By Emily Dieckman , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Historic wildfires broke out in South Korea in late March 2025, killing 32 people, injuring 45, and displacing about 37,000. In total, the fires burned more than 100,000 hectares (about 247,000 acres), nearly quadruple the area that burned in the country’s previous worst recorded fire season in 2000. ( In comparison , the January 2025 Palisades and Eaton Fires in Southern California burned about 91,000 hectares, or 37,000 acres.) A  new study  by scientists with World Weather Attribution (WWA) suggests that atmospheric warming—caused primarily by fossil fuel burning—made the hot, dry, and windy conditions that drove the South Korean fires about twice as likely and 15% more intense. ...This study adds to a growing body of science showing how climate change is making weather conditions more favorable to dangerous wildfires....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/climate-change-heightened-conditions-of-south-korean-fires ....

By Saima May Sidik , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Research shows that communities are best able to mitigate the effects of climate change when they can work alongside scientists on adaptation plans .  Hanson et al.   recently extended this finding to Indigenous communities in the Colorado Plateau, including members of the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. ...the researchers conducted a series of listening circles, interviews, and consultations with Indigenous peoples and Westerners with extensive experience working in Indigenous communities. They collaborated with members of the Nature Conservancy’s Native American Tribes Upholding Restoration and Education, or  NATURE , program, which aims to equip Indigenous college students with natural resource management skills. ...Indigenous students are most likely to engage in climate education when they’re actively recruited for a program, when mentors are willing to learn from students as well as teach them, and ...

By Erik Stokstad , Science.  Excerpt: Rice plants usually love warmth. But when they start to flower, hot nights can result in meager harvests and chalky grain. So far, breeders have made slow progress in solving these challenges, which are becoming more urgent with climate change. Now, after searching for more than a decade, researchers in China have found a culpable gene, which they describe this week in  Cell . They also show that a  natural variant of the gene can preserve both yield and rice quality  when temperatures rise....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/major-breakthrough-natural-gene-variant-protects-rice-heat-waves . 

By Paul Voosen , Science.  Excerpt: For decades, a climatological mystery has haunted West Africa. In the 1970s and ’80s, a vicious drought, perhaps the worst worldwide in the 20th century, struck the region...just south of the Sahara Desert. The disaster killed tens of thousands of people in Senegal and other countries and caused a mass migration to cities. But then the drought stopped, and nothing like it has occurred since. Still the question has lingered: Could the great drought return? Climate researchers led by Edward Cook and Michela Biasutti of Columbia University want to glean an answer from trees, using tree-ring records to create the first comprehensive, multicentury drought atlas for any region of Africa. They’re now mounting an arduous search for the few West African trees that capture the whispers of past rainfall in their annual growth. “We want to tell people what to expect in the next few decades,” Biasutti says. Climate change will surely affect future droughts, b...

By Brad Plumer  and  Rebecca Dzombak , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The Trump administration has dismissed the hundreds of scientists and experts who had been compiling the federal government’s flagship report on how global warming is affecting the country. The move puts the future of the report, which is required by Congress and is known as the National Climate Assessment, into serious jeopardy, experts said. Since 2000, the federal government has published a comprehensive look every few years at how rising temperatures will affect human health, agriculture, fisheries, water supplies, transportation, energy production and other aspects of the U.S. economy. The  last climate assessment came out in 2023  and is used by state and local governments as well as private companies to help prepare for the effects of heat waves, floods, droughts and other climate-related calamities. On Monday, researchers around the country who had begun work on the sixth national clima...

By Umair Irfan , Wired.  Excerpt: Making sure there are always enough generators spooled up to send electricity to every single power outlet in the country requires precise coordination. And while the amount of electricity actually used can swing drastically throughout the day and year, the grid is built to meet the brief periods of  peak demand , like the hot summer days when air conditioning use can double average electricity consumption. Imagine building a 30-lane highway to make sure no driver ever has to tap their brakes. That’s effectively what those who design and run the grid have had to do. But what if you could just hold onto electricity for a bit and save it for later? You wouldn’t have to overbuild the grid.... You could smooth over the drawbacks of intermittent power sources that don’t emit carbon dioxide, like wind and solar. ...Back in 2011...a  wind farm in West Virginia ...was...the world’s largest battery energy storage system...to provide 32 megawatts o...

By Andrew Chang, San Francisco Chronicle.  Excerpt: ...Some of the most exciting and impactful climate tech revolutions today are happening beyond the U.S. — they’re unfolding in China and emerging markets like Vietnam and Pakistan. ...Long derided for its coal dependence, [China] now leads the world in clean energy deployment. In 2024 alone,  China added 277 gigawatts of new solar capacity  — a 45% jump from the year before. That’s more than the  entire installed solar capacity of the United States . On a recent trip to Shanghai, I hopped into a taxi and was told we’d need to make a quick stop to swap the battery. I started to object, assuming it would take a while — but the driver just smiled and said, “Three minutes.” We pulled into a battery swapping station, scanned a QR code and drove onto an elevated platform. In less time than a coffee run, we were back on the road — fully charged. It was fast, seamless and completely routine....  Ful...