Global temperatures in the last two years have been higher than scientists anticipated. That may be because cloud cover has decreased, a study suggests.

“It’s hard to believe that we’d be talking about brush fires and droughts in New York City,” Mayor Eric Adams said.

The fire was in an “extremely dense” part of Prospect Park on a hill, and there were no structures nearby to be threatened, an FDNY official said.

October ended as one of the driest months on record in the U.S. Cities such as Philadelphia; Newark, New Jersey, and Norfolk, Virginia, recorded no rain at all.

Conditions in many parts of the U.S. on Thursday are expected to be 10 to 30 degrees warmer than average.

More than 100 daily record highs from the southern Plains to the Great Lakes are likely from Monday to Thursday this week.

The Southwest has been contending with unseasonably warm autumn temperatures 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit above average.

29 million people face heat alerts while tropical storms continue to brew in the Gulf of Mexico.

Across the U.S., 36 million people are under heat alerts. In parts of Arizona, California and Nevada, temperatures are expected to be 10 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal.

In Puerto Rico and other hard-hit places, marine researchers are trying to restore reefs and make corals more resilient — with some recent success.