Quick Take — The 25-year drought in the south-west of the USA could continue

A mega-drought has eroded water supplies, devastated farms and ranches, and fuelled fires across the American Southwest for 25 years. Not in 12 centuries has the region been so dry for so long.

Now comes worse news: relief may still be decades away.

According to new findings published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the dry spell is not just a bout of bad luck, no hard time that could end soon.

Instead, it appears to be the result of a Pacific Ocean temperature pattern that is “locked in” due to global warming, said Victoria Todd, a PhD student in paleoclimatology at the University of Texas at Austin who led the new research.

That means the drought could continue until 2050, perhaps even 2100 and beyond – in fact, Ms. Todd said, as long as humans continue to warm the planet….

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It also talks about the conditions in California that we have been following since 2013

Below: Lake Powell in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona, where July water levels are only at a third of capacity.

Credit…Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

Italian cheesemakers cool their cows to protect their milk

Butter – the cost of which has risen by 83% year-on-year – is made from milk fat and cream and therefore its production requires a lot of milk, the global supply of which has declined, partly due to the diseases that have affected dairy cow herds in Europe, and partly due to the high cost of feed. Then there is the issue of climate change that causes milk prices to skyrocket as Granarolo confirms

Quick Take — Europe hit by strong heatwaves

France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey have been hit by strong heat waves with ‘extreme heat and drought’. After the current pause, the waves will resume from 12 July onwards, at least in Italy. Temperatures are very high in the Mediterranean Sea and river flows are at their lowest.

We recall the situation in Sicily, which is partly without water.

On the seas read: The rise in temperature of European seas since the late 1970s

Compiled on 6 July, updated on 7 July 2025

Quick Take — Alarmed by Trump’s cuts, scientists are talking weather and climate science. For 100 hours

Meteorologists and climate researchers aim to run a livestream for 100 hours to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to weather and climate research…

Also : the Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget cuts about 90 per cent of funding for one of the country’s biological and ecological research programmes.

Known as the Ecosystems Mission Area, the programme is part of the United States. Geological Survey and studies almost every aspect of the ecology and biology of natural and human-altered landscapes and waters across the country.

The proposed 2026 budget allocates $29 million to the project, a cut from its current funding level of $293 million. The budget proposal also reduces funding for other programmes in the United States. Geological Survey, as well as other federal science agencies.

The budget still has to be approved by Congress, and scientists are seizing the opportunity to save the E.M.A. In early May, more than 70 scientific societies and universities signed a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, urging him not to eliminate the programme…

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Below: a recent article on climate change