Climate change is the long-term shift in the Earth's average temperatures and weather conditions. The world has been warming up quickly over the past 100 years or so. As a result, weather patterns are changing. Since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one, the UK Met Office says.

As Earth warms at a record rate, winters are shorter and milder and there is less snow globally, creating clear challenges for winter sports that depend on cold, snowy conditions. With 100 days until the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games begin, many athletes say climate change is shaping their training and perhaps even the future of their sport.

Worldwide, the rate of heat-related deaths has risen by 23% since the 1990s, and now claim 546,000 lives each year, researchers reported today in The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change. Likewise, a record 154,000 deaths occurred due to air pollution from wildfire smoke in 2024 alone, researchers reported.

The Trump administration cut a NOAA program that had tracked weather events that caused at least $1 billion in damage. A nonprofit organization has redeveloped the database.

Climate change is the biggest issue of our time. 2024 marked both the hottest year on record and the highest levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the past two million years.

Climate change has become “that” topic – like evolution of species, plate tectonics, or AI – where the public has heard so much about it that many think they know everything they need to know. Such confidence is both a good and bad thing.

On Monday night at Missouri River Regional Library in Jefferson City, two local experts sought to explain what is driving up insurance rates.

CNN’s Erin Burnett speaks to “Capital Weather Gang” Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci about his journey into the eye of Hurricane Melissa, and the danger the storm is expected to bring.