This chart of ocean temperatures should really scare you…

If you were to dip your toes into the middle of the North Atlantic — say, somewhere between South Carolina and Spain — the water would feel frigid. You definitely wouldn’t want to swim. It’s winter.

Yet that water would, in fact, be very warm, relatively speaking. Right now, the North Atlantic ocean is, on average, warmer than any other time on record, running about 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the average temperature over the last three decades.

Cities are sinking, and it’s making them more vulnerable to climate change…

America’s coastal cities are sinking, putting more people at risk for flooding than urban planners might have expected with sea level rise alone.

The gradual sinking of land, also known as land subsidence, could cause flooding to reach far more communities than previously anticipated, according to new research published today in the journal Nature. The study looked at 32 major cities along the US shoreline, and forecasted future flooding with climate change. In a worst-case scenario without adequate flood defenses, up to one in 50 people and one in 35 properties in those cities could face flooding during high tide by 2050.

Scientists Are Freaking Out About Ocean Temperatures…

For the past year, oceans around the world have been substantially warmer than usual. Last month was the hottest January on record in the world’s oceans, and temperatures have continued to rise since then. The heat wave has been especially pronounced in the North Atlantic.

“The North Atlantic has been record-breakingly warm for almost a year now,” McNoldy said. “It’s just astonishing. Like, it doesn’t seem real.”

US spends billions on roads rather than public transport in ‘climate time bomb’…

Roads, roads and more roads. The US is continuing to spend billions of dollars on expanding enormous highways rather than fund public transport, with a landmark infrastructure bill lauded by Joe Biden only further accelerating the dominance of cars at the expense, critics say, of communities and the climate.

Since the passage of the enormous $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure law in 2021, hailed by Biden as a generational effort to upgrade the US’s crumbling bridges, roads, ports and public transit, money has overwhelmingly poured into the maintenance and widening of roads rather than improving the threadbare network of bus, rail and cycling options available to Americans, a new analysis has found.

Historic winter heat wave shatters hundreds of longstanding records…

The modern winter climate history of the Central U.S. was rewritten this week, as more than 130 monthly high temperature records were set from Texas to Michigan.

**Why it matters: **The historic winter heat wave illustrates how extreme day to day weather can act in concert with climate change to set new milestones.

The computer chip industry has a dirty climate secret…

The semiconductor industry has a problem. Demand is booming for silicon chips, which are embedded in everything from smartphones and televisions to wind turbines, but it comes at a big cost: a huge carbon footprint.

The industry presents a paradox. Meeting global climate goals will, in part, rely on semiconductors. They’re integral to electric vehicles, solar arrays and wind turbines. But chip manufacturing also contributes to the climate crisis. It requires huge amounts of energy and water – a chip fabrication plant, or fab, can use millions of gallons of water a day – and creates hazardous waste.

UK gives £600m backing to Jim Ratcliffe’s ‘carbon bomb’ petrochemical plant…

The UK government is providing a €700m (£600m) guarantee for the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe to build the biggest petrochemical plant in Europe in 30 years that will turbocharge plastic production.

The huge petrochemical plant has been described as a “carbon bomb” by campaigners. Being constructed in the Belgian city of Antwerp by Ratcliffe’s company Ineos, it will bring plastic production to Europe on a scale not seen before, just as countries are trying to negotiate a binding global treaty to tackle the growing problem of plastic pollution.

Deadly Texas wildfires, just 3% contained, scorch 1 million acres…

As record wildfires continue to rage in Texas, a woman was killed after authorities say flames overtook her truck. The Smokehouse Creek Fire has now scorched more than one million acres. NBC’s Morgan Chesky reports for TODAY.

Firefighters battle to contain deadly Texas blazes…

In Texas, firefighters are working around the clock in a desperate attempt to control massive wildfires that have already claimed two lives in the panhandle.