Climate science shows that beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, impacts in the U.S. get substantially worse. The world is on track for almost double that level of warming by the end of the century.

The XBB.1.5 subvariant — nicknamed ‘Kraken’ — is arguably the most genetically rich and most transmissible SARS-CoV-2 omicron subvariant yet.

It's increasingly likely that the planet will reach 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, of warming, probably within the next two decades. But while that level of warming comes with a ...

The highly infectious omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant accounts for over 70% of cases in some parts of the United States. Here's we know about symptoms and severity so far.

SOMMER: Those heat waves will get more intense as temperatures rise. At 1.5 degrees Celsius, it's likely that 70- to 90% of coral reefs will die worldwide. But at 2 degrees of warming, 99% are lost.

Only stopping global temperature rise well below 1.5°C would head off this catastrophe, AOSIS argued. As Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, would later put it: “ 2°C is a death sentence ”.

Crucially, despite being a few dozen mutations away from the subvariant BA.5, which dominated last summer, XBB.1.5 is still a form of Omicron and not some completely new SARS-CoV-2 variant.

XBB.1.5, a relative of the XBB strain, has mainly been reported in the northeastern section of the US, the health agency said. Over 70% of COVID cases in New York through Maine are now XBB.1.5.