Eight Amazon nations called on industrialized countries to do more to help preserve the world's largest rainforest as they met at a major summit in Brazil to chart a common course on how to combat climate change.

The leaders of South American nations that are home to the Amazon, meeting at a two-day summit in the city of Belem that ends Wednesday, said the task of stopping the destruction of the rainforest can't fall to just a few when the crisis has been caused by so many.

Scientists are wondering if global warming and El Nino have an accomplice in fueling this summer's record-shattering heat.

The European climate agency Copernicus reported that July was one-third of a degree Celsius (six-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) hotter than the old record. That's a bump in heat that is so recent and so big, especially in the oceans and even more so in the North Atlantic, that scientists are split on whether something else could be at work.

The death toll from recent flooding in China's capital rose to 33, including five rescuers, and another 18 people are missing, officials said Wednesday, as much of the country's north remains threatened by unusually heavy rainfall.

Days of heavy rain hit areas in the city's mountainous western outskirts especially hard, causing the collapse of 59,000 homes, damage to almost 150,000 others and flooding of more than 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of cropland, according to the city government.

For the first time in 14 years, presidents of the South American nations home to the Amazon rainforest are converging to chart a common course for protection of the bioregion and address organized crime. The summit Tuesday and Wednesday in the Brazilian city of Belem is a meeting of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, a toothless, 45-year-old alliance that has met only three times before.

The Amazon stretches across an area twice the size of India, and two-thirds of it lies in Brazil. Seven other countries and one territory share the remaining third — Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, Ecuador and French Guiana. Presidents from all but Ecuador, Suriname and Venezuela are attending.

Now that July's sizzling numbers are all in, the European climate monitoring organization made it official: July 2023 was Earth's hottest month on record by a wide margin.

July's global average temperature of 16.95 degrees Celsius (62.51 degrees Fahrenheit) was a third of a degree Celsius (six tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) higher than the previous record set in 2019, Copernicus Climate Change Service, a division of the European Union's space program, announced Tuesday. Normally global temperature records are broken by hundredths or a tenth of a degree, so this margin is unusual.

Even in Antarctica — one of the most remote and desolate places on Earth — scientists say they are finding shattered temperature records and an increase in the size and number of wacky weather events.

The southernmost continent is not isolated from the extreme weather associated with human-caused climate change, according to a new paper in Frontiers in Environmental Science that tries to make a coherent picture of a place that has been a climate change oddball. Its western end and especially its peninsula have seen dramatic ice sheet melt that threatens massive sea level rises over the next few centuries, while the eastern side has at times gained ice. One western glacier is melting so fast that scientists have nicknamed it the Doomsday Glacier and there's an international effort trying to figure out what's happening to it. And Antarctic sea ice veered from record high to shocking amounts far lower than ever seen.

Norwegian authorities warned Tuesday to prepare for "extremely heavy rainfall" after Storm Hans caused two deaths, ripped off roofs and upended summertime life in northern Europe.

Strong winds continued to batter the region along with rains, causing a lengthy list of disruptions in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and Latvia. Ferries were canceled, flights were delays, roads and streets were flooded, trees were uprooted, people were injured by falling branches and thousands remained without electricity Tuesday.

The Amazon rainforest is a massive area, twice the size of India and sprawling across eight countries and one territory. It's a crucial carbon sink for the climate, has about 20% of the world's freshwater reserves and boasts astounding biodiversity, including 16,000 known tree species.

But governments have historically viewed it as an area to be colonized and exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples.

Stormy weather across the Baltic Sea region Monday caused airport delays, suspended ferry service and a train's partial derailment along with lots of rain.

No one was injured in Sweden when two of the train's passenger cars went off the tracks in Hudiksvall, a town 280 kilometers (174 miles) north of Stockholm, police said. The derailment happened because "the embankment has been undermined by the heavy rain and landslides," they said.

Lebanon is sending two helicopters to join Greek and Jordanian aircraft in helping European Union member Cyprus fight a blaze that has scorched miles of mountainous terrain, an official said Monday.

Cyprus Foreign Ministry spokesman Theodoros Gotsis told The Associated Press that neighboring Lebanon is expected to send a pair of choppers as the wildfire continues to reignite on several fronts.