The Sun's activity is defying forecasts and highlighting how difficult it is to predict the machinations of Earth's nearest star.
Why it matters: Space weather, which is largely driven by the Sun,can shorten the lifespans of satellites, cause radio blackouts and, in extreme solar storms, bring down power grids.
The weeks-long heat wave affecting a vast swath of the U.S. has been particularly noteworthy in one city that was not the subject of many extreme weather headlines this past week: Miami.
The big picture: The city is typically hot in June and July, but this spring and summer has been a different level of South Florida heat.
A "relentless" and historic heat wave continues to bring potentially deadly temperatures from the West and Southwest across the South Central states, with more records forecast to fall.
The big picture: Over 104 million people were under heat alerts on Tuesday morning, stretching across a dozen states from Nevada to Florida, according to heat.gov.
Monitoring the planet's climate this summer can give one the impression that the climate system — which includes the oceans, atmosphere, ice sheets and more — has gone off the rails.
Why it matters: The blitz of extreme weather events is posing dangers to life and infrastructure, and exposing our vulnerabilities even at today's relatively modest level of warming, about 1.2°C (2.16°F) above preindustrial levels.
A firefighter has died after fighting a wildfire in Canada's Northwest Territories — two days after a 19-year-old firefighter was killed while responding to a fire in British Columbia, officials said Sunday.
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