geoeasy

Over the past decade, the title of the “largest solar farm in the world” has changed hands frequently. As the global demand for renewable energy surges, countries are racing to expand their solar capacity, pushing the limits of what was once thought possible.In 2014, the Topaz Solar Farm in California held the title with a 550-megawatt (MW) facility. Just a year later, Solar Star, another California-based solar project, surpassed it with a capacity of 579 MW. By 2016, India took the lead with the Kamuthi Solar Power Project in Tamil Nadu, boasting 648 MW of capacity.Then, in February 2017, China claimed the top spot with the Longyangxia Dam Solar Park, a massive solar installation with a staggering 850 MW of capacity.

Australia’s bushfire season has once again taken a devastating turn. In its seasonal bushfire outlook, Australia’s National Council for Fire and Emergency Services warned that severe rainfall deficits over the past 18 months had left large amounts of dry vegetation in Victoria’s forests. This accumulation created ideal conditions for wildfires to ignite and spread rapidly.

The start of 2025 has set a worrying new milestone in climate history. According to the latest Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) bulletin, January 2025 was the warmest January ever recorded globally. The data reveals that the global average surface air temperature for the month reached 13.23°C, which is 0.79°C higher than the January average between 1991 and 2020.

In the remote northwest corner of the Pacific Ocean, a dotted line of islands stretches between northern Japan and Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. The Kuril Archipelago is sparsely populated by humans but riddled with volcanoes. The Zavaritskogo volcano (also called Zavaritskii) is a striking feature on Simushir Island, in the middle of the archipelago. It is made up of nested, steep-walled calderas surrounding a central lake.