The world's coral reef ecosystems almost all face a high risk of collapse in the next 50 years, mostly due to warming oceans and heat waves, according to a global assessment released Thursday.

It's the latest dose of bad news for coral reefs, which are critical sources for seafood and tourism and often serve as buffers from coastal erosion and storms. Sometimes dubbed "rainforests of the sea," they have some of the world's richest biodiversity. They support a quarter of marine species as well as coastal communities and businesses.

There are stretches of high desert in northwestern New Mexico where Mother Nature has sculpted otherworldly forms using wind, rain and the passage of time.

Hefty planks of rock defy gravity as they balance atop spindly pedestals of clay, while some columns of sandstone take on the appearance of lace, elaborately eroded by the seasons.

The world is on track for 2026 to be the second-hottest year on record, with global temperatures virtually certain to exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the EU's climate monitor said Friday.

This year also has a "20 percent chance of tying or exceeding" 2024 as the warmest ever seen, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a monthly bulletin.

Three stories about climate change are playing out like popular movie genres as United Nations climate negotiations begin in Antalya, Turkey.

There's the horror story. Many scientists believe global warming is accelerating. Two months ago, the U.N. readjusted its decade-old goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) because the world is blowing past that threshold. The fallout from rising temperatures is felt globally, with Europe's deadly summer heat waves and Nepal's devastating flooding as stark examples.

Row after row of solar panels stretches across a vast landscape in the central Turkish province of Konya, turning sunlight into electricity — and helping Turkey, the host of the upcoming U.N. climate summit, spotlight its efforts to expand renewable energy.

Still, advocates for robust action on climate change say Turkey's cleaner energy ambitions stand in sharp contrast to its continued reliance on coal.

The Red Cross on Wednesday urged leaders heading to the United Nations climate conference in Turkey to rapidly scale up investment in protecting vulnerable populations against humanitarian impacts brought by a warming planet.

A chaotic climate phenomenon is intensifying heavy rains and floods in the Southwest, experts say.

A natural warming cycle called El Niño is sizzling Pacific Ocean waters, leaking moisture into the air that can fuel passing storms. Such El Niño events can happen irregularly every couple of years, but scientists say the latest iteration is particularly extreme — and it's just getting started, with impacts expected for several more months.

Heavy rains fell Tuesday in eastern India after the second cyclone to hit the area in a week prompted evacuations of thousands of people.

Cyclone Murasu made landfall in the morning near Ongole in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh state with maximum sustained winds of 100-110 kph (62-68 mph), the India Meteorological Department said. Heavy rain was forecast for several hours as the cyclone weakened.

As a child, Rebeca Quiñonez-Piñón wondered where monarch butterflies stop for a meal and a night's rest on their long migrations across North America. Now she and other scientists are attaching tiny tracking devices to hundreds of butterflies to find those critical stopover locations before they disappear.

Swarms of dazzling orange-and-black monarchs use environmental cues to travel some 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) from as far as southern Canada to spend the winter in forests of oyamel fir trees in central Mexico, a protected biosphere reserve that's also a World Heritage site.

The skies were clearing, but the risk of flooding remained over parts of the U.S. Southwest after powerful downpours sent massive amounts of water surging over the usually dry landscape, forcing hundreds to evacuate and keeping swift-water rescue teams busy.

Officials said cleanup and repair efforts could take weeks. One person died in the floodwaters and police suspect a second death was weather-related.