2020 basically tied with 2016 as Earth’s hottest year on record. Red areas on this map were “warmer than average,” “much warmer than average,” or had their “record warmest” year in 2020. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration For more than two years a massive amount of attention has been devoted to the idea of limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) beyond preindustrial levels. That goal took on major resonance with a blockbuster 2018 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report warned that to have a fighting chance of av ..read more

Texas Tech University Texas is known by many for a history of high-level climate-science denial and state officials’ refusal to adopt policies to limit pollution-caused climate change and to help prepare for its projected threats. But that’s not the whole story. Texas is simultaneously a state where top government leaders in large cities are charting a different course with climate-conscious planning to reduce greenhouse emissions and gird against impacts. It’s also home to one of the world’s best known and most honored climate-change scientists and communicators – Katharine Hayhoe of Texas ..read more

A member of the Texas National Guard helps out during Winter Storm Uri. Staff Sgt. Yvonne Ontiveros, TXARNG via flickr Evidence of disaster lay across much of a state in shock: snow, ice, and single-digit cold. But the real proof huddled behind closed doors: millions without electricity and therefore without heat, some in grave danger, some desperately seeking warmth in their running cars only to die from carbon monoxide poisoning. At the worst, about 4 million households, businesses, and institutions, most in the biggest metro areas, were in the cold and dark. Water failed, too, as pipes an ..read more

Houston, Feb. 15, 2021. Texas Climate News Even in a human-warmed climate, fierce outbreaks of cold, snow and ice can still strike the Lone Star State. Case in point: an unusually intense and prolonged February cold wave that enveloped most of the central U.S., including Texas, by Valentine’s Day. On the morning of Feb. 14, advisories from the National Weather Service (NWS) for snow, ice, extreme cold and low wind chills covered nearly all of the nation between the Rockies and Appalachians. By midday, all of Texas was plastered by winter storm warnings – a rare if not unprecedented occurrenc ..read more

A nighttime street scene in sultry Houston, August 2016. It was a month when overnight temperatures often stayed between the upper 70s and low 80s and high humidity added to the general unpleasantness and yielded potentially dangerous heat-index readings. Daniel Lobo via flickr Last year essentially tied with 2016 as the earth’s hottest since record-keeping started in the late 19th century. NASA’s scientists concluded that 2020 was less than .01 degree Celsius warmer than 2016, which manmade global warming combined with an El Niño, a natural weather cycle, to make the previous warmest y ..read more

Jan. 20, 2021 U-turn. Sea change. Course reversal. One-eighty. Out with the old, in with the new. Take your pick of descriptions. All of them fit. With executive orders and appointments, President Joe Biden provided ample evidence in the first hours and days following his inauguration last week that he is enacting a profound shift in U.S. policies related to climate change. Anyone who paid even a little attention to Biden’s campaign and platform won’t be surprised. Assigning the climate crisis a top priority, he had promised a sweeping and unprecedented set of initiatives to decarbonize the ..read more

Natural gas flaring in Texas is visible from space, as this 2015 photo illustrates. Looking toward the southeast from the International Space Station, an arc of natural gas flares in the Eagle Ford Shale region of South Texas can be seen running up and left from the lower center towards a point midway between San Antonio and Houston. Federal regulators under the incoming Biden administration are expected to reinstate methane regulations for the oil and gas industry. But state regulators in Texas – after making minimal changes to their own policy last year – are poised to continue to let comp ..read more

International Space Station Commander Scott Kelly’s celebration of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, tweeted from space, included his photo of Earth. For millennia, humans have turned their attention and thoughts to the skies in late December as the daily period of sunlight grew shorter and shorter, then started getting longer again. In the Northern Hemisphere, ancient peoples of many cultures began observing the Winter Solstice – the shortest day of the year, on or around Dec. 21 – with hopeful celebrations of light and harvest. On Dec. 21 this year, there was another reason to look skyward ..read more

A white rhino takes a nap at the San Antonio Zoo in this 2009 photo. Last year, the zoo opened a new white rhino habitat as part of its conservation effort for the species. “Rhino populations are dwindling worldwide due to habitat destruction and poaching,” said Tim Morrow, the zoo’s president and CEO. In a paper published in June on “biological annihilation” around the world, scientists cited the Sumatran rhino as one of the terrestrial vertebrate species “on the brink of extinction because they have fewer 1,000 or individuals.” Amy the Nurse, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, via Flickr Almost 10 years ago ..read more

Al Nelson of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service inspects a drought-stricken cornfield in the Brazos River Valley in 2011. (Source: Texas A&M AgriLife) Stewart Doreen, managing editor at the Midland Reporter-Telegram, captured the zeitgeist of a bleakly parched autumn with his lead for a November 15 article: “Sometimes, it feels like it’s not going to rain again in Midland.” It did rain again in Midland – nearly a half inch on Thanksgiving weekend – but the West Texas city still ended up with one of its driest autumns on record. A mere 1.34 inches of moisture fell from Septembe ..read more