Atlantic hurricane season: what lies ahead

El Niño is almost gone from North America after helping fuel a hot, stormy year, and there’s a good chance it will see La Niña – its opposite – by the end of summer. In its recent monthly forecast, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave La Niña a 69% chance of forming in July, August or September. What does this mean for hurricanes? Pedro DiNezio explains how this climate phenomenon works and why La Niña is fueling fears of an extreme Atlantic hurricane season.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was reported to have saved milllions of lives during the COVID pandemic. This week the European Commision announced that it was no longer authorised for use. Michael Head argues that, from the beginning, the vaccine suffered from a poor public profile, arguably much of it undeserved. He unpacks the Commission’s decision.

Stacy Morford

Environment + Climate Editor

La Niña is coming, raising the chances of a dangerous Atlantic hurricane season – an atmospheric scientist explains this climate phenomenon

Pedro DiNezio, University of Colorado Boulder

After a year of record-breaking global heat with El Niño, will La Niña bring a reprieve? That depends on where you live and how you feel about hurricanes.

AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine withdrawn – right to the end it was the victim of misinformation

Michael Head, University of Southampton

AstraZeneca withdrawing it COVID vaccine from the market has nothing to do with blood clots.

Africa dramatically dried out 5,500 years ago – our new study may warn us of future climate tipping points

Martin H. Trauth, University of Potsdam; Asfawossen Asrat, Addis Ababa University; Mark Maslin, UCL

The climate ‘flickered’ between wet and dry, before finally drying out for good.
Germany lowers voting age to 16 for the European elections – but is it playing into the far right’s hands?

Gabriele Abels, University of Tübingen

The far-right Alternative for Germany is courting the youth vote on TikTok with great success, ahead of the elections in June.
Fossilised circles in the sand on South Africa’s coast may be artwork by our early ancestors

Charles Helm, Nelson Mandela University; Jan Carlo De Vynck, University of the Witwatersrand

There appear to be two possible explanations for circular patterns with central depressions in Pleistocene deposits on the Cape coast.
War games risk stirring up troubled waters as Philippines − emboldened by US − squares up to Beijing at sea

Fred H. Lawson, Northeastern University

US Marines and Philippine forces are taking part in joint military exercises just 100 miles off the southern tip of Taiwan.
War in Gaza has plunged Israel’s tourism industry into a crisis it will struggle to recover from

Samuel Scanlon, University College Dublin

Israel’s tourism industry has taken a hit since the start of the war, and it may never fully recover.
As climate change amplifies urban flooding, here’s how communities can become ‘sponge cities’

Franco Montalto, Drexel University

US cities are doing green infrastructure, but in bits and pieces. Today’s climate-driven floods require a much broader approach to create true sponge cities that are built to soak up water.

Hadeda ibises’ ‘sixth sense’ works best in wet soil: new research is a wake-up call for survival of wading birds with this superpower

Carla Jacquelyn du Toit, University of Cambridge

Africa’s hadeda ibises can sense vibrations using a special sensory organ in their beaks. But they need moist soil for it to work.