In even the bleakest climate change scenarios for the end of this century, science has offered hope that global warming would eventually slow down. But a new study published Monday snuffs out such hope, projecting temperatures that rise lockstep with carbon emissions until the last drops of oil and lumps of coal are used up.

Global temperatures will increase on average by 8 degrees Celsius (14.4 degrees F) over preindustrial levels by 2300 if all of Earth’s fossil fuel resources are burned, adding five trillion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere, according to the research by Canadian scientists published in Nature Climate Change. In the Arctic, average temperatures would rise by 17 degrees C (30.6 degrees F).

In the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia, time has stopped working.

Communities in the region traditionally kept time by pegging it to environmental markers, such as melting snow or the first appearance of a migratory bird. But these “ecological calendars” have ceased to function properly due to the effects of climate change.

Solar Impulse 2 was on Monday approaching the end of its epic bid to become the first sun-powered airplane to circle the globe without a drop of fuel to promote renewable energy.

The first solar-powered plane to circle the world took off from Cairo on Sunday for Abu Dhabi, in the final leg of its journey.

Earlier this year media outlets around the world announced that February had broken global temperature records by a shocking amount. March broke all the records, too. In June our screens were covered with surreal images of Paris flooding, the Seine bursting its banks and flowing into the streets. In London, the floods sent water pouring into the tube system right in the heart of Covent Garden. Roads in south-east London became rivers two metres deep.

With such extreme events becoming more commonplace, few deny climate change any longer. Finally, a consensus is crystallising around one all-important fact: fossil fuels are killing us. We need to switch to clean energy, and fast.

The alarm sounded and in a blink the base thrummed with activity. Smokejumpers grabbed helmets, donned kevlar suits, tested radios and strapped on parachutes. A speaker blasted Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.

“Final checks, OK, let’s go,” boomed a command. Within minutes eight smokejumpers were airborne in a Twin Otter, climbing into a blue Idaho sky. The plane soon returned, empty, to pick up another eight jumpers.

This past month nudged out June 2015 as the warmest on record, according to data just released by NASA.

That makes the first six months of 2016 the warmest first half of any year since 1880. June’s record warmth also means we’ve experienced nine months in a row of record setting temperatures.

Animal and plant species are declining so quickly that world biodiversity loss is no longer within a “safe limit” and could start to threaten much of the planet’s ability to support humans, according to a major new study.

Last month was the hottest June in modern history, marking the 14th consecutive month that global heat records have been broken, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday.

"The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for June 2016 was the highest for the month of June in the NOAA global temperature dataset record, which dates back to 1880," the agency said in a statement.

By Benjamin Franta

One morning in the summer of 2014, I found myself in the city of Tacloban in the Philippines. The city and surrounding area had been devastated less than a year earlier by Super Typhoon Yolanda. Thousands had been killed; bodies were found for months afterwards.