Temperatures fell below minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Nordic region for a second day in a row Wednesday, with the coldest January temperature recorded in Sweden in 25 years.

In Kvikkjokk-Årrenjarka in Swedish Lapland, the mercury dropped to minus 43.6 C (minus 46.5 F), the coldest temperature in the country in January since 1999, Sweden's TT news agency reported.

China's average temperature in 2023 was its hottest since records began, state media said citing officials Tuesday, capping a year of extreme weather events for the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Parts of northern and central Europe continued to grapple with flooding on Thursday after heavy rain. A barrier near the German city of Magdeburg was opened for the first time in a decade to ease pressure from the Elbe River, and some animals were removed from their enclosures at a safari park in northern Germany.

This week's floods have prompted evacuations of dozens or hundreds of people in parts of northern and central Germany, but largely dry weather was forecast on Thursday. Still, water levels on some rivers caused concern, and they have continued to rise in parts of Lower Saxony state in the northwest.

An avalanche on Mont Blanc swept two skiers to their deaths and left another injured, while a hiker was killed on another slope in the French Alps, according to local authorities.

The avalanche Thursday swept through an off-piste area of the Saint-Gervais-les-Bains ski resort at an altitude of 2,300 meters (7,545 feet), the administration for the Haute-Savoie region said in a statement.

As the deadliest year this century for forest fires comes to a close, attention is turning to how to prevent such infernos happening again.

In 2023 forest fires destroyed nearly 400 million hectares (988 million acres) of land around the world, killed more than 250 people and emitted 6.5 billion tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

An oil spill is sloshing tarry ooze onto beaches in the state of Carabobo along Venezuela's western coastline, several environmental groups said on Wednesday.

The spill was first detected on Tuesday, Yohan Flores, a regional director of the Azul Ambientalistas NGO, told AFP.

In northeast Colombia, police guard warehouses stacked high with confiscated timber with a noble new destiny: transformation into homes for bees beleaguered by pesticides and climate change.

Led by new solar power, the world added renewable energy at breakneck speed in 2023, a trend that if amplified will help Earth turn away from fossil fuels and prevent severe warming and its effects.

Norway's largest pension fund said Thursday it has divested from Saudi Aramco due to the oil giant's lack of climate action and from 11 other Gulf companies over human rights concerns.

KLP, which manages over 700 billion kroner ($70 billion), said the exclusion amounted to $15 million.

From an ice storm in North Dakota that sealed windows shut to blizzard conditions in Colorado causing hundreds of airport delays and cancellations, a winter storm pummeled much of the central United States on Tuesday, the day after Christmas.

"The heavy snow conditions in the Plains should be slowly alleviating today, but it'll be very slow," said Weather Prediction Center forecaster David Roth. "Even when the snow ends, the high winds should keep visibility near zero — whiteout conditions — for a decent part of today."