temperature news stories on Newser

Hot Weather Leads to 'Yucky' Maple Syrup

Evann Gastaldo — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:48:38 CDT

The record high temperatures in March resulted in maple syrup that one syrup distributor refers to as simply “yucky,” and total syrup output in the US fell as much as 40%, Reuters reports. "It was kind of a disaster," the company owner says with regard to the 2012 season. Sugar...

East Coast Burning Up

Polly Davis Doig — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 08:40:19 CDT

Another wave of oppressive heat clamped down on a broad swath of Eastern states yesterday and today, reports the AP, with temperatures in the high 90s and 100s and residents scrambling for shade or just staying indoors. In the Mid-Atlantic, already the locus for brutal temperatures several times in July,...

Fat America Won't Need Mittens

Nick McMaster — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:00:00 CDT

America’s ever-expanding waistlines may eventually render mittens obsolete, a new study suggests. Researchers for the NIH found that overweight people generate more heat than their lean peers, but don’t retain it any better. Instead, the heat exits from the hands and feet—so an overweight person’s extremities are, on average,...

French Wines Wither Under Climate Change

Matt Cantor — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 10:13:00 CDT

A warming world has French winemakers sweating more than a little, experts tell the Financial Times . “Current research suggests that by the end of the 21st century, one summer out of two will be at least as hot as 2003,” the year of a record-breaking heat wave that prompted early...

Climate Change Reverses 8 Millennia of Arctic Cooling

Harry Kimball — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:09:44 CDT

Summer temperatures in the Arctic have climbed 2.2°F since 1900 despite an 8,000-year cooling trend, the Guardian reports. For the past few thousand years, the orbit of the Earth and the changing tilt of its axis has put the Arctic 630,000 miles further from the sun than...

High-Tech Mug Keeps Coffee Just Right

Matt Cantor — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:02:12 CDT

German scientists have developed a coffee mug that gets your joe to the right temperature and keeps it there, Der Spiegel reports. The secret is phase-change material, waxy stuff used in home-building to maintain temperatures indoors. It's also stuffed inside winter jackets, and if these scientists have their way, it...

Wildfires Kill 14 in Southeast Australia

Matt Cantor — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 07:30:00 CST

Australian wildfires have killed 14 people in the southeast, and police fear dozens more could be dead, the Age reports. Some 100 homes have been destroyed in dozens of fires, the worst in the history of the state of Victoria. Police suspect arson is behind some of the fires, which...

Tongue Twister: Cold Kid Copies Christmas Story

Drew Nelles — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:22:02 CST

With much of the US in a deep freeze, life imitated a holiday classic for a boy who froze his tongue to a metal pole on a dare, the Times of Northwest Indiana reports. “You’d think everybody in the country had seen A Christmas Story by now,” a police officer...

March Land Temperatures Hit Record High

Matt Cantor — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:05:19 CDT

This March was the world's warmest ever on record over land surfaces—and the second warmest overall, AP reports. Land temperatures worldwide averaged 40.8 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.2 degrees above the 20th-century average. Over land and sea, only 2002 saw higher temperatures in 129 years of record-keeping, adding to...