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Tsunami's cause great destruction and can be caused by volcanic eruptions or earthquakes.

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Monsoons are important to Asia and parts of Western Africa. Monsoons can cause great affects for agriculture or at times cause catastrophic damage.

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Many people think of a monsoon as a drenching summer rain. However, a monsoon is actually the wind pattern that causes such rains. Monsoon winds reverse direction between…

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The weather and climates we live in can also affect our farming. Every year thousands of crops are destroyed by drought or flooding.

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The sandstorms of the Sahara Desert in Africa can cause fatal air pollution. One sandstorm in 2020 even caused dust clouds that were visible here in the United States.

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Not only can the climate be hard to live with in Australia but the wildlife can hurt you also.

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This is a fascinating article they list some of the most extreme climates in the world.

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Every human being who has ever lived was born on Earth. With the exception of a few professional space travelers, no member of our species has ever traveled farther than a few dozen miles from its surface. Every person you've ever known or read about has lived here, inside a thin layer sandwiched between the hot lower layers of the crust and the frigid upper atmosphere. Just about all of the life known or suspected to exist in the universe evolved in this tiny pocket, and virtually none of it will ever leave. Pity it's such a dump.

It's not all bad, of course-especially when it's compared to some of the planets out there, like Venus -but there's no denying how badly adapted humans are to live in almost every environment on Earth. It's so rough that we've had to invent technology to shelter ourselves from nature in almost every place we live, lest we immediately die of exposure. With that in mind, it might be fun to have a look at some of the most extreme permanently inhabited places in the world, though no amount of space is adequate to explain why people have chosen to inhabit them.

The Hottest Human-Occupied Place In The World: Mecca

Mecca is the hottest continuously inhabited place on Earth, according to Weather Underground. How hot does it get there? Well, do you consider 101 degrees a hot day? Because that's the average high in Mecca in April. Now think about the tourist boom in Mecca that comes with every Ramadan, which in 2014 fell during July, when the city is a nice, frosty 109 degrees every day, though it's been known to hit 121 on occasion.

The Coldest Human-Occupied Place In The World: Grise Fiord, Canada

On the complete opposite side of creation from the blazing sun of Mecca, Grise Fiord, Canada is the coldest inhabited place in the world. In the local Inuktitut language, the place is known as Aujuittuq, or the "place that never thaws," a name of such stunning obviousness it's like calling Mount Everest "high place."

As befits a place that can get 40 degrees colder than the US government considers safe for non-emergency work, Grise Fiord's present population is the result of a forced relocation of Inuit people. Of course, that all happened way back in . . . 1955. The government, being Canadian, has since apologized for the human-rights violation of shipping a whole population to a frozen hell. In 2008.

The Driest Human-Occupied Place In The World: Atacama, Chile

Here's what Alonso de Ercilla had to say about the Atacama desert in 1569: "Towards Atacama, near the deserted coast, you see a land without men, where there is not a bird, not a beast, nor a tree, nor any vegetation." Near the town of Calama, in Chile's Atacama desert, it would rain a little bit the year after he wrote that-and then not at all until 1971.

Such water as is available in Calama percolates up from an underground aquifer. Since it comes from deep in the rock, it's hot, and because it bubbles up through arsenic, it's also toxic.

The Atacama is the world's driest place. The combination of cold ocean currents and high mountains ensures that centuries can pass between significant bouts of rain. It is literally physically impossible for clouds to form over the desert, and parts of it have been this way since before the dinosaurs evolved, making it the world's oldest desert as well.

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The World's Extreme Climates And The People Who Live There

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Every human being who has ever lived was born on Earth. With the exception of a few professional space travelers, no member of our species has ever traveled farther than a few dozen miles from its surface.

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Satellite view of Hawaii. The entire island chain was created by volcano eruptions.

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There is a ritual of sorts that goes on in Florida every year when folks get wind of the news that a big storm is a-brewing. Windows are boarded, boats are dry-docked and grocery stores and home improvement stores are picked clean of anything that might come in handy in the unlikely event that a massive hurricane hits.

What keeps people going through the annual routine of following spaghetti models and prepping for the big one in the Sunshine State and other coastal areas is that many have seen a hurricane or two, and they know the kind of serious destruction these storms can cause. From an 18th-century hurricane that ravaged the Caribbean to the devastating blow issued by Sandy in 2012, history is replete with stories of the wreckage and ruin that come with a major storm.

By definition, a hurricane is a tropical storm with winds above 74 miles per hour (119 kilometers per hour). The systems occur all over the world. In the Western Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Oceans, they are called hurricanes. In the Indian Ocean and South Pacific, they are called cyclones and in the Western Pacific, they are called typhoons.

The following hurricanes aren't necessarily the deadliest of all time, or the costliest. But they all sit at the intersection of property damage, powerful winds and human tragedy, and all captured the world's attention for differing reasons. We've listed them in order of lives lost.

Hurricane Michael decimated the Florida Panhandle, particularly in the Panama City Beach, Mexico Beach and Cape San Blas, when it made landfall Oct. 10, 2018 as a Category 5. It was the strongest hurricane ever to hit that area and only the second Category 5 to make landfall on the Gulf Coast. Michael also was the first Category 5 storm to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Hurricane Michael started as a typical weak October Caribbean tropical system. However, once the system moved over warm Gulf of Mexico waters, it rapidly intensified and became a major hurricane with sustained winds of 161 miles per hour (259 kilometers per hour). The catastrophic damage was caused from wind and storm surge, and spread inland into southwest Georgia.

Michael caused 16 deaths in four states, including Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia. Damage estimates from the Insurance Information Institute from Michael total between $9 and $12 billion.

After traveling through the Gulf of Mexico in late August 2017, Hurricane Harvey arrived in the United States as a Category 4 storm. At the time it was the first major hurricane to make landfall in the continental United States in a decade, after 2005's Hurricane Wilma. The arrival of Harvey coincided with its peak intensity: winds of 130 miles per hour (215 kilometers per hour). Coastal communities in Texas like Corpus Christi and Galveston were hard-hit, but the most striking damage was in Houston, the fourth-largest city in the country.

Flooding in Houston was severe, as Harvey remained over the area for days, dumping up to 50 inches (127 centimeters) of water in certain locations. That's the same amount of rainfall Houston usually sees in an entire year, all deposited in a four-day span, and the area's ecosystem and manmade environment were both overwhelmed. The storm also affected communities like Beaumont, Texas, where the entire city was cut off from fresh drinking water. Then-FEMA director Brock Long called Harvey " probably the worst disaster the state's seen."

More than 13,000 people required rescuing throughout Texas, and an overall 30,000 people from that state were displaced by floodwaters. And while Texas was hardest-hit, the storm also affected communities in Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee and beyond. Damage estimates were around $121 billion, making it the fourth-most expensive hurricane in U.S. history.

Harvey claimed at least 82 lives in Texas. Officials say that number includes those who died as a direct result of the storm, drowning in flash floods or on roads.

When Hurricane Camille hit in August 1969, it was a nasty storm that brought heavy flooding and 200-mile per hour (320-kilometer per hour) winds to the Gulf Coast and later Virginia. It also was one of only two Category 5 hurricanes to hit the Continental U.S. since 1900. (Since then two others have made landfall: Andrew in 1992 and Michael in 2018.) After forming near the Cayman Islands in August 1969, Camille first blew through Cuba as a Category 3 but intensified in the Gulf of Mexico making a beeline for Mississippi where it made landfall between Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian Aug. 18. Exact wind speed at landfall is unknown, as weather instruments were destroyed, though estimates put suggest gusts were as high as 200 miles per hour (322 kilometers per hour). However, with 900 mb pressure at landfall, Camille still ranks as the second most intense hurricane to hit the continental U.S.

Winds as high as 100 miles per hour were clocked across much of Southern Mississippi, leading to wind damage far inland. A 24-foot (7-meter) storm surge also contributed to major devastation in Mississippi. Camille eventually weakened to a tropical storm as it moved up the East Coast and reached Virginia, but the storm continued to dump upward of 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain on the region, contributing to flash flooding and mudslides just 120 miles (193 kilometers) from the nation's capital. The storm resulted in 256 deaths and more than $1.4 billion in damage.

Camille played an important role in hurricane tracking in that it spawned the creation of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which ranks storms from categories 1 to 5 based on wind speed. Category 1 hurricanes blow winds ranging from 74 to 95 miles (119 to 153 kilometers), while those in the Category 5 range feature wind speeds of more than 156 miles (251 kilometers) an hour. The system is designed to give residents in danger zones a better idea of what to expect from a brewing storm.

Hurricane Katrina is often referred to as a man-made, rather than natural, disaster by those who fault infrastructure problems for the decimation caused by this storm that ravaged New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast.

On Aug. 26, 2005, Hurricane Katrina looked like a hurricane that was fizzling out, but it began rapidly strengthening to Category 5 levels over warm water in the Gulf of Mexico. By Aug. 28, a mandatory evacuation order was issued for New Orleans. As the Category 3 hurricane reached the city, water topped over its systems of levees causing them to break and the streets to flood. Eventually, 80 percent of New Orleans was underwater.

Katrina left residents who couldn't - or chose not to - evacuate stranded in their homes with waters rising around them. Forty percent of hurricane-related deaths were from drowning. Slow federal government reaction to the plight of those affected led to claims of incompetence and even deliberate disregard for poor and Black people.

In all, Hurricane Katrina claimed 1,833 lives and at $161 billion is considered the costliest hurricane in U.S. history. The Federal Emergency Management Agency called it "the single most catastrophic natural disaster in U.S. history."

Hurricane Katrina also displaced 400,000 people to areas like Houston and Atlanta. Many never returned. An upgraded system of levees was completed in 2013, but officials are worried about the massive cost of maintaining them with a shrunken tax base.

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The Americas have been hit with some major hurricanes throughout the decades. But which were the worst ones in history?

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The outback covers more than half of Western Australia and it's extreme climate makes it difficult to live in.

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Tornadoes are most prominent is the Great Plains of the United States. Tornadoes cause great destruction and unfortunately cause many deaths every year.

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One of the harshest environments may be the Amazon jungle in South America. People have lived in this environment for hundreds of years and people still live there today using its natural resources to survive.

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A 'Q and A' session from Rainforest Action Network, to help older children learn about indigenous populations living in the Amazon and other rainforests.
See all Amazon Rainforest Tours
Q: Who are indigenous people?
A: Rainforests are bursting with life. Not only do millions of species of plants and animals live in rainforests, but people also call the rainforest their home. In fact, indigenous, or native, peoples have lived in rainforests for many thousands of years. Early accounts of these people by European explorers indicate a far denser population lived in the forest than today. Many of these original peoples, such as the Caribs (after whom the Caribbean Sea is named) have disappeared completely. Others are only scattered remnants of what they once were. However thousands of distinct ethnic groups with their own distinctive language and culture remain today in tropical rainforests around the world.

Q: In general, how do they live?

A: Although some indigenous people live much as we do, others still live much as did their ancestors thousands of years before them. These communities organize their daily lives differently than our culture. Their food, medicines and clothing come primarily from the forest.
Q: Do the children go to school?
A: Most tribal children don't go to schools like ours. Instead, they learn about the forest from their parents and other people in their community. They are taught how to survive in the forest. They learn how to hunt and fish, and which plants are useful as medicines or food. Some of these children know more about rainforests than scientists who have studied rainforests for many years!

Indigenous man hunting in the Amazon

Q: What do they find to eat?

A: Besides hunting, gathering wild fruits and nuts and fishing, Indigenous people also plant small gardens for other sources of food, using a sustainable farming method called shifting cultivation. First they first clear a small area of land and burn it. Then they plant many types of plants, to be used for food and medicines. After a few years, the soil has become too poor to allow for more crops to grow and weeds start to take over. They then move to a nearby uncleared area. This land is traditionally allowed to regrow for 10-50 years before it is farmed again. Shifting cultivation is still practiced by those indigenous groups who have access to a large amount of land. However, with the growing number of non-indigenous farmers and the shrinking rainforest, other groups, especially in Indonesia and Africa, are now forced to remain in one area. The land becomes a wasteland after a few years of overuse, and cannot be used for future agriculture.
Q: Why is the forest so important to indigenous people?
A: Indigenous people revere the forest that, until the present, has protected them from outsiders and given them everything they need. They live what is called a sustainable existence, meaning they use the land without doing harm to the plants and animals that also call the rainforest their home. As a wise indigenous man once said, "The earth is our historian, our educator, the provider of food, medicine, clothing and protection. She is the mother of our races."
Q: Why are indigenous peoples in danger?
A: Indigenous peoples have been losing their lives and the land they live on ever since Europeans began colonizing their territories 500 years ago. Unknowingly, the first European explorers to what is now called Latin America brought diseases such as small-pox, measles and even the common cold to which Europeans had developed varying degrees of immunity but to which indigenous peoples had no immunity at all since none of them had never been exposed to these diseases before.

As a result of those encounters, over ninety percent of the native peoples died from diseases that today we regard as minor and even then were fatal to only a small fraction of Europeans. This disaster was repeated again when Europeans explored Oceania. Since then many indigenous groups have also been killed and driven off by settlers wanting their land, or enslaved to work in sugar plantations or mines. However, until about forty years ago, the lack of roads prevented most outsiders from exploiting the rainforest and entering indigenous territories. These roads, constructed for timber and oil companies, cattle ranchers and miners, have opened up vast areas for outsiders to grab and exploit and have made possible the destruction of millions of acres of rainforest each year.

Although indigenous people have lived on their lands for thousands of years, they do not own it, because they have not filed "deeds" of land and do not possess "title." Therefore governments and other outsiders do not recognize their rights to the land. They have no other choice but to move to different areas, sometimes even to the crowded cities. They often live in poverty because they have no skills useful for a city lifestyle and little knowledge about the urban culture. For example, they know more about gathering food from the forest than buying food from a store. Imagine being forced to move to a different country, where you know nothing about the culture or language!
Q: What are indigenous people doing to save their territory?
A: Indigenous groups are beginning to fight for their land, most often through peaceful demonstrations. Such actions may cause them to be arrested or even to lose their lives, but they know that if they take no action, their land and culture could be lost forever.

Many people living outside of rainforests want to help protect the indigenous people's culture. They understand that indigenous people have much to teach us about rainforests. By working with these groups, we can learn important information about rainforests - its ecology, medicinal plants, food and other products. It is crucial to realize that they have a right to practice their own lifestyle, and live upon the land where their ancestors have lived before them.
Q: Why should we care about the fate of indigenous peoples?
A: The basic answer is moral: indigenous peoples have a right to live and because we should celebrate their difference from us since diversity enriches life and culture. We should be ashamed that the 20th century has witnessed more genocides of peoples and more extinctions of animals than any other in history.

In addition, indigenous peoples possess an enormous body of almost irreplaceable information and skills about living in the rainforest without destroying it.

In the 19th Century, miners used to carry canaries into the mines with them because the birds were highly sensitive to toxic gases. If the birds died, it warned the miners that they too would die unless they fled. Jason W. Clay has compared the rainforests and their inhabitants to the miner's canary and we can see that they are dying. However, we cannot flee the earth we can only change our ways.
"Within the next few decades, the fate of the world's remaining indigenous peoples, the fragile environments they occupy, and the valuable knowledge that they embody could well be decided once and for all. A number of individuals, corporations, and states are already pursuing their own "final solutions." The 20th century will be remembered either as the century when we destroyed much of the Earth's genetic and cultural diversity, or the century when peoples learned to live together and share their knowledge in order to maintain the diversity upon which we all depend. Working together, we can make a world of difference."

Information aquired from Rainforest Action Network

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Learn about the Amazon's Indigenous peoples. For millennia, isolated Rainforest tribes that thrived on traditional lifestyles are now threatened.

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Volcano's are what created Hawaii. The inhabitants of Hawaii live every day with volcano's that are constantly erupting. This webcam gives you 24 hour coverage of a live volcano that is almost always erupting!

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LIVE 24/7 Hawaii Kilauea Volcano Big Island Eruption - USGS Cams & Images

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Alaska is a harsh environment where people must endure heavy snowfall and sometimes subzero temperatures.