The evidence of how climate change is already affecting our world seems to grow more pronounced with every passing day.

At least 2,000 cows at a Kansas feedlot were killed this week by excessively high temperatures, as the latest record-breaking spring heat wave pushed east across the country.

“This was a true weather event — it was isolated to a specific region in southwestern Kansas," A.J. Tarpoff, a cattle veterinarian with Kansas State University, told the Associated Press. “Yes, temperatures rose, but the more important reason why it was injurious was that we had a huge spike in humidity ... and at the same time, wind speeds actually dropped substantially, which is rare for western Kansas.”

On Wednesday, the National Weather Service advised more than one-third of the U.S. population to remain indoors to protect themselves against that same potentially deadly combination of heat and humidity. Scientists have termed that lethal mix the "wet-bulb" effect. When the body gets hot, it sweats, and the evaporation of that sweat helps cool the body. But when the humidity in the atmosphere is too high, that evaporation isn't possible, and the sweat doesn't help cool the body down.

“We need a differential between the human body and the environment, and if the air is already holding as much moisture as it can, you don't have that gradient,” Radley Horton, Lamont Research Professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told Vice News. “Your body's not able to get the atmosphere to take that moisture from it.”

While climate scientists had previously predicted that such high temperatures and humidity would not arrive on Earth until the mid-21st century, recent studies have found that "extreme humid heat overall has more than doubled in frequency since 1979."

On Monday, 10,000 visitors to Yellowstone National Park had to be evacuated after an excess of rainfall unprecedented for June. Roads, bridges and homes in the park were washed away, the park remains closed, and on Thursday, President Biden issued federal disaster assistance to Montana.

The rain unleashed on Montana was part of a so-called atmospheric river that broke records in Washington state shortly before it pushed east. Studies have linked an increase in those records to rising air and water temperatures caused by climate change.

More generally, research has linked rising global temperatures to higher levels of atmospheric moisture, what's known as the Clausius-Clapeyron relation. When conditions are right, that excess moisture is released, causing severe downpours and storms like the ones that hit the Midwest this week, knocking out power to half a million people amid triple-digit temperatures, and making the need for air conditioning acutely felt.

Meanwhile, the extreme drought that has gripped the American West continues apace. The last 20 years have been the driest two decades in the past 1,200 years. As a result, rivers, lakes and reservoirs are drying up at alarming speed.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing this week on the dwindling water supply in the Colorado River and its reservoirs, including Lake Mead and Lake Powell. In all, 40 million people across the West rely on the Colorado for water.

“What has been a slow-motion train wreck for 20 years is accelerating, and the moment of reckoning is near,” John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, testified at the hearing. “We are 150 feet from 25 million Americans losing access to the Colorado River, and the rate of decline is accelerating.”

Water-rationing restrictions have been put in place in California and are likely to be extended there and in other states in the coming months.

The science is crystal clear about why these weather-related disasters continue to pile up: Human beings are pumping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which traps the sun's radiation, warming temperatures.

For years now, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, has measured that buildup at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, charting the steady rise on a graph known as the Keeling Curve.

Ultimately, researchers say, until mankind reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the consequences being witnessed this spring will persist. Just as certainly, they will worsen along with the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Yet there is still much that we don't know about how climate change will play out in the coming decades. A study published in April in the Cornell University astrophysics journal arXiv concluded that mankind is ushering in an unprecedented shift in the Earth's climate system. Those changes, contrary to the claim of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., earlier this week, are not likely to prove "healthy for us."

"The implications of climate change are well known (droughts, heat waves, extreme phenomena, etc)," researcher Orfeu Bertolami told Live Science in an email. "If the Earth System gets into the region of chaotic behavior, we will lose all hope of somehow fixing the problem."

Essendon coach Ben Rutten is confident up-and-coming ruckman Sam Draper will relish the opportunity to take on key St Kilda duo Paddy Ryder and Rowan Marshall.Ryder and Marshall have formed one of the AFL's most dangerous ruck pairings in recent years.

California officials are weighing whether to list the iconic western Joshua tree as a threatened species, which would make it harder to remove the trees for housing and energy projects

Scientists have warned that livestock could suffer more and more heat stress as the climate crisis grows

Richmond coach Damien Hardwick says Shai Bolton made a mistake in taunting opponent Sam Docherty before kicking an important goal in the Tigers' narrow AFL win over Carlton.Bolton caused controversy early in the fourth quarter of Thursday night's contest at the MCG when he held the ball aloft in front of the chasing Blues defender while running into an open goal.

US President Joe Biden has called on China and other major economies to redouble their efforts to combat climate change and improve energy security, warning that Russia's invasion of Ukraine had sharpened the need for urgent action.At the third virtual gathering of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) under his presidency, Biden urged countries to accelerate moves to cut methane emissions, adopt ambitious targets for zero-emission vehicles and work to clean up global shipping.

Back when green was merely a color as opposed to a movement, Bill McKibben was on the frontlines of the environmental wars. After graduating from Harvard in 1982, he worked at the New Yorker but eventually left to publish “The End of Nature” in 1989, a book that established him as a leading thinker on the damage human activity is causing to the planet — and future generations of humans.

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Angry bank customers who travelled to a city in central China to retrieve their savings from troubled rural banks have been stopped by a health app on their mobile phone.Chinese residents are required to have the app, which displays a code indicating their health status, including possible exposure to COVID-19.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has defended the appointment of former deputy premier John Barilaro as the state's senior trade and investment commissioner to the Americas.The government announced Mr Barilaro's selection for the US role on Friday afternoonHe was appointed after a "highly competitive and rigorous global talent search" managed by specialised recruitment firm NGS Global, the state government said.

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Stephanie Gilmore has won through to the semi-finals of the World Surf League's El Salvador round on an otherwise barren day for Australia.7 will face American wildcard Caroline Marks, with the men's and women's events likely to be decided by Saturday (AEST).

Six candidates will contest the by-election for the South Australian seat of Bragg next month following the resignation of former deputy premier Vickie Chapman.Independent candidate Neil Aitchison drew top spot on the ballot paper on Friday with Labor's Alice Rolls in second place and Liberal Jack Batty third.

A forensic exam carried out on human remains found in the Amazon rainforest has confirmed they are of British journalist Dom Phillips.Work was underway to determine the cause of death, Brazil's federal police said in a statement.

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Protesters across the country have demanded an end to armed police in remote Indigenous communities.Saturday's marches follow the March murder acquittal of Northern Territory police officer Zachary Role after he fatally shot Aboriginal teenager Kumanjayi Walker, who was armed with scissors.

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