Our picks: Climate challenges“Nowhere Is Safe” | Summer of Fire and Floods | Heat Waves Batter Countries, and more

“Nowhere Is Safe”: Heat Shatters Vision of Pacific North-West as Climate Refuge  (Oliver Milman, Guardian)
Residents of the region, known for its mild weather, are facing a shifting reality.

ExtremeHeat Triggers Mass Die-Offs and Stress for Wildlife in the West  (Natasha Daly, National Geographic)
Sweltering baby hawks threw themselves out of nests, and mussels baked to death in their shells as record heat brought crisis to the Pacific Northwest.

Wildfires Have Erupted Across the Globe, Scorching Places that Rarely Burned Before  (Ivana Kottasová, CNN)

Amid Summer of Fire and Floods, a Moment of Truth for Climate Action  (Sarah Kaplan  and Brady Dennis, Washington Post)
‘We are all in the same boat,’ says one diplomat from the developing world. ‘That is what this summer is telling us.’

Climate Scientists Meet as Floods, Fires, Droughts and Heat Waves Batter Countries  (Rebecca Hersher, NPR)
More than 200 of the world’s leading climate scientists will begin meeting today to finalize a landmark report summarizing how Earth’s climate has already changed, and what humans can expect for the rest of the century.
The urgency of addressing global warming has never been more clear. The two-week virtual meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists coincides with a raft of deadly climate-driven disasters unfolding around the world, from flash floods in Europe, North America and Asia, to intense wildfires in Siberia, to widespread persistent heat waves and droughts that threaten to upend food supplies in the U.S., Middle East and much of Africa.

Extreme Weather Renews Focus on Climate Change as Scientists Update Forecasts  (Andrea Januta, Reuters)

The list of extremes in just the last few weeks has been startling: Unprecedented rains followed by deadly flooding in central China and Europe. Temperatures of 120 Fahrenheit (49 Celsius) in Canada, and tropical heat in Finland and Ireland. The Siberian tundra ablaze. Monstrous U.S. wildfires, along with record drought across the U.S. West and parts of Brazil.
Scientists had long predicted such extremes were likely. But many are surprised by so many happening so fast – with the global atmosphere 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than the preindustrial average. The Paris Agreement on climate change calls for keeping warming to within 1.5 degrees.

Record-Breaking Flooding in China Has Left Over One Million People Displaced  (Emily Feng, NPR)
Starting last Tuesday, storms dropped the equivalent of one year’s worth of water on Zhengzhou, the capital city of central Henan province and home to approximately 12 million people, in a 72 hour period before moving northward, flooding large swathes of Henan province in China. Authorities say the rains have displaced more than a million people and at least 63 people dead in what should have been – in theory – once-in-a-thousand-year floods.

As Dixie Fire Doubles in Size, Monsoon Weather Brings New Threats  (Haley Smith and Lila Seidman, Los Angeles Times)
It took just days for the Dixie fire to double in size to nearly 200,000 acres, and officials say it could keep getting worse.
Changing weather patterns across the state — including a storm system that brought an unusual spate of rain to Southern California on Monday — are creating new conditions for crews to contend with as the fire keeps burning through Butte and Plumas counties.
The instability of the weather will fuel the fire’s growth, some fear.
The monsoonal weather that’s building in the region also brings the potential for lightning, which can ignite new fires, officials said. And conditions are ripe for new pyrocumulonimbus clouds to form above the blaze; these can generate their own weather systems that send crews scrambling.