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Scientists warn once-common species are disappearing faster than they can be counted as North America’s ash trees join IUCN’s list of endangered species due to threat of an invasive beetle

• In pictures: once-common ash trees and antelope added to red list

Native ash trees, abundant across North America, are on the brink of extinction as an invasive beetle ravages forests, according to the new red list of threatened species from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The list now includes more than 25,000 species at risk of extinction and the scientists warn that species, such as the American ashes and five African antelopes, that were thought to be safe, are now disappearing faster than they can be counted.

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British athlete Mark Beaumont is expected to complete his world tour on Monday after 79 days in the saddle, smashing the previous record of 123 days

Endurance cyclist Mark Beaumont is expected to arrive in Paris on Monday 18 September, 79 days after setting off on his attempt to cycle around the world in 80 days.

The Guardian joined Beaumont in Lisbon on Wednesday, where he arrived on an overnight flight from Halifax in Canada to start the final leg of his record-breaking challenge. Despite cycling an average of 240 miles over 16 hours every day since 2 July, he looked fresh and sounded upbeat as we ticked off more miles on our way to the Spanish border. Yet he admitted the ride has taken its toll on him, both mentally and physically.

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An Aboriginal group in Tasmania says a state government plan to reopen drive tracks that run through the Tarkine would see areas of significant cultural and historical value destroyed.

Environmental activist group says it is detaining vessels for Timorese police after Chinese-owned fleet allegedly targeted sharks

The ocean activist group Sea Shepherd says it has delivered armed Timor-Leste police on to a Chinese-owned fishing vessel in a dawn raid and is detaining the vessels for the police after it was found targeting sharks.

Following a two-week hunt for the Pingtan Marine Enterprises fleet, the Sea Shepherd boat M/Y Ocean Warrior found the vessels 150km south of Timor-Leste, allegedly fishing with gill nets anchored to the bottom of the sea, which would suggest they were targeting bottom-dwellers such as sharks.

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Chair of newly formed Energy Security Board, Kerry Schott, says that by harnessing demand management in Australia, "we can all stop worrying about building new plants of any description."

Sandy, Bedfordshire A leave-taking of Britain is playing out in the skies as swifts and martins fuel up for their epic journey

Through these last weeks of summer, the autumn migration has played out in the skies, though it goes largely unnoticed by most below. A trickle of an exodus began over the bank holiday with three dark specks, way, way up in the blue. Specks, yes, but you could see, from the wings curved like taut bows, that they were unmistakably swifts.

Hatched on northern ledges they had become citizens of heaven. They deviated on insect-chasing sallies in all directions, but were overall tracking south-west.

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The Australian energy statistics provides annual energy consumption, production and trade statistics and analysis.

Wirsol Energy adds ready-to-build 110MW Wemen solar farm near Mildura to its planned 1GW by 2020 pipeline.

A pair of giraffes with leucism, a condition that inhibits pigmentation in skin cells, have been filmed by conservationists for the first time

A pair of rare white giraffes have been spotted in Kenya, to the delight of local residents and conservationists.

The reticulated giraffes, a mother and child, suffer from a genetic condition called leucism, which inhibits pigmentation in skin cells. Unlike albinism, animals with leucism continue to produce dark pigment in their soft tissue, which explains the white giraffes’ dark eyes and other colouring.

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EnergyAustralia's Mark Collette tells ABC TV replacing Liddell by 2022 not a problem, but a race to the future and a huge industry opportunity.

GE Renewable Energy has unveiled its brand-new 4.8–158 onshore wind turbine, GE’s largest high efficiency turbine to date.

The Saturn probe takes some final images ahead of its mission-ending dive into the ringed planet.

Windlab lands 10-year PPA with CS Energy for ground-breaking wind-solar-battery storage project in north Queensland.

One power optimiser for two module solution now locally approved.

High mountains of Asia hold biggest store of frozen water outside the poles and feed many of the world’s great rivers, including the Ganges

Asia’s mountain glaciers will lose at least a third of their mass through global warming by the century’s end, with dire consequences for millions of people who rely on them for fresh water, researchers have said.

This is a best-case scenario, based on the assumption that the world manages to limit average global warming to 1.5C (2.7F) over pre-industrial levels, a team wrote in the journal Nature.

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We'e done the modelling on how to replace Liddell with a dispatchable renewable energy plant - including wind, solar, storage and gas. We just need politicians to get out of the way and get on the bus.

Striking new report by one of world's biggest independent energy consultants shows dramatic decline in coal, and oil industry and a peak in global energy demand. Solar dominates, and has only just begun its path to becoming biggest source of energy.

Environmental group 4nature has dismissed as fear-mongering an article in The Australian on Tuesday that claimed its court action threatens the closure of the Mt Piper power station.

Hurricane Irma (now downgraded to a tropical storm) caused widespread devastation as it passed along the northern edge of the Caribbean island chain and then moved northwards through Florida. The storm’s long near-coastal track exposed a large number of people to its force.

At its peak, Hurricane Irma was one of the most intense ever observed in the North Atlantic. It stayed close to that peak for an unusually long period, maintaining almost 300km per hour winds for 37 hours.

Both of these factors were predicted a few days in advance by the forecasters of the US National Hurricane Center. These forecasts relied heavily on modern technology - a combination of computer models with satellite, aircraft and radar data.

Read more: Irma and Harvey: very different storms, but both affected by climate change

Forecasting is getting better

Although Irma was a very large and intense storm, and many communities were exposed to its force, our capacity to manage and deal with these extreme weather events has saved many lives.

There are many reasons for this, including significant construction improvements. But another important factor is much more accurate forecasts, with a longer lead time. When Tropical Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin in 1974, the Bureau of Meteorology could only provide 12-hour forecasts of the storm’s track, giving residents little time to prepare.

These days, weather services provide three to five days’ advance warning of landfall, greatly improving our ability to prepare. What’s more, today’s longer-range forecasts are more accurate than the short-range forecasts of a few decades ago.

We have also become better at communicating the threat and the necessary actions, ensuring that an appropriate response is made.

The improvement in forecasting tropical cyclones (known as hurricanes in the North Atlantic region, and typhoons in the northwest Pacific) hasn’t just happened by good fortune. It represents the outcome of sustained investment over many years by many nations in weather satellites, faster computers, and the science needed to get the best out of these tools.

Tropical cyclone movement and intensity is affected by the surrounding weather systems, as well as by the ocean surface temperature. For instance, when winds vary significantly with height (called wind shear), the top of the storm attempts to move in a different direction from the bottom, and the storm can begin to tilt. This tilt makes the storm less symmetrical and usually weakens it. Irma experienced such conditions as it moved northwards from Cuba and onto Florida. But earlier, as it passed through the Caribbean, a low-shear environment and warm sea surface contributed to the high, sustained intensity.

In Irma’s case, forecasters used satellite, radar and aircraft reconnaissance data to monitor its position, intensity and size. The future track and intensity forecast relies heavily on computer model predictions from weather services around the world. But the forecasters don’t just use this computer data blindly – it is checked against, and synthesised with, the other data sources.

In Australia, government and industry investment in supercomputing and research is enabling the development of new tropical cyclone forecast systems that are more accurate. They provide earlier warning of tropical cyclone track and intensity, and even advance warning of their formation.

Still hard to predict destruction

Better forecasting helps us prepare for the different hazards presented by tropical cyclones.

The deadliest aspects of tropical cyclones are storm surges (when the sea rises and flows inland under the force of the wind and waves) and flooding from extreme rainfall, both of which pose a risk of drowning. Worldwide, all of the deadliest tropical cyclones on record featured several metres’ depth of storm surge, widespread freshwater flooding, or both.

Wind can severely damage buildings, but experience shows that even if the roof is torn off, well-constructed buildings still provide enough shelter for their occupants to have an excellent chance of surviving without major injury.

By and large, it is the water that kills. A good rule of thumb is to shelter from the wind, but flee from the water.

Windy.com combines weather data from the Global Forecast System, North American Mesoscale and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts to create a live global weather map.

This means that predicting the damage and loss caused by a tropical cyclone is hard, because it depends on both the severity of the storm and the vulnerability of the area it hits.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 provides a good illustration. Katrina was a Category 3 storm when it made landfall over New Orleans, about as intense at landfall as Australian tropical cyclones Vance, Larry and Yasi. Yet Katrina caused at least 1,200 deaths and more than $US100 billion in damage, making it the third deadliest and by far the most expensive storm in US history. One reason was Katrina’s relatively large area, which produced a very large storm surge. But the other factor was the extraordinary vulnerability of New Orleans, with much of the city below normal sea level and protected by levées that were buried or destroyed by the storm surge, leading to extensive deep flooding.

We have already seen with Hurricane Irma that higher sea levels have exacerbated the sea surge. Whatever happens in the remainder of Irma’s path, it will already be remembered as a spectacularly intense storm, and for its very significant impacts in the Caribbean and Florida. One can only imagine how much worse those impacts would have been had the populations not been forewarned.

But increased population and infrastructure in coastal areas and the effects of climate change means we in the weather forecast business must continue to improve. Forewarned is forearmed.

Andrew Dowdy is working on a project funded through the National Environmental Science Programme (NESP) Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub.

Jeffrey David Kepert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Science is laying bare the secrets of orchids, one of the biggest families of flowering plant.