Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced C$1.2 billion in funding to protect oceans, as several large energy and port projects move forward. The money is aimed at marine conservation, coastal protection and research. Environmental groups welcomed the pledge but asked how it will be enforced alongside new industrial approvals. Critics say the government risks creating areas where development outweighs protection, and they want clearer rules and monitoring.
Switzerland's glaciers shed more than 5.5 percent of their ice this year, according to the country's monitoring body, after a winter drought gave way to relentless summer heat waves. Half of Europe faced very strong heat stress during the summer. Nepal plans to drain four glacial lakes after deadly floods, and sunken Nazi warships are resurfacing as Europe's drought deepens. Researchers also proposed a new way to estimate the pollution and health costs of clusters of data centres.
Authorities declared a flood disaster zone across all 50 districts of Bangkok after days of heavy rain overwhelmed the capital's drainage system. Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said almost 300 millimetres, about 11.8 inches, had fallen since Thursday afternoon. Roads were submerged, residents near the canal network were told to move belongings upstairs, and the rail authority opened free park-and-ride spaces until 2 October. More than 700,000 people have been affected and at least two deaths confirmed. The government said the situation had stabilised, with draining expected to take two to three days.
The long dry spell across the south-western United States may last longer than current climate models suggest, according to new research covered in the 1 October issue of Science News. The work, co-authored by Victoria Todd of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, examined how past droughts ended and how that compares with the present event. The Colorado River basin faces cuts of up to 40% for California, Arizona and Nevada under a ten-year federal blueprint, and the April 2026 Arizona water supply outlook showed another weak snowpack year.
El Nino conditions have strengthened in the central Pacific. Weekly relative Oceanic Nino Index values reached 2C on 14 September, meeting the threshold for a very strong event, and daily sea surface temperature anomalies in the Nino 3.4 region hit 3C on 15 September, only the second time since records began in 1950. NOAA puts the chance of historic strength between October and December at about 75%. The event is cited as the main driver of a below-average Atlantic hurricane season forecast, and it makes a record hot year likely.
A UN report ahead of this year's climate talks says current policies put the world on track for at least 1.8C of warming, beyond the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement. Officials now frame the goal as limit overshoot, peak, decline — accept that the limit will be breached, then bend emissions down hard. Three COP summits land in one autumn: the desertification meeting already finished, the biodiversity conference in Armenia in October, and COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, from 9 to 20 November, with Australia leading negotiations. 2026 brought deadly Himalayan floods, European wildfires and heat, and one of the hottest summers recorded.
Extreme heat driven by this year's super El Nino could cause as many as 451,000 excess deaths worldwide between June 2026 and February 2027, researchers at the University of Chicago's Climate Impact Lab estimated, according to Reuters. The figure lands as heat, wildfires and drought hit several regions at once. The European climate service Copernicus found August was the hottest month on record. Scientists say El Nino conditions this strong are rare, and the coming months will test heat action plans, cooling centres and early warning systems. Britain pledged 331 million pounds for climate and biodiversity risks.
Arctic sea ice reached its smallest extent of the year on September 12, NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported. The ice covered about 4.6 million square kilometres, or 1.78 million square miles, tying with 2008, 2010 and 2025 for the tenth-lowest minimum since satellite records began in 1978. The past 20 years have produced the 20 lowest minimums in the record. At the other pole, Antarctic sea ice probably reached its yearly maximum on September 14 at 17.59 million square kilometres, which would be the third-lowest Antarctic maximum on record.
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center says there is a greater than 90% chance of a very strong El Nino during the 2026-27 autumn and winter. Sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific are more than 3C above average, and European seasonal models project the event could peak at levels never recorded since 1950. NOAA's winter outlook favours warmer-than-normal conditions across the northern United States and a wetter pattern in the south. Climate Week NYC is meeting in New York as governments weigh the risks. Forecasters will update the outlook in October, when the peak strength of the event should be clearer.
Heat waves over land are starting earlier, ending later and lasting longer, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change on 23 September. Across a 45-year record, the first heat wave of the season arrived about two weeks earlier and the last one came about 24 days later, lengthening the season by roughly 39 days. The season is now expanding by 8.71 days per decade, and recent years show a new shift: the first heat wave builds faster than it used to. Drylands are seeing the biggest timing changes.