Days that are both extremely hot and polluted come with higher risks of respiratory ailments and other health hazards.

Roger Worthington is helping to lead a $50 billion lawsuit against oil producers. This week he’ll face powerful critics in Congress.

© Michael Hanson for The New York Times

An unusually early heat wave smashed records across France, Britain and Spain. Temperatures in some areas are starting to soar again.

© Kin Cheung/Associated Press

The birds are particularly vulnerable to high temperatures, and France’s torrid June took a heavy toll.

© Samuel Aranda for The New York Times

As triple-digit temperatures engulf much of the United States, the Trump administration wants grid managers to require the use of backup power that often goes unused.

© Leah Millis/Reuters

The lawsuit aims to hold fossil fuel companies responsible for a heat wave in Portland five years ago. The industry says the case should be thrown out.

© Michael Hanson for The New York Times

A scientific analysis concluded that such high temperatures, across so much of the continent, would “not have been possible” without global warming.

© Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The extreme heat smothering Europe has upended Climate Week in London.

© Pool photo by Yui Mok

The burning of fossil fuels is raising temperatures worldwide, but local factors, on land and at sea, determine which regions warm most rapidly.

© Toby Shepheard/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Many philanthropists are backing away from climate giving. But one is writing very big checks.

© Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Many philanthropists are backing away from climate giving. But one is writing very big checks.

Records are being broken for the second time in a month, leading scientists to probe the upper limits of what the warming climate can dish out.

Searing temperatures in Western Europe are drawing comparisons to 2003, when a deadly heat wave sparked a reckoning.

© Thibault Camus/Associated Press

Searing temperatures in Western Europe are drawing comparisons to 2003, when a deadly heat wave sparked a reckoning.

Up to 36 per cent of animal habitats on land could be exposed to multiple extreme climate events

On a blazing hot day in South Africa, female southern pied babblers can’t think straight. The medium-sized black-and-white birds are trying to get at tasty mealworms behind a see-through barrier. On cooler days, the birds can quickly figure out that all they have to do is go around the small wall of plastic. But when the mercury goes up, the birds just keep stubbornly pecking at the barrier.

That experiment is part of a growing body of research showing that animals get their minds muddled during heat waves. When it’s hot outside, birds struggle to learn, dogs bite more often, goat-like chamois pick fights. This is bad news not just for those who get on Fido’s toasted nerves. If the animals can’t stay alert enough to find food or avoid predators, their chances of survival go downhill, says Amanda Ridley, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Western Australia who coauthored the pied babbler study.

With climate change making heat waves more common, such cognitive impairments across the animal kingdom could ripple through entire ecosystems, putting already fragile species at greater risk. If pollinators forget which flowers to visit, crops and wild plants may fail. If birds can’t find food as easily, their young may not survive. And on a warming planet, a sharp mind is particularly vital. “A changing climate means that your ability to behaviorally adapt is even more important,” Ridley says.

Read full article

Comments

© NurPhoto / Contributor