Natural

The mass arrival of Portuguese man o’ war on the Cantabrian coast could become a common occurrence in the coming years. Experts point to a combination of factors such as temperature, wind, and currents due to the respective changes these phenomena are undergoing because of climate change. Faced with a situation that not only poses a risk to swimmers but also to the well-being of these organisms, two scientific studies have set to work to understand the behavior of these animals and predict their movements.

The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, announced this Sunday that the fire declared on August 6 in the Raboconejo area of Niebla (Huelva) has been declared stabilized. The announcement of the Infoca Plan was made at 10:30 a.m. this Sunday, after nine days of work, the forest fire declared on the 6th in Niebla (Huelva) which has spread over more than 38,000 hectares across eleven municipalities.

The Niebla fire, whose extinguishing device has been active for a week now, is already the largest fire in the history of Andalusia since records began, surpassing the Riotinto Mines fire in 2004, which burned more than 27,800 hectares.

Spain debuts the new European rules on packaging while carrying pending development duties. The European Regulation has started to be applied this week and will gradually deploy its main measures over the coming years. Most of the obligations, which will be applicable from 2030, aim to reduce packaging waste, limit single-use products, and move towards a model based on reuse and recycling.

The first measures of the European regulation on packaging and packaging waste, which came into force in February 2025, will begin to be applied tomorrow progressively until 2040. The regulation will affect the design, manufacture, marketing, recyclability, reuse, and management of packaging used in various sectors.

The powerful weather phenomenon El Niño threatens to push 49 million more people into acute hunger in some of the regions most vulnerable to its effects by the end of 2027, reaching 274 million people, according to a report by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Of the 45 countries analyzed, the most affected regions are expected to be southern Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, with a considerable increase in the number of people facing food insecurity.

The main rivers of Europe have seen their flow drastically reduced. The Rhine in western Germany and the Danube in Romania register approximately one third of the water volume they usually carry, while the Loire and the Po also suffer the effects of the drought that affects much of the continent.

The Prague Zoo uses tons of ice this Thursday to help its animals cope with another heat wave hitting Europe. The polar bears Aleut and Gregor waste no time and start rolling over piles of ice cubes as soon as they go out to their outdoor enclosure in the morning.

Human-caused climate change multiplied by 20 the conditions favorable for wildfires in the central peninsula this year. In other words, it made the extreme weather conditions that fueled these fires 20 times more likely than in a preindustrial world without warming. And in the case of the southwest region of France hit by the fires, climate change caused by human activities now makes disasters of this magnitude twice as likely.

Night work on the fire in Fermoselle (Zamora) has allowed for a “substantial reduction in its danger” with the stabilization of the two fronts that were most concerning, the north and the east, although it still maintains four active sectors and numerous hot spots.