- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- Lewandowski hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- India maintain Pakistan stranglehold as Windies cruise at Women's T20 World Cup
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- Maresca hails Chelsea's 'fighting' spirit after draw with 10-man Forest
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Arshdeep, Chakravarthy help India hammer Bangladesh in T20 opener
- Lewandowski's quickfire hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Israel pounds Lebanon ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Toddler among 4 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
Warmest US winter on record
This winter was the warmest ever recorded in the United States, data showed Friday -- the latest sign the world is moving towards an unprecedented era as a result of the climate crisis.
The average temperature in the lower 48 US states from December 2023 to February 2024 was 37.6 degrees Fahrenheit (3.1 Celsius), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, the highest in a record that goes back to the late 1800s.
It was 5.4F (3.0C) above the 20th century average for the world's second biggest greenhouse gas emitter behind China.
Eight states across the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes and Northeast saw their warmest winters on record, boosted in part by the El Nino weather pattern.
On Thursday, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota announced the state had unlocked federal funding for businesses impacted by reduced snow, "from skiing and snowshoeing to winter festivals."
The heat continued through February. Data showed average temperature for the contiguous United States, which excludes Hawaii, Alaska and offshore territories, was 41.1F for the month -- 7.2F above average and the third warmest on record.
- Wildfires, drought and floods -
The Smokehouse Creek wildfire, which began on February 26 and became the largest blaze in Texas' history, burned more than a million acres (400,000 hectares) in the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma, the agency added.
Persistent warmth led to a steady decrease in ice coverage across the Great Lakes, reaching a historic low of 2.7 percent coverage on February 11, when ice coverage normally peaks.
"We've crossed a threshold in which we are at a historic low for ice cover for the Great Lakes as a whole," Bryan Mroczka, a NOAA scientist said in a recent statement.
Absence of ice impacts everything from businesses that rely on outdoor sports to fish that use ice to protect themselves from predators during spawning season.
It also makes the shoreline more susceptible to erosion, increasing potential damage to coastal infrastructure.
February also ranked as the third driest month in the historical record but, while some regions experienced drought, unusual atmospheric patterns brought heavy rain and snow to parts of the West, causing powerful winds, flooding, landslides and power outages in parts of California.
- 1.5C limit breached -
President Joe Biden referred to global warming as a "climate crisis" in his State of the Union speech on Thursday night, moving away from the phrase "climate change" and hailed his signature climate infrastructure law.
Last month was the warmest February on record globally, the ninth straight month of historic high temperatures across the planet, Europe's climate monitor said earlier this week.
Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) last month said the period from February 2023 to January 2024 marked the first time Earth had endured 12 consecutive months of temperatures 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than the pre-industrial era.
The UN's IPCC climate panel has warned that the world will likely crash through 1.5C in the early 2030s. Holding warming to below 1.5C has been deemed crucial to averting a long-term planetary climate disaster.
Planet-heating emissions, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, continue to rise when scientists say they need to fall by almost half this decade.
Countries at UN climate negotiations in Dubai last year agreed to triple global renewables capacity this decade and "transition away" from fossil fuels -- but the deal lacked details and time commitments.
The United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, but is responsible for about a fifth of global historic emissions going back to 1850, with China a relatively distant second.
The World Meteorological Organization says there is a chance that La Nina -- which, unlike El Nino, lowers global temperatures - will develop later this year, and an 80 percent probability of neutral conditions (neither El Nino or La Nina) from April to June.
L.Davis--AMWN