient for users to search and utilize data for practical needs - a significant step forward in the application of technology.

DNO - On October 15th, in Da Nang, the Climate Change Department, in coordination with the Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology, Environment and Marine Sciences (Ministry of Agriculture and…

Climate change scenarios for application in the Central and Central Highlands regions have been released.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific. Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding […]

A man walks on a street next to the beach as he wades through water brought by Hurricane Polo in Puerto San Carlos, Baja California Sur state, Mexico, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
WASHINGTON – A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
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Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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New research found that a combination of climate change and El Niño drove the rapid intensification of Hurricane Polo last month—the longest-lasting Category 5 system ever recorded in the Pacific Ocean.
A joint report released Thursday by the science teams Climate Central and World Weather Attribution identified global warming caused by burning coal, oil, and gas as the larger factor. It boosted the storm's wind speeds by approximately 6 mph (nearly 10 kph).
A study co-author noted that El Niño contributed a bit less, adding around 5 mph (8 kph).
open image in gallery People evacuate their homes as Hurricane Polo approaches Puerto San Carlos, Baja California Sur state
( AP )
Ocean temperatures reached 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius)—up to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal—which fueled the storm, the study found. Climate change made those conditions 23 times more likely, while El Niño—the natural, temporary warming of parts of the Pacific—made them 14 times more likely.
Driven by a super-strong El Niño, this year has set records for the strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Hurricane Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 status in the Pacific at two and a half days.
"El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño," said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
"El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means every hurricane that occurs in the East Pacific now has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger," Otto added.
open image in gallery A satellite image shows San Carlos, Baja California Sur, Mexico, September 29, 2026, after Hurricane Polo
( Vantour )
Researchers noted that Polo would have been a powerful storm even without climate change and El Niño. However, every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase potential damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
Although Hurricane Polo degraded significantly before making landfall in a sparsely populated region of Mexico, researchers remain intrigued by how the storm rapidly intensified from a tropical system into a top-tier Category 5 hurricane within roughly 24 hours.
The research places various atmospheric threats in context, according to Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit based in New Jersey.
open image in gallery Marine ecology researcher Guillermo Torres prepares macroalgae for replanting as part of a restoration project on the Baja California Peninsula
( AFP/Getty )
"It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change," she said.
The analysis examined the warm waters that power tropical systems by gauging potential storm intensity. However, the work did not evaluate upper-level wind shear, where El Niño exerts a substantial influence.
While El Niño generally increases storm-dismantling high-altitude winds across the Atlantic, shifting wind patterns in the Pacific reduce the winds that otherwise weaken storms.
Two separate research groups measured atmospheric conditions differently and used distinct analytical methods, yet both arrived at the same overall conclusion, bolstering confidence in the findings. Nevertheless, the rapid study has not undergone scientific peer review, which remains the recognized gold standard.
open image in gallery Tropical Storm Rachel and El Nino fueled Kelvin waves pound the boardwalk in Long Beach
( Reuters )
To determine the extent of climate change's influence on Polo, both teams utilized the accepted scientific practice of comparing observations from our warmer modern climate against a modeled world that has not experienced 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) of warming since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Daniel Gilford, a scientist at Climate Central and co-author of the study, likened the atmospheric mechanics to road traffic. Wind shear from El Niño acts as a red light in the Atlantic, but becomes a green light in the Pacific.
In the Pacific, that green light gives permission to go, with waters warmed by both El Niño and climate change acting like a motorist flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who was not part of the study, said he was initially surprised that climate change was cited as a larger influence on Polo, "given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem."
open image in gallery People look at a barge, back right, stranded on a dry riverbed of the Kapuas River amid a drought in Sekadau, West Kalimantan, Indonesia
( AP )
However, three external scientists—Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania, and Carl Schreck of North Carolina State University—believed the research underestimates climate change's contribution to Polo's strength.
Masters cited Gilford's own 2024 study showing climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to Atlantic hurricanes between 2019 and 2023.
Gilford acknowledged Thursday's report could be slightly underestimating the impact of climate change, but explained he took a conservative approach while factoring in other conditions.

The Björkliden Valley showing microclimate contrasts between sunlit vs. shaded slopes. Climate change–driven changes in, for example, cloudiness or shrub cover may lead to different rates of warming on these different slopes. Credit: Jonas Lembrechts
Climate change can look very different at the scale of a forest, field or hillside. A new review shows how changes in vegetation and atmospheric conditions can cause local microclimates to warm at very different rates from the regional climate—and why this matters for understanding how biodiversity will respond to climate change.
Climate change is usually described using regional or global averages. But most organisms experience the climate much closer to the ground or within microhabitats, where temperature and other conditions can differ substantially from those measured by weather stations or represented in large-scale climate models.
This local climate, known as the microclimate, does not necessarily change in the same way as the surrounding regional climate.
In their review published in Global Change Biology , researchers from around the world synthesize how climate change can alter microclimates and identify the processes responsible for these differences.
"Climate change is often described as a single number for a region. But organisms live in specific places—in a particular patch of forest or on a particular slope. The climate they experience can change at a very different rate from the regional average," says Caroline Greiser, a researcher at Stockholm University and lead author of the study.
Future microclimates, in this alpine landscape, will be shaped by topography, the evolution of snow and cloud cover, and the ongoing colonization by trees. Credit: Eva Gril
One important driver is vegetation. Climate change can alter forests, shrublands and other vegetation, which in turn changes how much sunlight reaches the ground and how easily the ground loses heat to the atmosphere.
"Vegetation is not simply responding to climate change—it can also modify the climate experienced by organisms living under canopies," says Greiser. "When vegetation changes, it changes the local energy balance, and this can lead to very different temperature trends within the same landscape."
In one of the model simulations presented in the review, the expansion of shrubs and trees into open steppes in Turkey substantially altered near-ground air temperatures. On the hottest days, shrub encroachment resulted in temperatures up to 16 degrees lower than those in open areas. In a regional warming scenario, the open areas would warm up much faster.
Microclimate is also influenced directly by changes in atmospheric conditions. For example, cloud cover controls how much solar radiation reaches the Earth's surface. A reduction in cloudiness can substantially increase solar heating in sun-exposed locations, while shaded areas, such as forest interiors or pole-facing slopes, may be less affected.
The review shows how such changes can interact with topography, vegetation, soil moisture and other factors to produce increasingly different microclimatic conditions over relatively short distances.
Until recently, it has been difficult to study these changes over long periods and across large areas. New sensor networks, long-term datasets and mechanistic models are now making it possible to investigate how changes in the atmosphere and vegetation translate into the microclimates experienced by organisms.
"The processes that determine microclimate are complex and involve both atmospheric and biological systems. Understanding them therefore requires collaboration between atmospheric scientists and ecologists," says Greiser.
Understanding how microclimates change could improve predictions of how species and ecosystems respond to climate change. Regional climate data may suggest that an area is warming, while local conditions can remain relatively buffered—or change even more rapidly—because of vegetation, topography and atmospheric processes.
Accounting for this variation could improve predictions of future species distributions and ecological interactions and help inform conservation and land management strategies that are adapted to local climate change.
"If we want to understand where species will persist and where they will be most vulnerable, we need to know not only how the regional climate is changing, but also how that change translates into the microclimates organisms actually experience," says Greiser.
Climate change experienced by life on Earth – drivers and mechanisms of future trends in microclimates, Global Change Biology (2026). DOI: 10.1111/gcb.71140
Journal information: Global Change Biology
effects of climate change Forests
Swati Mestri holds a bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering and has worked as a content editor since 2019. She has experience editing research documents across technology, health care, and materials science, and has a particular interest in technology and space. Full profile →
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Climate change can look very different at the scale of a forest, field or hillside. A new review shows how changes in vegetation and atmospheric conditions can cause local microclimates to warm at very different rates from the regional climate—and why this matters for understanding how biodiversity will respond to climate change.

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As a guest lecturer, I am more often asked to talk about solutions to the climate problem than about the science.
In a short introduction, I focus on three topics: time, priority, and continuity.
Long time gone
The figure above shows a timeline in which we consider: What is long term, and what is short term? This allows us to separate long-term goals from what needs to be done in the short term. That way, problems can be spread out on feasible time spans with interim steps. Representative time spans are often called time scales, and used to frame solutions to problems.
A natural time scale for climate might be related to carbon dioxide.
When I first learned about climate change, I was taught that the time scale for worrying about carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 'about 100 years.' That meant if we released a burst of carbon dioxide, it would take about a century for a certain fraction of it to be removed from the atmosphere.
Though this number could be defended from a narrow, atmospheric perspective, it is not an especially useful number for understanding or managing climate change. Even if the carbon comes out of the atmosphere, it does not really go away. It winds up in the ocean and the land and may, in fact, be released back into the atmosphere. So, that imaginary burst of carbon, released from long term (fossil) storage, enters a cycle and maintains elevated values of atmospheric carbon dioxide for thousands of years.
This is a long time, and not very useful for problem solving.
Human Time scales
When we consider 'problem solving,' the time scales that are important must be considered in relationship to other parts of the problem—plus the fact that we humans, individually or collectively, tend to plan in terms of decades.
In my classes, I often used 50 years to define 'a long time scale.' I chose 50 for a few reasons, one being that it is within a typical human lifespan. Assuming one starts a career at about 20 years of age, 50 years is a long time to look ahead. Another is that, when we plan and build cities and infrastructure, we often use a time horizon of about 30 years, though we generally expect them to last longer than 50.
Here in the U.S., we work on a much shorter time scale dictated by our election cycles. Every two years, voters are confronted with some version of climate policy. It is an erratic process of booms and busts: for example, deploying wind energy turbines and then stopping them, trying to limit fossil energy then glorifying it, etc.
What's in your hand?
To demonstrate the priority of addressing climate change as a matter of public policy, I developed a little card game. I made a deck of cards, then ranked each one. Imagine the game War in which the highest card wins.
I start with three cards: Climate, Carbon Dioxide, and Energy. This would be the set of issues we have to deal with if we consider climate change in isolation. To address climate change, we must stop putting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. To do that we have to completely alter our energy systems. The burning of fossil fuels remains the majority source of energy production, despite our real progress in developing renewable energy resources.
Then, I have a bunch of cards like Population, Consumption, Standard of Living, Social Justice, Wealth, and the Economy. These are important ingredients that contribute to Societal Success. These cards are very important to us. If our hand contains Societal Failure (like the dreaded Queen of Spades in Hearts), then we are placed on high alarm and can get panicky.
I could add a bunch more cards to the deck: Ozone, Water Resources, Air Pollution, Methane Pollution, and Nitrogen Pollution. They are not necessary to make my point here, because they are comparable in rank with Climate. They could be collected in their own suit, Environment.
Finally, let's consider the wild cards: Health Security, Energy Security, Economic Security, and National Security.
Our world is full of crises that threaten our security. We always have Health, Energy, Economic, and National Security challenges. Therefore, the Security cards in my deck are always in play and win every hand. The idea of dealing with climate change after we make it through 'this crisis' means we never address climate change.
That is why I do not embrace the word 'crisis' to describe climate change. There is no evidence that calling it a crisis elevates its rank.
Rather, let's call it a priority
Even in the rare moments without a crisis, energy access and usage are central to our standard of living and economy. Thus, there is always skepticism and resistance to any change regarding energy production.
A fundamental problem is that cutting carbon dioxide emissions does not have an immediate effect in reducing climate change. However, we perceive that reducing carbon dioxide emissions will have a negative effect on our current standard of living. Though we are already experiencing the effects of a changing climate, we are reluctant to sacrifice now (today and in the next few years) to avoid substantially worse conditions in the more distant future (50 to 1,000 years).
As a result, it is very difficult to elevate the Climate's rank in the deck of problems we have to deal with. The important conclusion in my class, therefore, is that the job of a climate professional (and indeed anyone who cares about society and the environment) is to keep the Climate card in play — always — and strive to increase its rank in the deck. A skilled player must debunk the myth that playing the Climate card comes at the expense of the Societal Success card, not to mention our ability to address the Security cards.
Continuity: The need to stay in the game
Continuity of effort is critical in dealing with a complex problem like climate change. That is, it requires aconsistent, persistent, systematic approach. One of the easiest and most common ways to ensure a problem like this will never be solved is by promoting discontinuity: fragmenting, disrupting, and creating doubt and conflict.
U.S. elections have always assured discontinuity, and the elections of the last few years have gotten increasingly extreme and fragmenting.
Focusing only on climate, our nation's elections have cast the U.S. as an inconsistent, unreliable player in global policy. We have the largest economy in the world. We are the second-largest current emitter of carbon dioxide, and historically the largest emitter. There is no viable global climate solution without participation by the U.S. Yet under the Trump administration, the Climate card has been dealt to the bottom of the deck, pulling the U.S. from the Paris Agreement and other components of the international effort.
At home, the administration has not only cancelled programs to cut the emission of greenhouse gases but also has especially targeted climate science. Given the large size and high quality of the U.S. federal science programs, a reduction of scientific capacity has profound consequences for the information needed for policy making in the future.
Deal me in
Addressing climate change has always been a challenge of balancing short-term versus long-term. Likewise, competing priorities always make it difficult to maintain continuing focus on long-term, persistent problems.
I started my classes on climate with exploration of these challenges, because I did not believe we were effective at solving complex problems like this. We face many problems where the science, especially predictive science, is telling us we need to change some deeply internalized and successful behavior, and students need to be armed. And at least in the short-term analysis, the coming elections are a tipping point that open the possibility of a change in the way we are doing things.
So. as I consider my imaginary deck, I see this moment as a prime opportunity to play our cards vigorously, raising the priority of the one marked Climate.
________________
Richard B (Ricky) Roodis Professor Emeritus, Climate Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; writer, speaker. https://OpenClimate.org/
________________
The article is a revision ofClimate Science: No time for a stacked deck, which appeared inMichigan Todayon November 15, 2024.

As a guest lecturer, I am more often asked to talk about solutions to the climate problem than about the science.

Climate science: No time for a stacked deck . . . When time is always short

A man walks on a street next to the beach as he wades through water brought by Hurricane Polo in Puerto San Carlos, Baja California Sur state, Mexico, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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Earth's atmosphere is warming at an unprecedented rate. Each of the last 11 years now rank as the hottest 11 years on record, and according to researchers at NASA, global temperatures are rising 10 times faster than they would have at similar points in any previous climate cycle within the last 800,000 years. Yet, despite tangible and indisputable facts, millions of Americans deny the global warming phenomenon.
According to a survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, nearly 15% of adults in the U.S. do not think global warming is happening. Additionally, an estimated 53.2% of Americans do not feel they have personally experienced the effects of global warming.
These numbers do not square with the climatological reality borne out by the data. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, July 2026 now stands as the hottest month in U.S. history; and so far, 2026 is on pace to rank as the hottest year on record in the Continental United States. Even in the corners of the country where temperatures are rising fastest, global warming is being met with a widespread lack of recognition, and even outright denial.
Using data from Climate Central, a non-profit research and advocacy group, Climate Crisis 247 identified rates of climate denial in America's fastest warming congressional districts. We ranked all congressional districts with available data from Climate Central on the observed change in average temperatures between 1970 and 2025. For each of the 10 fastest warming congressional districts, we reviewed YPCCC polling data on the share of residents who do not think global warming is happening, and the share who do not think they have personally experienced global warming. The YPCCC bears no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations of the data presented here.
10. Colorado; Congressional District 3
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +4.1°F (76% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +1.0°F
Residents who do not think global warming is happening: 17.0%
Residents who somewhat or strongly disagree they have personally experienced global warming: 56.3%
Congressional representative: Rep. Jeff Hurd (R)
9. New Mexico; Congressional District 1
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +4.1°F (72% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +1.1°F
Residents who do not think global warming is happening: 12.1%
Residents who somewhat or strongly disagree they have personally experienced global warming: 48.7%
Congressional representative: Rep. Melanie Ann Stansbury (D)
8. Texas; Congressional District 23
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +4.3°F (63% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +1.6°F
Residents who do not think global warming is happening: 14.4%
Residents who somewhat or strongly disagree they have personally experienced global warming: 52.1%
Congressional representative: Rep. Vacant
7. Utah; Congressional District 3
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +4.4°F (77% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +1.0°F
Residents who do not think global warming is happening: 17.4%
Residents who somewhat or strongly disagree they have personally experienced global warming: 56.9%
Congressional representative: Rep. Mike Kennedy (R)
6. Arizona; Congressional District 2
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +4.6°F (80% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +0.9°F
Residents who do not think global warming is happening: 17.1%
Residents who somewhat or strongly disagree they have personally experienced global warming: 55.2%
Congressional representative: Rep. Eli Crane (R)
5. Arizona; Congressional District 1
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +4.7°F (78% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +1.0°F
Residents who do not think global warming is happening: 14.0%
Residents who somewhat or strongly disagree they have personally experienced global warming: 50.1%
Congressional representative: Rep. David Schweikert (R)
4. Texas; Congressional District 16
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +4.8°F (67% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +1.6°F
Residents who do not think global warming is happening: 11.4%
Residents who somewhat or strongly disagree they have personally experienced global warming: 48.4%
Congressional representative: Rep. Veronica Escobar (D)
3. New Mexico; Congressional District 2
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +4.8°F (69% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +1.5°F
Residents who do not think global warming is happening: 13.7%
Residents who somewhat or strongly disagree they have personally experienced global warming: 52.6%
Congressional representative: Rep. Gabriel Vasquez (D)
2. Utah; Congressional District 1
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +4.8°F (71% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +1.4°F
Residents who do not think global warming is happening: 18.4%
Residents who somewhat or strongly disagree they have personally experienced global warming: 58.5%
Congressional representative: Rep. Blake Moore (R)
1. Arizona; Congressional District 6
Observed warming in district, 1970-2025: +5.1°F (70% due to climate change)
Estimated warming absent human-caused climate change: +1.5°F
Residents who do not think global warming is happening: 15.4%
Residents who somewhat or strongly disagree they have personally experienced global warming: 52.7%
Congressional representative: Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R)

Earth's atmosphere is warming at an unprecedented rate. Each of the last 11 years now rank as the hottest...

Climate Denial In America's Fastest Warming Congressional Districts

As the US midterm elections approach, one word keeps coming up in campaign promises and headlines: 'affordability.' That working people in the United States are struggling to afford basic necessities is a problem that many are willing to acknowledge, but there is very little agreement on what should be done to tackle a core driver of the affordability crisis: climate change.
The climate crisis is already making life more expensive. Electricity rates skyrocketed in 2025 due to historic heat waves; home insurance rates are rising as disasters and extreme weather patterns increase; transportation costs have become one of the biggest sources of financial burden because of the volatile price of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has withdrawn from global climate commitments, leaped into costly oil wars abroad, backed the deeply unpopular expansion of AI build-out across the country, and continuously decried renewable energy as a 'green new scam.'
Failing to act on climate change while entrenching fossil fuel dependency deepens the affordability crisis, inflating the cost of living for working people as the economy buckles under the weight of various forms of environmental instability. And it also threatens the planet in both the environmental and political senses.
Ignoring the climate crisis is not only an economically unsound tactic; it is also a politically unpopular one. Climate and Community Institute's polling with Data for Progress earlier this year showed that people have connected the dots between their strained budgets and climate change: 80 percent said that extreme weather phenomena impacted their cost of living, and 55 percent said that they wanted elected officials to address climate change and the cost of living through coordinated policies.
Political pundits pushing 'climate hushing' — leaving climate out of kitchen-table politics — present a false choice between economic and climate policy and are ignoring what people need. One clear takeaway from the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act and the legacy of the Joe Biden presidency is that durable climate policy must address the cost-of-living crisis but also implement transformative changes that people can feel in their everyday lives. Climate change is making everything from home insurance to groceries more expensive, but it is also making life more difficult and dangerous. We urgently need an ambitious agenda that connects the dots and offers rapid change to working people's material conditions across the economy.
Immediate relief policies can take on the climate and economic crises at once, beginning with lowering costs inflated by climate change and alleviating other economic issues. A new series of briefs by the Climate and Community Institute demonstrates how to deliver that relief across the spectrum of everyday life in the areas where people are intensely feeling the effects of the climate crisis. These policies do not treat climate as an add-on or afterthought to piecemeal affordability measures. They alleviate pain points where people need help, from their health to their cooling costs, by moving federal dollars through the budget reconciliation process.
In this approach, 'relief' is not just about putting money back in people's pockets. It requires a whole-economy approach that cuts costs, protects people, and allows them to thrive — all of which require dealing with environmental instability. Actually tackling climate change by decarbonizing the economy will be a long process, but people need relief in the here and now. Putting forward bold policies that show that the government can deliver things quickly and to meet needs is a necessary part of any popular and successful political agenda that wants to win a greener, fairer future.

Americans are suffering under an affordability crisis, while the climate crisis is making life more expensive. Both require urgent action — and both can be addressed simultaneously.

Climate Policies Can Bring Relief on Affordability and Beyond

By SETH BORENSTEINAP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest…

FACT:
The Trump Administration has taken concrete steps that deny the impact of climate change that include:
Repeal of the 'endangerment finding' for greenhouse gases (February, 2026). This allows denial that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The endangerment finding of 2009 formed the basis for a great deal of climate regulation.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) eliminated greenhouse gas standards for automobiles.
Administration withdrew support for the 'Arctic Report Card' which has documented changes in a variety of measurements in the Arctic corroborating the impact of climate change.
Recommendation for large budget cuts for oceanic and climate research.
Attempts to eliminate about $20 billion in clean energy and climate grants. This is currently under review.
Numerous attempts to eliminate expansion of wind energy while simultaneously expanding the use of coal and fossil fuels. (Executive Order 14161).
OPINION:
Stupid is as stupid does.
VOTE WHILE YOU STILL CAN

Denying Climate Change: Are They For Real??

As the EU sets out its framework for post-2030 climate action, the EEB's expert on climate and agriculture, Mathieu Mal,lays out a pathwayfor climate action in agriculture. Action that would cut emissions and make European farms more resilient in the face of multiple crises.
This past summer, the climate crisis became very real for people across Europe. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called it the 'summer of truth', warning that the severe climate impacts suffered by almost the entire continent are 'a mere preview'. These devastating extremes combined with geopolitical shocks have laid bare the deplorable state of our farming ecosystems. Many farms – and farmers – justcouldn't cope.
Whether it was heat stress or financial pressure, many of the challenges farmers face are the symptoms of a food and farming system that fails to protect its very foundations: healthy, balanced, and diverse ecosystems. Healthy ecosystems protect against climate shocks, including droughts and floods, shielding yields, and lowering production costs by reducing the need for external inputs, such as fertilisers. But they are severely lacking across our food and farming system.
An opportunity at risk
EU agriculture isn't just a victim of climate breakdown, it is also one of the biggest drivers. Intensive agriculture produces climate warming super pollutants such as methane and nitrous oxide, yet the sector lags behind others in climate action, with no clear plan to catch up. Add the devastating pollution and destruction of nature stemming from industrial agriculture practices and the growing vulnerability of farmers reliant on volatilefossil fueland animal feed markets and we have a sector facing an existential problem that begs for change.
With much of the EU's climate legislation up for revision before the end of 2026, we have a window to finally ensure agricultural production aligns with the changing world and the climate and environmental objectives we depend on for our joint survival. It is entirelypossibleandnecessaryfor our food and farming sector to deliver deep emission cuts, we just need political will and vision to do it.
Donate
However, thecurrent moodin Brussels may derail this golden opportunity. The drive to remove rules that protect people and nature, while increasing so-called 'flexibilities' in the rules that remain, bodes poorly for a transition to resilient farming. It seems that some would ratherthrow taxpayer money(in the form of crisis-cash) at farmers to see them through this year, than change the system that put them in this position in the first place.
All hands on deck
Reaching climate neutrality requires action from all EU countries and sectors. The option to delay or distract, through the purchase of international credits or other flexibilities, is a luxury we do not have. Either we change our food and farming system, or climate breakdown and environmental degradation will change it for us. Decades of complacency by some, and greedy exploitation by others mean there is a lot of work to be done – but it is achievable. Withbinding science-based targetsnew instruments thatmake polluters payfor their emissions, and areform of agricultural subsidieswhichcontinue to failmost farmers, we can restore our farmlands back to health and reduce emissions.
Farmers all over Europe are not only demonstrating that nature-friendly farming works, but that it oftenworks betterin times of crisis. There need not be trade-offs between improving the health of our environment, the stability of our climate, the wellbeing of our animals, and the prosperity of our farmers and consumers. The extremes of these past summers have made another compelling case for urgent climate action and a fundamental reshaping of our food and farming system. The case for farming with – not against – nature is clear: in a world with a changing climate and volatile global supply chains, there is no other option.
To discover more about how a strong post-2030 climate policy framework can enable the transition of our food and farming system,read our new position paper:Fit for Farming: The Role of Agriculture in EU Climate Policy Post 2030.
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Article by Mathieu Mal, Senior Policy Officer for Agriculture and Climate at the European Environmental Bureau

Change is here: Keeping farming fit for the future

Amid wars, inflation, emerging risks from artificial intelligence and threats to democracy, Americans have a lot to be worried about these days. But polls show the majority of voters in 2026 are also concerned about climate change as temperatures and disaster risks rise.
So why are fewer candidates talking openly about climate change in their midterm election campaigns than just a few years ago?
At the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability, we study climate communication and are following how Democratic candidates are discussing climate change in their campaigns.
Democratic candidates seem to agree on one strategy: campaign centrally on affordability, emphasizing how ordinary people are struggling to afford to fill up their cars, pay their electric bills and insure their homes against hurricanes and wildfires. It's part of a concerted effort to make the election a referendum on Republicans' support for the Trump administration's contributions to inflation, such as tariffs and the Iran war.
Fossil fuel industry interests have long sought to polarize the public over the phrase "climate change." As one of us, Geoffrey Henderson, discusses in his new book, "Getting to Work on Climate Policy: The Strategy of Labor-Environmental Coalitions," campaigns pitting economic concerns against environmental ones have made it harder to build support for policies meant to slow climate change.
When it comes to talking about climate change today, three distinct camps of Democratic candidates and officeholders reveal three different strategies.
The energy populists
The energy populists talk a lot about lowering energy prices for consumers but very little about either climate change or fossil fuels.
Many have been painting data centers, rather than fossil fuel producers, as villains. Candidates often use messages focused on how utilities and data centers are raising voters' electric rates. They propose measures to lower these costs, like requiring data centers to bring their own energy sources onto the grid.
In North Carolina, former governor Roy Cooper, now running for U.S. Senate, emphasizes lowering energy and utility costs. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, campaigning to return to the Senate, argues that his opponent's votes in favor of data centers have led to "higher electric rates."
Discussing energy affordability, without directly calling out the risks to the climate from burning fossil fuels or advocating for more renewable energy, aligns with the argument that climate change messages can alienate swing voters, who prioritize affordability.
If energy populists are elected, they could become silent backers of climate policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – both Brown and Cooper have a record of supporting renewable energy – or obstacles to climate policies.
The climate champions
Not all Democrats, even in battleground states, think climate change should fade into the background this election. However, few are as outspoken today as they were in the past.
In Massachusetts, Sen. Ed Markey's website pledges that he will champion "bold action to invest in clean energy" if reelected in November. In Maine, Senate candidate Troy Jackson asserts that politicians should not pit working-class people against renewable energy, casting the climate-versus-affordability debate as a false choice.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island talks about candidates talking about climate change. Climate One.
Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse, one of the Senate's most outspoken supporters of pro-climate policies, contends that candidates should link higher costs to climate change, such as increased home insurance costs due to hurricane risk. He also points to President Donald Trump's blockade of the cheapest energy sources – namely, solar and wind power – which he attributes to fossil fuel industry influence.
If elected, these candidates' messages suggest they will pursue policies that help reduce U.S. contributions to climate change. However, they may need to convince independent voters that their focus on climate change will not overshadow their attention to other challenges.
The all-of-the-above proponents
Another group of candidates wants to have it both ways. They call for actions that can respond to climate change and rapidly build out renewable energy, while also promising cheaper gasoline and more fossil fuel jobs. Scientists warn that more fossil fuel use cuts against global climate goals.
Unlike the other camps, this group does not identify villains in their narrative. These candidates are following the script from the Obama administration, whose "all of the above" energy strategy espoused continued fossil fuel use alongside policies to reduce planet-warming emissions.
Josh Turek, running for U.S. Senate from Iowa, talks with voters about high fuel costs. WHO13.
In Iowa, U.S. Senate candidate Josh Turek hosted a roundtable in April 2026 on how climate-fueled extreme weather is raising insurance costs. But he has also focused on lowering the cost of gasoline and diesel. James Talarico, campaigning for the Senate in Texas, has similarly promised to fight climate change by boosting renewable energy while lowering costs by promoting all energy sources.
These candidates may be trying to signal their potential to support climate policies while respecting their states' cultural connections to fossil fuels. Turek and Talarico are both running in states with abundant wind power.
Where are the voters on this issue?
Studies from the U.S. and Germany find that politicians usually underestimate public support for efforts to address climate change.
So how well do candidates' platforms represent today's voters?
Yale's spring 2026 survey found that 49% of voters believe global warming should be a high priority for Congress and the president. But 70% of moderate or conservative Democrats share this view, alongside 84% of liberal Democrats. Even 1 in 3 liberal-to-moderate Republicans considers the climate a high priority.
Yet polling also suggests that other issues, such as the increasing cost of living, are even more important to many voters. This data suggests that pro-climate messages could appeal to swing voters most strongly if climate policies are seen as complementary to affordability.
Still, a recent survey shows that voters open to Democratic candidates are more likely to support a candidate who prioritizes climate change. Climate messaging may especially resonate with young voters. Over a third of those ages 18 to 29 in a recent Harvard Youth Poll considered climate change an urgent national crisis. Young Republicans are more supportive of addressing climate change than their older counterparts.
While many shifts in the way candidates talk about climate policy have little impact on people's willingness to participate in collective efforts to address it, messages emphasizing cost savings durably increase support for renewable energy across party lines. Voters' current concerns about inflation could make climate messages involving affordability especially effective in 2026, though the impact of these messages may vary from state to state.
Retail politics and the way forward
These different approaches reflect the Democratic Party's efforts to build a "big tent" that can attract voters with a wide range of views and priorities. Yet Democrats are generally coalescing around a message designed to appeal to working-class voters: that Trump and the Republicans are raising your cost of living.
November's midterm elections will offer some insight into whether Democrats' energy affordability message will resonate in the 2028 presidential election.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Geoffrey Henderson, University of Michigan and Nathaniel Geiger, University of Michigan
Read more:
Geoffrey Henderson has worked on a project that received funding from the National Science Foundation.
Nathaniel Geiger has received funding from the National Science Foundation.

Voters have a lot of weighty issues on their minds, but that doesn't mean they aren't worried about climate change.

How candidates are (quietly) talking about climate change – 3 election strategies you'll see across the US

Olivia from Spain was just 13 when she developed the Jelly Cleaner – a simple filtering device made from two plastic bottles and a pair of tights to trap microplastics and clean the ocean. Now a European Climate Pact Ambassador, Olivia has gone on to give numerous presentations on the Jelly Cleaner, climate change and the health of the oceans to schools, universities, and international organisations.
She is fired up by her mission: 'Climate change is a global problem that is affecting everyone. We are the ones who have caused climate change, but we are also the ones who have the power and obligation to fix it.'
If you're committed to informing and inspiring climate action in your community, now is your chance to become a European Climate Pact Ambassador, too. You can be young or old - all you need to demonstrate is that you're ready to inspire and motivate others to take climate action and be a changemaker.
You have until 31 October 2026 to submit your European Climate Pact Ambassador application. Applications are assessed on a rolling basis – so early applications are welcome!
What is the Climate Pact?
It's a movement of people who are each taking action to help build a cleaner and more resilient Europe. Launched by the European Commission, it supports the EU's goal to become climate-neutral by 2050.
If you're chosen as a climate pact ambassador, you will get involved in community building, share your own climate actions and solutions, and organise practical activities such as tree planting days or car-free initiatives. You will also get the opportunity to join high-level events and exchanges at local, regional and EU levels.
You will become part of a growing and diverse community of over 1,000 Climate Pact Ambassadors and dozens of partner organisations.
Take inspiration from Olivia: 'Any person can start by creating change in their own home, or even at school or at work. And this creates a ripple effect. The future will be ours – it's in our hands right now. We need to act before it's too late, for us and for all future generations.'
For more information
Apply now
Become a Pact Ambassador
The story of Olivia Mandle
Making an impact – your climate stories

Applications to become a European Climate Pact Ambassador are now open. Find out more about what's involved and how to apply.

Apply now to be a European Climate Pact Ambassador!

WASHINGTON — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
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'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
A man carries items through floodwater past downed electric lines after the passing of Hurricane Polo in Puerto San Carlos, Baja California Sur state, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. Credit: AP/Eduardo Verdugo
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
People evacuate their homes as Hurricane Polo approaches Puerto San Carlos, Baja California Sur state, Mexico, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. Credit: AP/Eduardo Verdugo
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.

WASHINGTON – A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
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Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

ST. JOHN'S, NL, Oct. 15, 2026 /CNW/ -- Media representatives are advised that the Honourable Julie Dabrusin, Minister of the Environment, Climate Change and Nature; and the Honourable Joanne Thompson, Minister of Fisheries, will announce funding to lower home heating costs in Newfoundland and Labrador. They will be joined by Jennifer Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro; and Gary Murray, President and Chief Executive Officer of Newfoundland Power.
Event:
Announcement and media availability
Date:
Friday, October 16, 2026
Time:
10:30 a.m. (NDT)
Location:
Heat Pump Solutions Ltd.
285 Thorburn Road
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
To be made aware of any changes, media representatives are encouraged to register for this in-person event by contacting Environment and Climate Change Canada's Media Relations at [email protected].
Follow Environment and Climate Change Canada on social media.
SOURCE Environment and Climate Change Canada
Contacts: Amy Falkner, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of the Environment, Climate Change and Nature, 873-355-9725, [email protected]; Media Relations, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 819-938-3338 or 1-844-836-7799 (toll-free), [email protected]

/CNW/ -- Media representatives are advised that the Honourable Julie Dabrusin, Minister of the Environment, Climate Change and Nature; and the Honourable...

/R E P E A T -- Media advisory - Ministers Dabrusin and Thompson to announce funding to lower home heating costs in Newfoundland and Labrador/

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
A man carries items through floodwater past downed electric lines after the passing of Hurricane Polo in Puerto San Carlos, Baja California Sur state, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
People evacuate their homes as Hurricane Polo approaches Puerto San Carlos, Baja California Sur state, Mexico, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
A resident clears palm fronds that fell during the passing of Hurricane Polo in Puerto San Carlos, Baja California Sur state, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
People walk on the beach where surging water is brought from Hurricane Polo in Puerto San Carlos, Baja California Sur state, Mexico, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) Show Caption
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A man carries items through floodwater past downed electric lines after the passing of Hurricane Polo in Puerto San Carlos, Baja California Sur state, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)
Expand
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Both climate change and a strong El Niño combined to cause Hurricane Polo to explosively intensify from a tropical storm to a Category 5.

HIGHLIGHTS:
IITM Pune; 17.10.2026: The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), organised the First Stakeholder Consultation Meeting of the Climate Science into Services for India Forum (CSSIF) on 17 October 2026 at its campus in Pune. This meet brought together more than 150 participants from over 80 institutions across various states of the country which comprises of stakeholders from government ministries and departments, operational agencies, research and academic institutions, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), civil society and the private sector.
The consultation focused on the role of climate science in developing relevant climate services and strengthening the application of weather and climate information across different sectors.
The programme commenced with the welcoming and felicitation of dignitaries, followed by the welcome address by Dr. A. Suryachandra Rao, Director, IITM, Prof. V. K. Dadhwal, Former Director, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), addressed the gathering as the Chief Guest. Dr. Suvarna Fadnavis, Project Director, Centre for Climate Change Research (CCCR), IITM, presented an overview of the stakeholder consultation meeting.
The technical session featured an introductory talk by Dr. Rupa Kumar Kolli, Former Chief of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Climate Applications and Services Division, on the need for a Climate Services Information System for the nation. Shri Amardeep Raju, Scientist, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), delivered an invited talk on the need for policy-relevant climate change information. The session also covered weather and climate products at IITM-MoES and climate models, data and products, presented by Dr. Swapna Panickal, Senior Scientist at CCCR, IITM.
The sectoral consultation featured thematic breakout groups to encourage brainstorming and interactive discussions on the application of climate science to sector-specific challenges. Sectional groups on water resources and hydrology, on agriculture and food security, and on disaster management and risk reduction.With a special focus on climate extremes such as precipitation, heat and wildfires; energy and finance, including renewable energy transition, insurance and economic risk assessment; and climate projections and services, covering marine heatwaves, marine productivity, coastal vulnerability and frameworks for translating observations into services.
Through sector-wise thematic consultations, stakeholders highlighted their climate information requirements, operational challenges and expectations, while gaining greater insight into IITM's climate research, datasets and products and their potential translation into useful and actionable climate services. The key recommendations emerging from the consultation will help strengthen the interface between climate science, services, policy and societal needs.
The meeting marks the beginning of sustained engagement under CSSIF towards developing scientifically robust, user-oriented and sector-relevant climate information and services for India.
Participants represented a wide range of major national and state-level organisations, including the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), India Meteorological Department (IMD), Naval Headquarters, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), Central Water and Power Research Station (CWPRS), National Water Academy, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), National Institute of Virology (NIV), National Institute of Epidemiology (NIE), and ICAR institutes.
Strong participation was also received from state-level organisations, including State Disaster Management Authorities, state Environment, Forest and Climate Change Departments, Pune Municipal Corporation, Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, Goa State Pollution Control Board, Madhya Pradesh Climate Change Centre, Goa State Climate Change Cell, Assam Climate Change Management Society, Bihar Mausam Seva Kendra, and other state agencies from across the country.
The consultation also included representatives from leading NGOs and civil-society organisations such as The Nature Conservancy India, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), BAIF Development Research Foundation, TERRE Policy Centre, Swayam Shikshan Prayog, Development Support Centre, Naam Foundation, EarthSight Foundation, GRAAM and the Ecological Society, along with universities and research institutions including Savitribai Phule Pune University, Christian Medical College Vellore, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Krea University, and scientists from IITM.
The program is available on IITM YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/live/kOTL91NGmFg?feature=share
*****
NKR/JKP/SG

HIGHLIGHTS: The First Stakeholder Consultation Meeting of the Climate Science into Services fo

IITM Hosts First Stakeholder Consultation Meeting on Climate Science into Services for India Forum (CSSIF)

Paleoclimatology is the study of how and why Earth's climate has changed in the past. Paleoclimatologists study ice ages, past abrupt changes, and what the Earth was like during past climate warm periods. The knowledge gained from paleoclimate studies provides us with the information needed to refine climate models, so that we understand how the Earth's climate works, and better predict how human activity will impact climate in the future. Describes the tools used by paleoclimatologists to reconstruct past climate change and evaluate the hypothesis put forth to explain those changes. Prerequisite: REM 100 or EVSC 100; GEOG 111 or EASC 101 or EASC 106; and 45 units. Recommended: EASC 210, GEOG 214 or GEOG 215. Students with credit for EVSC 334 may not take this course for further credit. Students who have taken REM 463-3 "Special Topics" in Spring 2019 may not enroll in this course for further credit.

Paleoclimatology is the study of how and why Earth's climate has changed in the past. Paleoclimatologists study ice ages, past abrupt changes, and what the Earth was like during past climate warm…

REM 334 - Spring Calendar

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that climate change and El Niño combined to rev up last month's explosively intensifying Hurricane Polo, which was the longest-lasting Category 5 storm ever to churn in the Pacific.
Global warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas was the bigger of the two culprits, adding about 6 mph (nearly 10 kph) to its already monstrous strength, according to a joint study published Thursday by the science teams World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. El Niño contributed a bit less, about 5 mph (8 kph), a study co-author said.
Climate change made the conditions that fueled the hurricane 23 times more likely, while El Niño — the natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific — made it 14 times more likely, the study found. It all has to do with the 88-degree Fahrenheit (31.2 degrees Celsius) waters that were as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, the study said.
This year, with a super strong El Niño, has set records for strength and longevity of Pacific storms. Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 in the Pacific at two-and-a-half days.
'El Niño and climate change both made this hurricane stronger than it would have otherwise been, but the effect of climate change is even bigger than the one of El Niño,' said climate scientist and study co-author Friederike Otto, who coordinates the international science team behind World Weather Attribution.
'El Niño comes and goes, but climate change only gets worse. That means that now every hurricane that will occur in the East Pacific has at least this climate change signal making it stronger. And as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, that will only get bigger,' Otto added.
Researchers found that without climate change and El Niño, Polo would have been a monster storm anyway. But every bit of additional wind speed can dramatically increase the damage.
Decoding Polo's rapid strengthening
While Hurricane Polo ultimately weakened considerably before it hit a sparsely populated part of Mexico, scientists remain fascinated by how it turbocharged from a tropical storm to a top-of-the-chart Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours.
The study puts the different atmospheric dangers in perspective, said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist and vice president of science at Climate Central, a science and journalism nonprofit out of New Jersey.
'It's a powerful reminder that even though El Niño right now is shifting hazards around the globe and changing where it's flooding and getting dry, the really dominant signal behind all of this remains climate change,' she said.
The study looked at the warm water that fuels storms, using a measure of how strong they can get. But the study didn't focus on the upper level wind shear where El Niño has a huge footprint. El Niño usually increases those storm-decapitating high altitude winds in the Atlantic. However, in the Pacific because of changes in wind patterns, El Niño decreases the winds that weaken storms.
The two sets of researchers measured conditions slightly differently and used different techniques but came to the same general conclusion, making them more confident in the result. However, the rapid study has not had time to be peer-reviewed, which is the gold standard of science.
To calculate the impact of climate change on Polo, both teams used the scientifically accepted method of comparing what happened in our warmer real world to a hypothetical world that hasn't warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.
How El Niño and climate change interact
Study co-author Daniel Gilford, a Climate Central scientist, said the process they looked at was similar to cars on a road. Wind shear from El Niño can be a red light, as it is in the Atlantic, or a green light, as it is in the Pacific. In the Pacific that green light says go, and then the water warmed by both climate change and El Niño acts like a driver flooring the accelerator.
University at Albany atmospheric scientist Brian Tang, who wasn't part of the study, said he was initially surprised that the research found climate change to be the bigger influence on Polo, 'given how extreme this El Niño is, but from a long-term standpoint, perhaps the result isn't as surprising as it might seem.'
But three other outside scientists — Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections, University of Pennsylvania's Michael Mann and North Carolina State University's Carl Schreck — said they believe the study underestimates how much climate change has added to Polo's strength. Masters pointed to Gilford's own 2024 study that found climate change added 16 mph (30 kph) to hurricanes in the Atlantic from 2019 to 2023.
Gilford acknowledged that Thursday's report could be underestimating climate change's impact a bit, but said he was factoring in other conditions and being conservative.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Most Australian workers believe the nation's biggest companies have a responsibility to address climate change, according to a new survey.
However, even if businesses do take meaningful strides on climate commitments, scepticism remains among their employees.
The revelations come from new West Australian research surveying 2048 workers across the nation, which the authors said showed most workers were not questioning whether businesses should be acting on climate change, but were not convinced meaningful progress was being made.
The report, from the Curtin Centre for Applied Ethics, is the first of a series of studies examining several issues business leaders face against a backdrop of a 'polycrisis' unfolding via several channels across the world.
Professor Anthony Langlois, Stan Perron Dean of Applied Ethics and CCAE director, said climate change was already a workplace health, safety and productivity issue.
'From our respondents, it's quite clear that exposure [to effects of climate change] concentrates in frontline roles,' he said.
'So, if we're thinking about technicians, trades workers, machinery operators and so on, 59 per cent of them have worked in temperature extremes, and 45 per cent in places with smoke fumes and dust.
'Whereas if you're talking about managers and professionals, those figures drop down to 25 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.
'One of the things I found really interesting about this class of workers, the ones that we think of as the most exposed workers, they're also the most disillusioned about what is happening in the broader social and political response to climate change.'
Of that cohort, 58 per cent surveyed were dissatisfied with the federal government's response to climate change, while 58 per cent felt they had no meaningful say in the political system.
According to the report, the latter figure rose to 60 per cent among workers exposed to smoke, fumes or dust.
And workers expect climate change to impact their cost of living most, with 41 per cent listing it as an area of 'major impact'.
'Employees encounter climate change first as an affordability and security question, not an abstract environmental one,' the report reads.
Langlois said the research highlighted the importance of transparency, with employees willing to support corporate climate action, but 'unwilling to take it on trust'.
'People want change, and they're entirely happy to be persuaded that companies are doing things and that the government is doing things, they just want to see the evidence,' he said.
'And that's really important for our situation here in Western Australia, when you think about the mix of industries that we have here, particularly those dealing with energy and mining.
Langlois pointed to recently introduced mandatory climate reporting requirements as an opportunity for businesses to show meaningful action on climate change-related goals.
'Talk to the whole of your workforce about what you're doing, not just the boards and the investors, but talk to the people all the way down the hierarchy, and have conversations with workers about transition planning,' he said.
'Don't rely on a PR campaign, use the evidence and that will persuade people.'
Co-author Professor Astghik Mavisakalyan said most employees assumed 'greenwashing' was common – 79 per cent of those surveyed – and few accepted sustainability claims at face value.
'Employees are far more likely to trust climate claims that are independently audited or backed by mandatory disclosure requirements than claims that rely solely on self-reporting,' she said.
The report also shed some light on the growing political divide on the topic, with the gap between left and right-leaning Australians widening from 32 to 48 percentage points between 2010 and 2025.
The perceived threat of global warming shifted 'sharply' among left and centre-leaning Australians, while barely budging on the right.
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A new West Australian survey asks workers if they believe their employer has a responsibility to address climate change – and whether companies are making meaningful progress.

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