As the climate shifts, rivers will both flood and dry up more often, according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Shortages are especially likely in parts of the world already strapped for water, so political scientists expect feuds will become even more intense. To track disputes worldwide, researchers at Oregon State University spent a decade building a comprehensive database of international exchanges—-both conflicts and alliances—over shared water resources. They found that countries often begin disputes belligerently but ultimately reach peaceful agreements. Says Aaron Wolf, the geographer who leads the project, “For me the really interesting part is how even Arabs and Israelis, Indians and Pakistanis, are able to resolve their differences and find a solution.”

Dozens of the world's top climate scientists have gathered in Japan this week with representatives from around 100 countries to work on the latest United Nations report about climate change. According to leaked drafts, the report is all but calling the climate situation an emergency: Far from causing future problems for a few species bearing white fur or feathers, hotter temperatures are already changing local conditions for humans, and a lot faster than most climate researchers once believed possible.

In 1924, at the French ski resort of Chamonix, the very first Winter Olympics got off to a precarious start. “A new thaw which set in on Monday has kept the skaters off the Olympic ice rink and even threatens to delay the start of the winter games,” wrote Sparrow Robertson in The New York Herald. “At Les Bossons, where the ski-jumping is scheduled to take place, the snow is so thin that it would be dangerous to permit any jumping until there has been another fall.”

Good news on the climate front, sort of: When we cut emissions of heat-trapping gases worldwide, global warming slows down. In a new analysis of temperatures and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, researchers have found that the measurable reduction in emissions of ozone-depleting substances in the past 25 years has been matched by a break in the speed at which surface temperatures increased, compared to prior years.

What debate? A recent draft of an international consensus report offers stronger-than-ever evidence that global warming is driven by human activity. The report also adjusts its expectations for important climate change effects such as how much sea levels will rise, while admitting the difficulty in estimating what will happen to individual cities in the age of climate change.

By 2050, plane trips to Europe could take longer, use more fuel and be subject to more turbulence, according to a new study.