2 dead, several injured after vehicle drives into crowd
René Priebe/picture alliance via Getty Images
(LONDON) — At least two people were killed and several others were injured when a car drove into a crowd in Mannheim, Germany, on Monday, during an annual carnival celebration, police said.
“A 40-year-old suspect drove a car into a group of people who were in the Planken area of Mannheim city center,” the police statement said. “Two people were killed and five seriously injured.”
A search of the area was immediately launched and a suspect was identified and arrested, according to the police statement.
Police said that all bridges and main roads were initially blocked off and authorities asked the public to stay away from the city center. Several hours later, police reopened the area after issuing an all-clear.
Video footage from Paradeplatz Square in the center of Mannheim showed shoppers standing outside an area cordoned off by police tape and strewn with debris, including a shoe. First responders could be seen tending to at least one injured person.
Mannheim has a population of 326,000 and is about 52 miles south of Frankfurt.
In addition to the two people killed, 10 people were injured, five seriously, Mannheim police said in a statement.
The incident unfolded around 12:15 p.m. local time in the Planken shopping district area near Paradeplatz Square, according to police.
Police have not said if the driver under arrest deliberately plowed into the crowd or whether it was accidental. The driver, whose name was not immediately released, is a German citizen from Rhineland-Palatinate, about 90 miles from Mannheim.
The incident occurred as people were gathering in central Mannheim for an annual German carnival celebration.
Witness Manu Brioso told ABC News that he was taking a class in a building in the Paradeplatz area when he saw the car involved in the incident pass by on the street before it struck a crowd of people.
“The school told us what had happened and that we couldn’t leave the school because police had cordoned off the area,” Brioso said.
When he was allowed to leave, Brioso said the street was full of police, firefighters and ambulances.
Security video obtained by ABC News showed the vehicle, a dark-colored compact hatchback car, appeared to be speeding down a street before the incident, drawing the attention of people seated at a sidewalk cafe and pedestrians, some rushing across the street to get out of the car’s path.
Officials at the Mannheim University Hospital said they received an emergency alert at 12:20 p.m. local time about a possible mass casualty incident in downtown Mannheim and activated the hospital’s emergency plan in preparation for treating the injured. The hospital reported receiving many injured patients, both adults and children, including some in critical condition.
The hospital said its intensive care unit was full due to the arrival of a high number of critical patients. According to the hospital, eight trauma teams were treating both adults and children.
As a security precaution, all of the hospital’s entrances were closed to the public.
The deadly incident comes in the wake of two intentional car-ramming attacks in Germany and at a time of heightened security across the country.
On Feb. 13, a 24-year-old suspect drove a car into a crowd in Munich gathered for a trade union demonstration, killing a 37-year-old mother and her 2-year-old daughter and injuring 37 people. The suspect, Fahad Noori, who is originally from Afghanistan, purportedly confessed to investigators that the act was deliberate. A prosecutor, Gabriele Tilman, said the suspect “gave an explanation I would summarize as religious motivation.”
On Dec. 20, a car-ramming attack occurred at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, that left five people dead and around 200 injured. A 50-year-old Saudi-born man, identified as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, was arrested in the incident, which police suspect was deliberate. Al-Abdulmohsen was charged with five counts of murder and multiple counts of both attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm.
The Mannheim incident comes at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and amid a threat environment that has prompted Western officials to issue warnings to law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the United States and Western Europe.
According to a notice issued by the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center last week, an ISIS-aligned network released a poster called “Choose Your Next Target!” and lists four upcoming festivals and parades, mostly in Germany. The poster features images of a bloody knife and pistol, encouraging attacks.
Officials noted that last year during Ramadan, ISIS-Khorasan attacked Crocus City Hall in Moscow, Russia, killing 145 people.
“Following the attack, ISIS released a rare audio statement from its official spokesman — which supporters subsequently translated into over a dozen languages, including English — celebrating that attack and calling for more violence against Christian and Jewish communities during Ramadan,” officials said.
On New Year’s Day, 14 people were killed and numerous others were injured in a car ramming attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter. The suspect was 42-year-old Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who was killed in a gunfight with police officers. Investigators alleged that Jabbar, who was a U.S.-born citizen from Texas, was inspired by ISIS to commit the attack.
In recent days, the New York Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security have issued notices alerting law enforcement to terrorism fears associated with Ramadan. The notices, obtained by ABC News, warned that “malicious actors from across the ideological spectrum may view Ramadan as an ideal time to commit attacks.”
The assessment reflects prior targeted acts of violence, disrupted plots and recent violent extremist propaganda.
“The current dynamic threat environment necessitates elevated vigilance at mass gatherings, houses of worship, and Muslim/Jewish community events, especially during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan,” the NYPD document said.
The DHS document noted that messaging from foreign terrorist organizations calling for violence during Ramadan “adds to a heightened concern of homegrown violent extremist attacks following the 2025 New Year’s ISIS-inspired attack in New Orleans, likely raising the potential for violence from HVEs [homegrown violent extremists] during this year’s observance.”
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Josh Margolin, Joe Simonetti and Zoe Magee contributed to this report.
Mathilde Kaczkowski/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
(LONDON) — President-elect Donald Trump will return to office on Monday having promised a peace deal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, which is still raging nearly three years after President Vladimir Putin troops crossed into Ukraine expecting to be welcomed as heroes.
It is hard to say how Trump will try to unpick the twisted knot constricting eastern Europe.
The president-elect has hinted at territorial concessions and reduced aid for Ukraine in pursuit of peace, but has also suggested the U.S. will expand military support if Putin refuses to come to the table.
Ukrainian lawmakers and a former official told ABC News they are bracing to again deal with perhaps the most unpredictable president in living memory — one who former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her memoir engaged on “an emotional level.”
Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee, nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize in November — an honor the president-elect has long coveted.
“Trump takes some things personally and we should establish human contact with him,” Merezhko told ABC News. “Our destiny and survival depends also on Trump — we should be respectful and constructive towards him.”
President Joe Biden “used to say that international relations are interpersonal relations — and it’s true,” Merezhko added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to have embarked on a Trump charm offensive of his own.
Zelenskyy was quick to laud Trump’s “historic landslide victory” in November, echoing the president-elect’s own “peace through strength” slogan.
A meeting with Trump in Paris in December was “good and productive,” Zelenskyy said, with the Ukrainian president praising Trump’s “strong resolve” and repeating the “peace through strength” mantra.
After a December meeting with European Union leaders in Brussels, Zelenskyy told reporters, “I think that President Trump is a strong man and I want very much to have him on our side.”
Asked how he would feel when Trump does take office in January, the Ukrainian president responded, “Welcome Donald! What can I say?”
Art of the deal In 2024 unlike in 2016, foreign leaders appeared prepared for a Trump election victory, their immediate reactions tailored to appeal to the president-elect’s transactional world view.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte framed aid to Ukraine as “a good deal” for Trump and the U.S.
Macron said he was ready to work towards “peace and prosperity” with his next American counterpart. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was looking forward to working towards “prosperity and freedom” with the incoming administration.
Ukraine will need to make itself attractive to the self-styled master dealmaker, mindful of the transactional brand of foreign policy he pursued in his first term and promised for his second.
Amid the leaks and innuendos, Yehor Cherniev — a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News he had seen little in the way of concrete policy about the future of Ukraine.
“We’ve used this time to deliver our position and our conditions for these new peace negotiations,” Cherniev said. “We’ve tried to explain and give information — not only to officials, but to U.S. citizens and Western people — that this war was started not for several territories of Ukraine or even for the whole of Ukraine as a country, but for the revision of the world order.”
Without NATO membership or a binding bilateral security deal with the U.S. akin to its agreements with Japan, South Korea or Israel, “it will be a failure of the whole Western world,” Cherniev said. “This is our position, and we try to deliver this position to officials in the Trump administration.”
Jonathan Eyal of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K., told ABC News there are indications that may encourage Kyiv, despite Trump’s repeated hints at Ukrainian concessions.
“It appears that Trump seems to have bought into the idea that he can’t end the Ukraine war with an American retreat, that this would look very bad for him to start his presidency with — a retreat that would look as humiliating as Biden’s from Kabul in the summer of 2021.”
“So, there is this search for something that could be presented as an end to the war that is also an honorable one and not one that ends up with a sellout — or with the sacrifice of — Ukraine,” he said.
Trump selected retired general Keith Kellogg as his special envoy to Ukraine and Russia. The pick, Eyal said, might pique hope in Kyiv.
“Kellogg is on record in a lot of media interviews and articles saying that the war could be brought to an end only from a position of strength, and only if Putin is impressed by America’s determination to otherwise continue the war,” he said.
“I think there is a level of optimism in Kyiv that somehow the administration seems to have accepted that merely to get Putin to the negotiating table for a ceasefire, the United States will have to appear to be determined to defend Ukrainian interests rather than betray them,” he added.
Peace through exhaustion Some in Ukraine may have their own personal political calculations. Zelenskyy, for example, will be under pressure to quickly hold the presidential election scheduled for spring 2024 but delayed due to the conflict.
The wartime leader became a global icon for his gruff fortitude in the opening stages of the war, but his domestic popularity has since dipped. There is no guarantee that a post-war election will deliver Zelenskyy another term, especially if his legacy is tainted by territorial concessions to Moscow.
“He doesn’t want to lose, obviously,” a former Ukrainian official told ABC News on the condition of anonymity. “And for this, he needs to blame Trump for a fast peace, for a ceasefire, as if Ukraine could win the territories. But everybody knows we cannot, and he also knows he cannot.”
Many Ukrainians are hopeful despite the thorny question of concessions, the former official said. “When people heard that Trump promised to finish the war, they understood it’s not possible to do in 24 hours, but at least it was a break of the status quo,” they said.
“These calls to stay as long as is needed with Ukraine — that lost any meaning long ago,” the former official added of the common refrain offered by allied leaders since February 2022.
“People don’t care anymore about losing territories or how it will happen,” the former official said. “They want suspension, they want a break, they want a ceasefire, any deal.”
“That’s why so many of them were so joyful to see Trump coming in power, and many still have big hopes that he is strong enough to stop this war.”
There remain many unknowns. Lawmaker Merezhko said his efforts to build ties with Trump’s team had so far not been reciprocated.
“I have the impression that they might be hesitant to reach out to Ukrainian politicians before the inauguration,” he said. “Perhaps they don’t know yet what Trump’s policy is with regard to Ukraine.”
But like many of his compatriots, Merezhko said he remained hopeful. “I don’t have a feeling that Trump’s presidency will be catastrophic for Ukraine,” he explained.
“Of course, he will make an attempt to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine, but I doubt that it will be a success,” Merezhko continued. “Not because of Trump, but because of Putin, who is absolutely not interested in peace or a ceasefire.”
“Reality — harsh reality — is more powerful than any plans, ideas or desires of politicians.”
DECEMBER 30: Palestinians taking shelter in tent camps are battling harsh weather conditions as heavy rainfall has flooded their tents on December 30, 2024 in Deir al-Balah, Gaza. The ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza are worsen by the severe storms, which have led to widespread flooding in the camps where thousands have sought shelter. (Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Rebel forces in Syria are building a transitional government after toppling the regime of President Bashar Assad in a lightning-quick advance across the country.
The Israel Defense Forces continues its intense airstrike and ground campaigns in Gaza, particularly in the north of the strip around several Palestinian hospitals.
Meanwhile, the November ceasefire in Lebanon is holding despite ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah targets, which Israeli officials say are responses to ceasefire violations by the Iranian-backed militant group.
Tensions remain high between Israel and Iran after tit-for-tat long-range strikes in recent months and threats of further military action from both sides. The IDF and the Yemeni Houthis also continue to exchange attacks.
Israel intercepts missile from Yemen, threatens Houthi leaders
A missile launched from Yemen was intercepted by Israeli air forces, the Israel Defense Forces said in a Monday night statement, amid continued Israeli and Houthi long-range attacks.
Sirens sounded “due to the possibility of falling shrapnel from the interception,” the IDF said.
The latest missile launch came shortly after Danny Danon — Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations — said Israelis “have had enough” of attacks from the Houthis in Yemen, ongoing since October 2023 in protest of Israel’s war in Gaza.
“Israel will not stand by waiting for the world to act,” Danon said.
Addressing the Houthi leadership, he added, “Let me remind you what happened to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to [former Syrian President Bashar] Assad and to all those who thought to destroy us.”
“This is not a threat, it is a promise,” Danon said. “You will share the same miserable fate.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky, Dana Savir and Ellie Kaufman
Ukraine foreign minister meets Syrian leader in Damascus
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Monday met with Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa — also known by nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.
Sybiha became the latest foreign representative to meet with Sharaa in Damascus, where the latter’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham forces and their allies are establishing a transitional government having toppled former President Bashar Assad.
Sybiha wrote on X that he “personally conveyed the message” of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “We are with you and ready to assist in restoring normal life, stability and food security,” Sybiha said.
“We rely on the new Syria respecting international law, including Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he added. “This will pave the way to fully restoring our diplomatic ties, political dialogue and diplomatic presence. We are ready to develop cooperation in a number of areas.”
The visit came days after Zelenskyy announced Kyiv’s dispatch of 500 tons of wheat flour to Syria as part of the “Grain from Ukraine” humanitarian program in cooperation with the World Food Program.
Gaza hospitals become ‘battlegrounds,’ WHO chief says
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said early Monday that Gaza’s beleaguered hospitals “have once again become battlegrounds and the health system is under severe threat.”
Ghebreyesus said the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north Gaza town of Beit Lahia “is out of service,” following an Israeli raid which itself came after several weeks of encirclement and bombardment.
Israeli forces raided the compound on Friday, forcibly evacuating all remaining patients and staff. The Israel Defense Forces said it detained 240 alleged militants, among them hospital director Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya. The IDF said the hospital was a “command center” for Hamas “military operations” in the surrounding area.
Ghebreyesus said Safiya’s “whereabouts are unknown. We call for his immediate release.”
Kamal Adwan patients were transferred to the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, both of which have also reported repeated Israeli attacks. The latter “is itself out of function,” Ghebreyesus said.
“Seven patients along with 15 caregivers and health workers remain at the severely damaged Indonesian Hospital, which has no ability to provide care,” he added.
Four patients were detained by the IDF during their transfer out of Kamal Adwan Hospital, the WHO chief said.
Two other facilities — the Al-Ahli Hospital and Al-Wafa Rehabilitation Hospital in Gaza City — were also attacked and sustained damage on Monday, Ghebreyesus said.
“We repeat: stop attacks on hospitals,” he wrote. “People in Gaza need access to health care. Humanitarians need access to provide health aid. Ceasefire!”
Family of Gaza hospital director asks international community to help find him
The family of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Gaza Strip, is pleading with the international community to help learn his whereabouts, alleging he was detained by Israeli forces during a recent raid on the medical facility.
The family posted a message on Abu Safiya’s official Instagram page, on which the doctor had been posting updates about the hospital’s functioning, pleading, “We do not know the fate of our father.”
“We appeal to every compassionate individual and all international organizations and institutions to take action,” said the family, asking the international community to apply media pressure and make appeals to “help us push for his swift release from captivity.”
The message said Abu Safiya is still recovering from injuries he suffered a month ago while working at the hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement released on Saturday that Abu Safiya is suspected of being a Hamas terrorist and is being held in Gaza.
Abu Safiya had not been arrested in previous IDF raids of the hospital.
-ABC News’ Camilla Alcini and Nadine Shubailat
IDF issues statement on Kamal Adwan Hospital raid
The IDF released a statement outlining their operations in and around Kamal Adwan Hospital in the last few days.
The Israel Defense Forces said the hospital was a “command center” for Hamas “military operations in Jabaliya,” although the statement and attached media do not provide corroborating evidence of this.
The statement says the IDF faced heavy fighting in areas near the hospital, and says the IDF detained 240 terrorists, including the director of the hospital, Dr Hossam Abu Safiya, whom it says is is “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative.”
Abu Safiya was one of the only male staff members at the hospital not detained during the IDF’s raid of the hospital in October, and he would have helped coordinate numerous resupply and patient evacuations with Israel over the last several months.
Kamal Adwan is the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza and is operating at a limited capacity due to a lack of medical supplies and the repeated attacks on the hospital.
(NEW YORK) — The climate crisis is not a distant threat; it’s happening right now and affecting what matters most to us. Hurricanes intensified by a warming planet and drought-fueled wildfires are destroying our communities. Rising seas and flooding are swallowing our homes. And record-breaking heat waves are reshaping our way of life.
The good news is we know how to turn the tide and avoid the worst possible outcomes. However, understanding what needs to be done can be confusing due to a constant stream of climate updates, scientific findings, and critical decisions that are shaping our future.
That’s why the ABC News Climate and Weather Unit is cutting through the noise by curating what you need to know to keep the people and places you care about safe. We are dedicated to providing clarity amid the chaos, giving you the facts and insights necessary to navigate the climate realities of today — and tomorrow.
Report finds that geothermal energy could meet 15% of global energy demand through 2050
The Earth produces a lot of heat. Scientists believe our planet’s inner core is nearly as hot as the sun. Radioactive particles in rocks slowly decay, constantly replenishing the heat. Geothermal energy harnesses that heat to create energy and warm homes and buildings.
However, geothermal energy isn’t widely used despite being clean and renewable. It’s expensive and often location-specific, usually near tectonic plate boundaries.
But according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), geothermal power could become a significant source of electricity for the world. The intergovernmental organization found that “geothermal energy could meet 15% of global electricity demand growth between now and 2050 if project costs continue to decline.”
That would be enough power to meet the current demand of the United States and India combined. Unlike wind and solar, the IEA says geothermal can provide 24/7 energy generation. It also has the added benefit of heat production and storage.
“New technologies are opening new horizons for geothermal energy across the globe, offering the possibility of meeting a significant portion of the world’s rapidly growing demand for electricity securely and cleanly,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a press statement.
The IEA says with more financial investment, the cost of geothermal energy could fall by 80%. And at a time when finding workers with green energy skills can be challenging, the report states “up to 80% of the investment required in geothermal involves capacity and skills that are transferrable from existing oil and gas operations.”
“Geothermal is a major opportunity to draw on the technology and expertise of the oil and gas industry. Our analysis shows that the growth of geothermal could generate investment worth $1 trillion by 2035,” Birol added.
November was the 2nd warmest on record
With less than three weeks to go before 2025, global temperatures in November have made it all but certain that 2024 will be the warmest year ever recorded.
According to NOAA’s monthly climate assessment, last month was the second warmest November globally, with temperatures 2.41 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average. Temperatures were above average across much of the world, with Asia experiencing its warmest November ever recorded. Oceania and South America were second-warmest.
Year-to-date, the world is experiencing its warmest period on record. That means there’s a more than 99% chance that 2024 will break the yearly temperature record currently held by 2023, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
According to NOAA, global tropical cyclone activity matched the long-term record with 12 named storms this year. The Atlantic saw three hurricanes in November, including Rafael, which peaked as a Category 3 storm.
Global sea ice area was the second smallest in 46 years and more than one million square miles less than the 1991-2020 average.
-ABC News Climate Unit’s Matthew Glasser
Wildfire smoke: A significant contributor to air pollution in some US communities
In recent years, wildfire smoke has emerged as a significant cause of diminished air quality across many cities in the United States, according to a new recent study presented at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
The findings, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, suggest that wildfire smoke can contribute to as much as 50% of annual air pollution in certain parts of the U.S. Regions in Oregon, Nevada, California, Washington, North Dakota and Minnesota were identified as some of the most affected by this smoke-related air pollution.
The researchers say the impact of wildfire smoke doesn’t just stop in remote areas; it’s also impacting major urban centers. Some of the country’s largest cities, including New York, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta and Washington, D.C., reported significant smoke exposure in 2023. Los Angeles, Phoenix and Riverside experienced their highest smoke levels in 2020. The researchers say this year-to-year variation between locations underscores the unpredictable nature of wildfire seasons and their far-reaching consequences on air quality.
The researchers analyzed data collected from more than 800 particle monitors in over 350 areas, representing nearly 90% of the U.S. population. The team combined data from the NOAA Hazard Mapping System Fire and Smoke Product with surface PM2.5 readings to explore how these smoky days affect overall pollution levels. PM2.5 is a type of particulate matter pollution smaller than human hair that can cause a number of health problems, such as asthma and heart disease.
The results from the study raise important questions about public health and environmental policy, especially as climate change intensifies wildfire seasons. According to a study from researchers at the University of Tasmania, extreme wildfire events have more than doubled in frequency and magnitude globally over the past two decades. And the Environmental Protection Agency has found that the U.S. wildfire season has grown longer and shifted earlier in recent decades due to warmer springs, longer summer dry seasons and drier vegetation.
-ABC News Climate Unit’s Matthew Glasser and ABC News Medical Unit’s Vinh-Son Nguyen, MD
The rapidly warming Arctic tundra is now contributing to climate change
For thousands of years, the vast Arctic tundra has acted as a critical carbon sink. That means it absorbed more carbon dioxide than it produced. As a result, it has been removing a heat-trapping greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. However, rapidly warming conditions and increasing wildfire activity have now turned the region into a source of carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The Arctic region is warming much faster than the global average, and rapidly warming temperatures are fueling the troubling shift in several ways.
First, increasing temperatures are thawing the permafrost, releasing carbon that’s been stored in the soil into the atmosphere. Second, warmer conditions promote vegetation growth, contributing to more frequent wildfires in the region and additional carbon dioxide emissions.
The Arctic’s warmest years on record have all occurred within the last nine years. The persistent warming trend has contributed to declining snow cover and a shortening snow season. According to the report, last winter brought the shortest snow season in 26 years for portions of Arctic Canada, and overall, Arctic snow melt is occurring one to two weeks earlier than historical averages.
Less snow promotes further warming and increases the wildfire threat in the region. And these compounding factors create an unsettling cycle that feeds on itself, boosting global warming while making it increasingly difficult to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Rick Spinrad, NOAA’s administrator, said the addition of the Arctic tundra as a source of carbon dioxide emissions “will worsen climate change impacts.”
Local ecosystems are already having to adapt. According to the report, food sources for ice seal populations are shifting due to water temperature changes and warmer and wetter weather is devastating inland caribou herds.
If this trend continues, cascading impacts could reach far beyond the Arctic region. “What happens in the Arctic has wide-reaching implications for the entirety of North America and Eurasia,” Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a press statement.
-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck
The US just experienced its warmest autumn on record
Another season, another climate milestone. According to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), persistent above-average to record-warm conditions across much of the United States made meteorological autumn, which lasts from September to November, the warmest ever recorded.
The record-warm fall season makes it more likely that 2024 will end up as one of the nation’s warmest, if not the warmest, years on record. As of November 2024, the contiguous U.S. year-to-date temperature was 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit above average.
Despite December’s chilly start for much of the country, with widespread below-average temperatures in many regions, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center says that the cold will ease during the second half of the month with above-average temperatures favored from the West to the Northeast.
The stretch of abnormally warm temperatures was accompanied by extremely dry weather across much of the country, fueling dangerous wildfire conditions in regions like the Northeast. A very dry start to the season brought drought conditions to more than half of the lower 48 states by late October.
Fortunately, several significant rainfall events in November brought notable drought relief to large swaths of the country, reducing overall drought coverage by nearly 10.5% and suppressing the wildfire danger.
-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck
Nearly one-third of the planet’s species risk extinction because of climate change
Nearly one-third of the world’s species could be at risk for extinction because of climate change if the world does nothing to reduce global warming, according to a new analysis from Science.
University of Connecticut researcher and biologist Mark Urban found that while some species are adapting to climate change, 160,000 species are already at risk. Many are now facing declining populations because of changes in our climate.
According to the study, with current global temperatures at 1.3 degrees Celsius above industrial levels, 1.6% of species are projected to become extinct. As the temperatures warm even more, Urban found the extinction rate would also increase, with the most severe scenario included (5.4 degrees Celsius of warming) putting the extinction risk at 29.7%.
“The increased certainty of predicted climate change extinctions compels action,” Urban wrote. “Extinction represents just the final endpoint of a species’ existence; even when extinction is avoided, declining abundances and shrinking ranges can strongly affect many other species, including humans.”
Urban defines the risk of extinction as the probability that any one species will go extinct without mitigation efforts. Urban found that extinction rates could increase dramatically if global temperatures rise over 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to industrial levels.
1.5 degrees Celsius is the warming limit set by the world’s nations under the Paris Agreement after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that crossing that benchmark would lead to more severe climate change impacts.
Risks varied across geographic areas in the study, with Australia/New Zealand and South America facing the highest risks (15.7% and 12.8%, respectively) and Asia facing lower risks (5.5%).
-ABC News Climate Unit’s Kelly Livingston
Antarctic sea ice hits new low during Earth’s 2nd warmest November on record
Imagine you have a swimming pool with ice cubes filling it. Now, measure the total area of the pool that has ice on the surface, even if the ice cubes don’t cover it completely. Because ice often spreads out unevenly, leaving water between the chunks, scientists count areas where at least 15% of the surface is covered. So, because your pool is loaded with ice cubes, it would be considered ice covered. In the real world, scientists call it sea ice extent.
While you can add ice to your pool, you can’t to the ocean. And according to a new report by Copernicus, the European Union’s Climate Change Service, the sea ice extent in the Antarctic has dipped to its lowest value on record for the month of November. It is 10% below average. This occurred during a stretch of near-record global land and sea surface temperatures.
Last month ranked as the second warmest November on record globally, with an average temperature of 14.10 degrees Celsius, or 57.38 degrees Fahrenheit.
Copernicus noted the new data not only makes it virtually certain that 2024 will surpass 2023 as Earth’s warmest year on record, but it will likely be the first year to be 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) than the pre-industrial average of 1850-1900.
The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius to prevent the worst outcomes of climate change.
As of November 2024, the average global year-to-date temperature was 0.14 degrees Celsius (or 0.25 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than it was in 2023, which is the warmest year ever recorded.
