Environment

Lightning strikes killed 147 people in the north Indian state of Bihar over the last 10 days, officials said Sunday, warning of more extreme weather conditions to come, driven by climate change. Around 215 people – farmers, rural labourers and cattle graziers – have now died from strikes in the country’s poorest state since late

Scientists in Italy are investigating the mysterious appearance of pink glacial ice in the Alps, caused by algae that accelerate the effects of climate change. There is debate about where the algae come from, but Biagio Di Mauro of Italy’s National Research Council said the pink snow observed on parts of the Presena glacier is

The coronavirus isn’t the only thing plaguing East Africa. Amid a global pandemic, people in this region of the world are also contending with another “extremely serious” threat to their lives and livelihoods: locusts. After one of the wettest years on record, these voracious insects have been gathering forces since 2019, as weather conditions allowed

Earth’s oceans are simmering with the heat trapped by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases. But one patch of water in the North Atlantic is stubbornly resisting the trend, and actually dropping in temperature. This ‘cold blob‘ has been a subject of interest for climatologists ever since it was first spotted back in 2015. Unfortunately, the

Renewable energy such as wind and solar projects are already cheaper to build than it is to continue operating 40 percent of the world’s existing coal fleet, according to analysis released Tuesday. In a report outlining how the world can phase out the most polluting fuel while powering an economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic,

A stark warning about the kind of summer that could become routine in the UK by the end of this century has been issued in a new study by the country’s Met Office. Using temperature data and climate model simulations, the researchers tested the likelihood of UK temperatures exceeding 30°C, 35°C, and 40°C (86 F,

A hot desert wind is carrying a massive cloud of Saharan dust into the southern United States this week. Dust plumes from the Sahara routinely blow westward across the Atlantic at this time of year, but this event is a doozy – by some measures, the biggest in decades. And a second plume appears to

Wombats are among the most peculiar of animals. They look like a massively overgrown guinea pig with a boofy head, a waddling gait, squared-off butt, backwards-facing pouch and ever-growing molars. Indeed, wombats are oddballs and don’t look much like their nearest living relatives, the koala. But koalas and wombats (collectively known as “vombatiformes”) are the

The United Nations said Tuesday it was working to verify reports of a new Arctic record temperature of 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in a Siberian town over the weekend. The suspected record temperature was measured in the Russian town of Verkoyansk on Saturday during a prolonged heatwave, which has also seen a hike

Measures to contain the global pandemic have caused our global carbon emissions to plummet, and some think this unprecedented event might actually help us to tackle climate change. But new research has put a more realistic spin on this rosy outlook by looking at the development of clean energy alternatives. For now, people around the

Lockdowns have been a controversial aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yes, they undoubtedly save lives, but they also cause major ongoing economic issues – disrupting industries, causing job losses and associated financial pain. But another thing lockdowns have done all over the world is decrease air pollution, and new research shows an interesting flow-on effect

Even after more than 20 years in the ocean, everyday plastics can show very few signs of breaking up or degrading, according to a new study examining the effects of deep-sea submersion on this problematic material. Researchers looked at two plastic samples recovered from 4,150 metres (13,615 feet) below the surface of the eastern Pacific

When most of us think of greenhouse gases, we imagine carbon dioxide or methane spewing into the atmosphere above. It’s not often we consider general anesthesia being part of the problem – but it is, and it’s something that happens thousands of times every day, at hospitals all around the world. The gases involved in

If we’re really serious about solving the climate crisis, we need to start tackling our economy’s overwhelming ‘power’ of consumption, researchers warn in a new report. While having money is often portrayed as something to aspire to, the wealthiest nations and individuals are also wreaking the most environmental destruction. If we keep heading in this

New survey results from 40 countries shows that climate change matters to most people. In the vast majority of countries, fewer than 3 percent said climate change was not serious at all. We carried out this research as part of the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute annual Digital News Reports. More than 80,000 people were

There’s simply no denying the fact that humans have drastically altered, developed, and ransacked much of the natural world for our own ends. But how much of the planet’s surface remains free of our often malign influence? If we were to map Earth looking only for signs of humanity’s footprint on landscapes, how much of

Israeli scientists say they have produced hydrogen from plants in a development that they hope could eventually lead to using vegetation to produce electricity. The discovery was made by using microscopic algae, an aquatic plant, in research carried out at a Tel Aviv University laboratory. “To link a device to electricity, you just have to

Temperatures soared 10 degrees Celsius (°C) above average last month in Siberia, home to much of Earth’s permafrost, as the world experienced its warmest May on record, the European Union’s climate monitoring network said Friday. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said May 2020 was 0.63°C warmer than the average May from 1981 to 2010,

The fate of Earth’s forests remains uncertain. In the past few years, humans have removed more than 40 football fields of tree cover every single minute; altogether, it’s an annual chunk of greenery roughly the size of the United Kingdom. Even when these sprawls of land are replanted, something essential is lost. The more old growth

Melting permafrost, suspected by Russia of being behind an unprecedented fuel spill that has polluted huge stretches of Arctic rivers, is a time bomb threatening health and the environment, and risks speeding up global warming.​ On May 29, 21,000 tonnes of diesel fuel spilled from a reservoir that collapsed which Russian metals giant Norilsk Nickel

An unprecedented fuel spill that has polluted huge stretches of Arctic rivers was caused by melting permafrost, Russian officials said Friday, ordering a review of infrastructure in vulnerable zones. The spill – which has coloured remote tundra waterways with bright red patches visible from space – has highlighted the danger of climate change for Russia

Russia on Thursday intensified efforts to clean up a major fuel spill that environmentalists say is the worst such accident in the Arctic, as investigators made their first arrest. A diesel reservoir collapsed at a power station outside the northern Siberian city of Norilsk on Friday, releasing 15,000 tonnes of fuel into a river and

Just two days into the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, Tropical Storm Cristobal was churning in the Gulf of Mexico. It was the third Atlantic storm powerful enough to get a name this season; no other year on record has seen three named Atlantic storms so early. On average, the third storm forms around August 13,

We’ve seen plenty of scientific reports on poor air quality, but a new study takes the opposite approach: using samples collected out on the ocean and some modelling, it identifies what may well be the cleanest pocket of air in Earth’s atmosphere. That pocket is in the Southern Ocean between Tasmania and Antarctica, between 54

We know that global warming is forcing many animals around the world to flee their normal habitats, but now, an exhaustive analysis has shown marine species are booking it for the poles six times faster than those on land. Drawing together 258 peer-reviewed studies, researchers compared over 30,000 habitat shifts in more than 12,000 species

Ninety-nine per cent of all freshwater ice on Earth is sitting on top of Greenland and Antarctica, and each year, a little more of it melts into the ocean. Normally, it would take hundreds to thousands of years for it all to melt away. But what if something happened that caused a massive global melt

With red-flag warnings in place and an “extreme” fire risk for parts of Northern California on Wednesday that is expected to shift south Thursday, a bout of strong and prolonged winds is prompting Pacific Gas & Electric not to take chances. Because the utility giant does not want to risk its grid infrastructure sparking yet

At its heart, climate change denial is a conflict between facts and values. People deny the climate crisis because, to them, it just feels wrong. As I’ve argued elsewhere, acknowledging climate change involves accepting certain facts. But being concerned about climate change involves connecting these facts to values. It involves building bridges between the science

Following the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown – the world’s worst nuclear accident – authorities cordoned off the most contaminated areas around the Ukrainian power plant. That restricted land, known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, now extends 1,000 square miles (2,589 square kilometres). It’s illegal to live there (though a few families have defied the law by

Our diets can have a big environmental impact. The greenhouse gas emissions involved in producing and transporting various foods has been well researched, but have you ever thought about the water-scarcity impacts of producing your favourite foods? The answers may surprise you. In research recently published in the journal Nutrients, we looked at the water

We know that our planet has experienced warmer periods in the past, during the Pliocene geological epoch around three million years ago. Our research, published today, shows that up to one third of Antarctica’s ice sheet melted during this period, causing sea levels to rise by as much as 20 metres above present levels in

We all know by now that eating less meat is good for the planet – the production of meat products for human consumption leaves behind a hefty carbon footprint. Now scientists have worked out a very simple way that canteens in schools and colleges could greatly reduce the amount of meat eaten – without actually having

It’s been six years since Boyan Slat began developing a system to rid the world’s oceans of harmful plastic. In 2013, the entrepreneur founded The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit that aims to remove plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a trash-filled vortex in the Pacific Ocean that’s more than twice the size of Texas.

If the world is serious about reducing its carbon emissions, we’ll need to re-think how we feed our future children. Creating ways to support and promote breastfeeding, scientists say, is an environmental imperative. Today, breastfeeding is rarely seen as a climate issue, but a new editorial from researchers in the United Kingdom argues the production

According to a decade-long study by an international team of researchers, human CO2 emissions total 100 times more than the planet-warming effects of all volcanoes combined. The total amount emitted by volcanoes is only about 0.3 gigatons a year – a tiny fraction of the 37 gigatons humankind produced in 2018 alone. That means they’re

For nearly 20 years, researchers have closely watched a “loose tooth” of ice dangle from the edge of the Antarctic ice sheet, waiting for it to detach. It turns out, we were keeping our eyes on the wrong part. According to the Australian Antarctic Division, a neighbouring slab of ice along the same rift system has

Of all the known trees found solely Europe, more than half are at risk of dying out, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports. Some of these ancient natives have existed here since before the last ice age, but as the sixth mass extinction unfolds, Europe’s perennial woods are more threatened than its reptiles,

The world is dealing with a lot right now. The climate is rapidly warming, the oceans are growing dangerously acidic, a sixth extinction is officially unfolding, and all the while the threat of nuclear war hangs imminent. But there’s another crisis on the horizon you might have never heard of. And if the world continues

Most of the 24 million annual visitors to Queensland don’t notice the series of seemingly innocuous yellow buoys at many popular beaches. Beneath the waves lies a series of baited drumlines and mesh nets that aim to make Queensland beaches safe from the ominous threat of sharks. Earlier this week the Queensland government lost a

Global warming has put a glacier in the Italian Alps at risk of collapse, officials warned, leading to road closures, travel restrictions, and evacuations in the immediate vicinity. Municipal officials issued the order after surveyors observed a significant increase in the sliding speed of the Planpincieux glacier, which rests on the Italian side of the

We humans have officially entered uncharted territory. In the roughly 2.5 million years our kind has walked the Earth, never before have we endured such an atmosphere. New research on ancient soil has now confirmed that carbon dioxide levels in the past sixty years are the highest we’ve experienced in all of human history. Throughout

Climate change is already having staggering effects on oceans and ice-filled regions that encompass 80 percent of the Earth, and future damage from rising seas and melting glaciers is now all but certain, according to a sobering new report from the United Nations. The warming climate is killing coral reefs, supercharging monster storms, and fueling

Gigantic underground masses of rock the size of hidden continents could have been concealed inside the planet in virtual isolation since Earth first formed, scientists suggest in a new study. Up until now, not a lot has been known for sure about these two huge, mysterious structures called large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs). We know that

Days after millions of young people took to the streets around the globe to protest for more aggressive action on climate change, dozens of world leaders arrived Monday at the United Nations facing a simple question: What’s your plan? Monday’s UN climate summit was billed as an opportunity for nations to make high-profile commitments to

For the second time in a month, the world is mourning yet another one of Europe’s majestic glaciers. Once a sight to behold, scientists now say that Switzerland’s Pizol glacier has all but disappeared thanks to climate change. Since 2006, this natural wonder has lost at least 80 percent of its volume, and the few patches of white

It’s easy to feel hopeless about the future of our world, especially when the latest IPCC report warned that we have barely a decade left to prevent the most catastrophic climate change scenario. Meanwhile, Earth’s climate continues to smash record after record, plastic will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050, and new species are

As it looks increasingly unlikely we’re going to meet our climate mitigation targets, scientists have been investigating more and more extreme solutions, such as geoengineering. Examples include spraying huge amounts of sunlight-reflecting particles into the atmosphere, or dumping trillions of tons of fake snow onto glaciers to stabilise them. These ideas are untested, incredibly risky,

Pacific islanders are running out of time. If global emissions are not drastically reduced, thousands of low-lying atolls may become uninhabitable within decades. And the biggest threat doesn’t actually come from losing land to rising seas. Small island states in the Pacific are responsible for only 0.03 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and