El Niño

Our planet spun faster than normal last year, scientists say.

As noted on LiveScience, the Earth's 28 fastest days on record (since 1960) all occurred in 2020, with Earth completing its revolutions around its axis milliseconds quicker than average.

2019 is the second warmest year ever recorded, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has announced, quoted by France Press. This was also the warmest decade.

2019 was only 0.04 degrees Celsius colder from 2016, the warmest year ever since the El Nino phenomenon. According to NASA data, in 2016 El Nino's extreme intensity has increased global temperatures by 0.2 degrees Celsius.

Climate change is making stronger El Niños, which change weather worldwide and heat up an already warming planet, AP reported, citing a study published in the American Academy of Sciences.

Australians are suffering a brutal post-Christmas heatwave, with temperatures in most parts of the country's southeast up to 14 degrees Celsius (24 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the average for this time of year, reported CNN. 

With the first six months of 2017 in the books, average global surface temperatures so far this year are 0.94°C above the 1950-1980 average, according to NASA. That makes 2017 the second-hottest first six calendar months on record, behind only 2016, The Guardian reported.

A new United Nations report says 34 countries, nearly 80 percent of them in Africa, do not have enough food for their people because of conflicts, drought and flooding.

The figure has grown from 33 last December, after the addition of Swaziland, which was placed under the countries with severe localized food insecurity. 

One of the hottest and driest places on earth is again full of life thanks to El Nino phenomenon. The Death Valley is experiencing its biggest explosion of flowers since 2005.

This once-in-a-decade natural phenomenon is dubbed the “super bloom describing the combination of rare yellow, pink, purple and red flowers which cover the desert landscape.

More than 100,000 people have had to evacuate from their homes in the bordering areas of Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina due to severe flooding in the wake of heavy summer rains brought on by El Nio, authorities said on Dec 26.