Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Environment Agency names seven regions affected by unusually hot and dry weather and shortage of water Half of England is officially in drought, with July set to be the driest on record after winter floods, the Environment Agency has said. The “flash drought” developed quickly because of unusually low rainfall and high temperatures. Continue reading...

Findings can inform conversations about global climate reparations and financing for mitigations, researchers say Caribbean nations suffered $53.2bn (£40bn) of damage from climate-fuelled disasters between 2000 and 2024, research into the cost of the climate crisis to developing small islands has found. The figure is more than 90% of the total $57bn in economic damage caused by floods, storms and drought across 39 developing island nations in the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, according to a study by development thinktank ODI Global. Continue reading...

Five years ago, I wrote an open letter asking climate scientists to speak out against fossil fuels. Now governments are in retreat, it is surely time to act France and Spain race to contain huge wildfires before fresh heatwave begins Such is the astonishing scale of the wildfires burning at the gates of Bordeaux and Madrid, that if they had happened 20 – even 10 – years back, they may well have shocked the world into taking action on the climate crisis. But like the proverbial frog in a pot of slowly heating water, we have become inured; not only to the ever more devastating impacts of climate breakdown, but increasingly to the actions needed to bring global heating to heel. Even as more than 35,000 wildfires rage across the surface of our world, and as we continue to rewind our planet’s climate so it resembles hotter episodes from its distant past, governments and trading blocs are very deliberately turning away from climate action. Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London and author of The Fate of the World: a History and Future of the Climate Crisis The Guardian’s climate forum 2026 On Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington and our panel of experts – including Professor Andy Haines, Katie White MP, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman – for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening. Book tickets here Continue reading...

Biologists say cargo ships stranded in Gulf may carry highly potent invasive species around the world as trade resumes The closure of the strait of Hormuz has created conditions for an extreme global biodiversity threat, with scientists warning that thousands of stranded ships could spread invasive marine species across the world’s oceans once they begin sailing again. More than 1,500 commercial vessels have been stuck in the Gulf since the strategic waterway closed on 28 February after the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran. An international team of marine biologists said that with the stranded ships remaining motionless, their hulls were becoming encrusted with marine life – from microbes and algae to barnacles and other invertebrates – that could hitchhike to ports around the world when trade resumed. Continue reading...