When Pam Knox walked into the peach orchard at the University of Georgia horticulture farm this spring, there was nothing on the trees except leaves and a couple of brown fruits — the result of one of the state's warmest winters ever followed by two nights of freezing weather in March.

"It's just really odd, because over the course of one night, they lost their entire crop and their entire production here," said Knox, an agricultural climatologist with the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, which shares research and expertise with farmers and others. Commercial peach farmers in the state lost as much as 95% of their yield, she estimated.

On air quality maps, purple signifies the worst of it. In reality, it's a thick, hazardous haze that's disrupting daily life for millions of people across the U.S. and Canada, blotting out skylines and turning skies orange.

And with weather systems expected to hardly budge, the smoky blanket billowing from wildfires in Quebec and Nova Scotia and sending plumes of fine particulate matter as far away as North Carolina and northern Europe should persist into Thursday and possibly the weekend.

An early bird El Nino has officially formed, likely to be strong, warp weather worldwide and give an already warming Earth an extra kick of natural heat, meteorologists announced.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Thursday issued an El Nino advisory, announcing the arrival of the climatic condition. It may not quite be like the others.

Intense Canadian wildfires are blanketing the northeastern U.S. in a dystopian haze, turning the air acrid, the sky yellowish gray and prompting warnings for vulnerable populations to stay inside.

Republican members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources are raising concerns about ties between Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and an Indigenous group from her home state that advocates for halting oil and gas production on public lands.

The members on Monday sent a letter to Haaland requesting documents related to her interactions with Pueblo Action Alliance as well as those of her daughter, Somah, who has worked with the group and has rallied against fossil fuel development.

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Jennifer Weeks, The Conversation

Japan's government on Tuesday adopted a revision to the country's plans to use more hydrogen as fuel as part of the effort to reduce carbon emissions.

The plan sets an ambitious target to increase the annual supply by six times from the current level to 12 million tons by 2040. It also pledges 15 trillion yen ($107 billion) in funding from both private and public sources to build up hydrogen-related supply chains over the next 15 years.

Nations resumed talks on tackling global warming Monday with the aim of shaping a deal that might put the world on track to prevent a dangerous increase in temperatures, as the U.N.'s top climate official called for deep cuts in fossil fuel use.

Diplomats began two-week negotiations in Bonn, Germany, despite failing to agree on a formal agenda because of differences on the topic of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

While judges, lawyers and support staff at the federal courthouse in Concord, New Hampshire, keep the American justice system buzzing, thousands of humble honeybees on the building's roof are playing their part in a more important task — feeding the world.

The Warren B. Rudman courthouse is one of several federal facilities around the country participating in the General Services Administration's Pollinator Initiative, a government program aimed at assessing and promoting the health of bees and other pollinators, which are critical to life on Earth.

Global negotiators have agreed to craft a draft treaty to end plastic pollution, a preliminary but crucial step toward tackling one of the most lasting sources of human waste.

Environmental advocates cautiously welcomed the outcome of five days of U.N. talks in Paris on plastic pollution, but expressed concern that the petroleum industry and some governments would water down the eventual treaty. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels.