Climate and environment updates: As climate gets warmer, sleep may suffer, study says

The pilots and scientists who fly into hurricanes face a storm that has nothing to do with the weather. Called "hurricane hunters," these crews fly into tropical cyclones and winter storms to collect data essential for forecasting a storm’s path, timing and strength.

Operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Air Force, these crews are now facing staffing and maintenance issues, according to a newly released report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The report’s release comes as NOAA and the National Weather Service (part of NOAA) are facing staff reductions that have impacted various offices nationwide.

The GAO report details the critical role that the program plays in weather forecasting and storm preparation and says staffing and maintenance issues are forcing the cancellation of necessary missions.

Staffing shortages have impeded the completion of mission objectives, as hurricane hunter personnel face growing workloads, NOAA officials said, explaining that “the agency is often one illness or injury away from having to cancel missions.” The GAO also identified an aging aircraft fleet and an inadequate number of maintenance technicians as problems for the agency.

In 2023, all three of NOAA’s Hurricane Hunter aircraft were grounded due to maintenance issues as Hurricane Idalia threatened Florida in late August.

However, the report found that these issues weren't the only reason flights were being canceled. Demand for hurricane hunter reconnaissance flights has increased in recent years, primarily due to the addition of atmospheric river missions on the West Coast, which were added in 2019. Very active Atlantic hurricane seasons in recent years is also a contributing factor.

The GAO published a list of recommendations aimed at improving operations. It suggested developing a process to better track personnel and manage maintenance requests and issues. The report also recommended that organizations perform staffing assessments to identify their current needs. Additionally, it noted that poor communication between NOAA and Air Force senior leadership has hindered the availability of reliable aircraft. NOAA and the Air Force said they agreed with the recommendations.

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

The Trump administration may no longer be supporting renewable energy, but in 2024, the United States made significant strides with its energy source shift.

Last year, the U.S. generated a record amount of energy from solar and wind sources, enough to power the equivalent of more than 70 million average American homes, according to a new analysis of U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data by Climate Central, a nonprofit climate research group.

In 2024, 756,621 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity came from solar and wind, triple the amount generated a decade ago. Solar and wind combined accounted for about 17% of the country’s electricity generation.

In the United States, solar is now the fastest-growing source of electricity, with increases in solar generation reported across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., over the past decade, according to the analysis. California was the biggest solar energy producer in 2024, with Texas and Florida rounding out the top 3. Between 2023 and 2024, U.S. solar generation increased 27%.

Currently, 42 states produce electricity from wind, with 39 reporting an increase in wind generation over the past decade. Texas is the largest wind energy producer, accounting for about 28% of all wind generation in the United States last year. The next largest wind energy-producing state is Iowa. While the total amount of wind generation is significantly lower than in Texas, wind accounts for nearly two-thirds of all the electricity produced in the Hawkeye state.

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

While frequent arctic blasts impacted much of the United States, meteorological winter ended up warmer than average, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Across the contiguous United States, meteorological winter, which runs from Dec. 1 through the end of February, had an average temperature of 34.1 degrees Fahrenheit, running 1.9 degrees above average and ranking in the warmest third of NOAA’s historical record. Winter is now the fastest warming season for most of the country,

Winter precipitation across the Lower 48 was below average, making it the driest third of NOAA’s historical record. According to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report released on Mar. 4, about 44.4% of the contiguous U.S. is experiencing drought conditions, an increase of about 2% since the beginning of February.

Alaska’s winter season temperature was 10 degrees Fahrenheit above the long-term average, ranking as the third-warmest in the 101 years of record for the state. The northern third of Alaska is part of the Arctic Circle, a region that is warming much faster than the global average.

To the south, Anchorage experienced its least snowiest winter on record with just 4.6 inches of snow falling. This broke the previous record set during the winter of 2015-2016 by nearly 3 inches. This year, the starting line of the world-famous Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was moved about 360 miles north, from Anchorage to Fairbanks due to a lack of snow.

While we cannot directly attribute this to human-amplified climate change, in a warming world, more precipitation will fall as rain instead of snow, according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment. And less reliable cold weather will make it increasingly difficult for the snow essential to winter activities, like the Iditarod, to stick around.

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

It has been a frigid start to 2025 for much of the United States. However, globally, the planet's long stretch of near-record to record-high temperatures has proved detrimental to global sea ice cover.

Global sea ice extent fell to its lowest recorded value in February, according to data analyzed by the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Last month also ranked as the third-warmest February on record for the planet.

Sea ice extent is the area of ocean covered by ice that's at least 15% frozen. Global sea ice extent combines the values of the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions. The new record occurred because both regions experienced below-average coverage simultaneously, with Arctic sea ice cover dropping to a new record low for February, according to the report.

The Arctic region is warming much faster than the global average. After acting as a carbon sink for thousands of years, the area has become a source of carbon dioxide emissions due to rapidly warming conditions and increasing wildfire activity, according to a recent report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

While last month ranked as the third-warmest on record for the planet, it registered more than 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average (1850-1900), making it the 19th of the last 20 months to exceed the warming threshold established in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

Exceeding the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold temporarily is not seen as a failure to limit warming under the agreement since it looks at the climate average over multiple decades.

February was the first month that has not been the warmest or second-warmest on record since June 2023. A temporary decline in global temperature records was anticipated due to the current La Niña conditions in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean, which usually leads to a decrease in the global average temperature.

However, this pause will likely not last long as the overall long-term global average temperature trend keeps going up, fueled by human greenhouse gas emissions.

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck