This year's powerful El Nino and the record global heat it's driving, along with severe droughts, wildfires and shrinking water supplies, could lead to nearly half a million more deaths worldwide by the end of February, according to a research report released Wednesday.

The grim warning by the University of Chicago-based Climate Impact Lab says that as many as 451,000 more heat-related deaths between June and the end of February could be attributed to El Nino, compared with heat deaths expected in a typical year.

Powerful Hurricane Polo sent bands of heavy rain across Mexico's Pacific coast Thursday as a growing Tropical Storm Nolo approached Hawaii with the potential for catastrophic flooding.

Polo was forecast to maintain Category 5 strength as it skirts Mexico's coast over the next few days. Rain and strong winds had already started to pummel the coast, with waves crashing onto the normally pristine beaches.

In the tangled greenery of a Ugandan national park, mountain gorillas sit among the leaves, calmly carrying on as tourists trek into their forest home.

Many gorilla families are used to people, but while their population grows, the forest available to them does not.

All signs are pointing toward a record-breaking El Nino this year, which experts say may cause severe drought in Asia and other extreme weather across the world, threatening food security for millions of people.

El Nino is part of a natural climate cycle of warming ocean temperatures, but this year's is expected to reach new extremes of drought, heat waves, flooding and other climate-related disruptions in South America, Africa and Asia.

Major global oil companies are treating the atmosphere like an "open sewer," the outgoing United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said Tuesday in a withering attack on the energy industry at the UN's high-level meeting.

Tropical Storm Polo will rapidly intensify in the Pacific Ocean and become a major hurricane later this week, forecasters said Monday.

Polo could bring heavy rain, rough surf and tropical-storm-force wind to parts of Mexico late Tuesday into early Wednesday, according to an advisory from the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.

A tiny wild cat hidden away in the cloud forests of Bolivia has become an unlikely tourist attraction, drawing a stream of visitors hoping for a glimpse of the animal that scientists have identified as a brand new species.

There is just one problem: Tigrino, as he has been affectionately dubbed, doesn't like the attention.

Countries are embracing clean power and taking steps to use less energy because of the war against Iran, but it is not yet enough to help address climate change.

When the U.S. and Israel launched the war in February, some backers of renewables opined it could drive a green transition as oil and gas prices spiked. So far, more than 30 governments have enacted policies to move away from fossil fuels or improve energy efficiency. Yet at the same time, global emissions of greenhouse gases increased slightly and investments in clean energy fell compared to the same period last year.

Human-caused global warming thinned glaciers and thawed mountain permafrost, likely helping to destabilize the Himalayan slope that collapsed last month and unleashed catastrophic flooding across Nepal, according to a report released Thursday.

The report by the World Weather Attribution cautioned that climate change was not the sole cause of the Aug. 26 disaster. A large 2015 Nepal earthquake may have weakened the rock years before the collapse, their analysis found.

Heavy rain caused flooding across parts of northern Vietnam on Thursday, disrupting travel, inundating homes and pushing several rivers above dangerous levels, authorities and state media said.

Rain has fallen across northern and north-central Vietnam this week, with some areas receiving more than 50 centimeters (19.7 inches), according to the disaster prevention department.