Sunlight illuminates Hurricane Irma as the storm approaches Cuba and Florida in this geocolor image from GOES-16 taken on Sept. 8. (NOAA via AP)

Between the hurricanes raging through the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico and the massive wildfires roaring out West, 2017 has been quite a year for inclement weather in the United States. By some measures, it's been historically intense.

A Fountaingrove Village homeowner watches as their home she and her husband have owned for four years is destroyed, on October 9, 2017, in Santa Rosa, California. Photo: David McNew/Getty Images

It’s been a terrifying season for what we used to call natural disasters. For the first time in recorded history, three hurricanes arose simultaneously in the Caribbean...

US secretary of state Rex Tillerson, left, is a proponent of geoengineering and once referred to climate change as “just an engineering problem”. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Leading researchers and campaigners express concern that geoengineering research could be used as an excuse not to reduce CO2 emissions...

The following definitions and descriptions are essential to understanding the states, processes, and consequences of global warming now being discussed throughout the media. This short glossary will hopefully make it considerably easier for the public to understand the many complex facts and processes surrounding global warming issues.

Getty Images

Some Puerto Rico residents are turning to a hazardous waste site for drinking water as the island continues to reel from Hurricane Maria...

Ledson Winery in Sonoma Valley. John Burgess/Press Democrat

An army of firefighters with a larger aerial arsenal at their disposal held their ground and made some gains Saturday on devastating wildfires ravaging Wine Country, but evacuation orders that forced thousands from their homes before dawn and a rising death toll were clear reminders of the peril that still grips the region...

If climate change continues to worsen unchecked, and forest degradation continues unabated, then unstoppable Amazon mega-fires could be seen in this century; such fires would greatly increase the release of carbon into the atmosphere worsening climate change. Photo courtesy of IBAMA

Editor's Pick:

Record Amazon fires stun scientists; sign of sick, degraded forests...

Alex Wroblewski/Getty Pictures

Legendary independent journalist I.F. “Izzy” Stone often cautioned, “All governments lie.” But even Izzy would have been dizzy with the deluge of lies pouring out of the Trump administration, including President Donald Trump’s claim that human-induced climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese to hurt the U.S. economy...