Thermometers registered record highs across the eastern U.S. in mid-February. The map shows temperatures in degrees Fahrenheit on Feb. 21, 2018, at 1 p.m. EST. Credit: National Weather Service
Flooding is frequent in the mudflats north of Manila in the Philippines, where the city has expanded due to rising population. Sea level rise threatens many such low-lying areas around the world. Photograph by Geirge Steinmetz, National Geographic Creative
In this 2014 file photo, a road dead ends where rising waters have covered the land at the San Jacinto battlefield along the Houston ship channel in Houston, Texas. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
LAKE POOPÓ The dry, salt-crusted Bolivian lake bed unfurls into the distance. Boats are stranded; the fish and waterfowl are gone. Fishermen who depended on the lake are moving else - where. It’s a diaspora born of drought. PHOTOGRAPH BY MAURICIO LIMA
Plumose anemones and velvet swimmer crab, River Forth, Scotland, 2005. Credit: GK underwater/Alamy Stock Photo.
The world’s oceans could become “uninhabitable” for cold-water corals by the end of the century as a result of ocean acidification, research suggests...
Rising sea levels increase the risk of storm surge flooding in coastal cities like Charleston, South Carolina, shown here after Hurricane Matthew. Credit: Brian Blanco/Getty Images
The Bering Sea is a volatile place, with powerful storms and changing sea ice. Here, a ship plows through the ice toward Nome, Alaska, in January 2012. Credit: U.S. Coast Guard/Getty Images
‘Tell me a story.’ How often as children did we ask this of those who cared for us? How exciting it has been in recent years to discover that the First Book is not a collection of disconnected scientific facts about a Universe that serves merely as a backdrop for our lives. Rather, it is a Story of a Universe that from within itself has unfolded stars and galaxies, mountains and oceans, plants and animals, you and me. The whole Cosmos is on a collective journey, and our individual journeys are part of that. It is a Story of the Universe that carries the meaning of what it means to be human, telling us where we are, where we come from, who we are, and what is expected of us. At our peril we ignore it. As a guide into our future, we relish it.
Floods are set to rise in 85% of UK cities that have a river. (Darren Staples/Reuters)
Flooding is frequent in the mudflats north of Manila in the Philippines, where the city has expanded due to rising population. Sea level rise threatens many such low-lying areas around the world. Photograph by Geirge Steinmetz, National Geographic Creative
In this 2014 file photo, a road dead ends where rising waters have covered the land at the San Jacinto battlefield along the Houston ship channel in Houston, Texas. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
LAKE POOPÓ The dry, salt-crusted Bolivian lake bed unfurls into the distance. Boats are stranded; the fish and waterfowl are gone. Fishermen who depended on the lake are moving else - where. It’s a diaspora born of drought. PHOTOGRAPH BY MAURICIO LIMA 
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/57956191/664085586.jpg.0.jpg)
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Rising sea levels increase the risk of storm surge flooding in coastal cities like Charleston, South Carolina, shown here after Hurricane Matthew. Credit: Brian Blanco/Getty Images
The Bering Sea is a volatile place, with powerful storms and changing sea ice. Here, a ship plows through the ice toward Nome, Alaska, in January 2012. Credit: U.S. Coast Guard/Getty Images/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/58709035/GettyImages_917838754.0.jpg)