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Typhoon Haiyan
The deadly typhoon that swept through the Philippines was one of the strongest ever recorded. But storms nearly this powerful are actually common in the eastern Pacific. Typhoon Haiyan’s devastation can be chalked up to a series of bad coincidences. Typhoons — known in our part of the world as hurricanes — gain their strength…
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How Can Cities Reduce the “Heat Island” They Create?
More than 20,000 high-temperature records have been broken so far this year in the United States. And the heat is especially bad in cities, which are heating up about twice as fast as the rest of the planet. High temperatures increase the risk of everything from asthma to allergies, and can even be deadly. But…
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Greenland’s Ice Melting Overestimated
A new study has some reassuring news about how fast Greenland’s glaciers are melting away. Greenland’s glaciers hold enough water to raise sea level by 20 feet, and they are melting as the planet warms, so there’s a lot at stake. A few years ago, the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland really caught people’s attention. In…