Environment

Trees that grow quickly die younger, risking a release of carbon dioxide that challenges forecasts that forests will continue to be a “sink” for planet-warming emissions, scientists said Tuesday. Tree cover absorbs a significant proportion of carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels and plays a crucial role in projections for our ability to wrestle

“Zombie” wildfires that were smoldering beneath the Arctic ice all winter suddenly flared to life this summer when the snow and ice above it melted, new monitoring data reveal. And this year has been the worst for Arctic wildfires on record, since reliable monitoring began 17 years ago. Arctic fires this summer released as much carbon in the first

The physical footprints left behind by humankind don’t wash away with the waves.  Human construction has modified the oceans as much as it has urbanised the land, a new analysis reveals. Mapping the global extent of human development in Earth’s oceans, an international team calculated the footprint occupied by human built structures as of 2018,

In the hot sunshine, asphalt road and roof coverings can put out more secondary organic aerosol (SOA) pollutants than the cars on the road, according to a new study that looked at the South Coast Air Basin in California. Cars still produce more overall pollution, but SOAs – such as the ones emitted by hot

The volume of lakes formed as glaciers worldwide melt due to climate change had jumped by 50 percent in 30 years, according to new study based on satellite data. “We have known that not all meltwater is making it into the oceans immediately,” lead author Dan Shugar, a geomorphologist and associate professor at the University

There is no doubt that Australia’s Black Summer last year was absolutely devastating. Fires across the country burnt through 186,000 square kilometres (72,000 square miles) of land, killing 34 people, while billions of animals were affected.   But there’s something particularly chilling about seeing the end results of the blaze. Australian aerial analysis company Geospatial Intelligence

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which hold enough frozen water to lift oceans 65 metres, are tracking the UN’s worst-case scenarios for sea level rise, researchers said Monday, highlighting flaws in current climate change models. Mass loss from 2007 to 2017 due to melt-water and crumbling ice aligned almost perfectly with the Intergovernmental Panel

Researchers working on the Central Andean Plateau (or Altiplano) in Peru have discovered a giant tree fossil buried in the plains – and the 10 million years of history that it reveals don’t quite match up with what we thought we know about the ancient climate. Back when this tree died, a little more than

It might sound like a bad movie, but extreme wildfires can create their own weather – including fire tornadoes. It happened in California as a heat wave helped to fuel hundreds of wildfires across the region, many of them sparked by lightning. One fiery funnel cloud on 15 August was so powerful, the National Weather

Songbirds in tropical rainforests curtail their reproduction to help them survive droughts, according to a study Monday. Species with longer lifespans were better able to cope with this environmental volatility than previously thought, researchers found. With more record hot spells gripping parts of the planet and biodiversity threatened by human encroachment on habitats, a crucial

In the shadow of Canada’s largest cluster of skyscrapers, Toronto is looking to preserve a majestic, centuries-old oak tree – but efforts have been complicated by the pandemic. The towering 24-meter (79-feet) high Northern Red Oak is one of the oldest trees in these parts, having sprouted an estimated 300 years ago, around the time

More than half the ice shelves ringing Antarctica that prevent huge glaciers from sliding into the ocean and lifting sea levels are at risk of crumbling due to climate change, researchers said Wednesday. Melt water running into deep fissures caused by warming air is undermining the structural integrity of these natural barricades, they reported in

Water covers 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and is crucial to life as we know it, but how it got here has been a longstanding scientific debate. The puzzle was a step closer to being solved Thursday after a French team reported in the journal Science they had identified which space rocks were responsible,

Our planet’s water supply is an incredibly valuable resource that we need to protect, and worrying new figures show between 30-50 percent of it is being stolen – meaning that water isn’t paid for or counted. This theft occurs when people and companies obtain water illegally – often for agricultural purposes. That could mean getting

Firefighters on Sunday battled some of California’s largest-ever fires that have forced tens of thousands from their homes and burned one million acres, with further lightning strikes and gusty winds forecast in the days ahead. Thousands of lightning strikes have hit the state in the past week, igniting fires that left smoke blanketing the region,

Scientists from Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London analysed satellite surveys of glaciers, mountains, and ice sheets between 1994 and 2017 to identify the impact of global warming. Their review paper was published in the journal Cryosphere Discussions. Describing the ice loss as “staggering,” the group found that melting glaciers and ice sheets could cause

The world’s oceans have turned into a veritable sponge for our emissions, and new climate models suggest we’ve soaked them right through. Since the 1950s, our planet’s vast bodies of water have absorbed roughly 93 percent of the energy entering the climate system, and while most of that heating has been observed near the ocean

Next week for the first time on record, two hurricanes could hit  the Gulf of Mexico at the same time. Twice before, in 1959 and 1933, two tropical storms have entered the Gulf at the same time. But never before have both been hurricanes. It might not go that way. Only one of the storm systems

Greenland’s massive ice sheet saw a record net loss of 532 billion tonnes last year, raising red flags about accelerating sea level rise, according to findings released Thursday. That is equivalent to an additional 3 million tonnes of water streaming into global oceans every day, or six Olympic pools every second. Crumbling glaciers and torrents

Humanity will have burned through all the natural resources that the planet can replenish for 2020 by Saturday, according to researchers who said the grim milestone is slightly later than last year after the pandemic slowed runaway overconsumption. So-called Earth Overshoot Day – the date when humanity has used all the biological resources that Earth

California’s Death Valley recorded what may be its hottest ever temperature on Sunday (August 16) – a blazing 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius). If that National Weather Service (NWS) measurement holds up, it will have been the hottest August temperature recorded there by 3 F (1.7 C), the hottest temperature recorded in Death Valley

A ship that has leaked more than 1,000 tonnes of oil in pristine waters off the Mauritius coast has split in two, its Japanese operator said Sunday. The bulk carrier MV Wakashio ran aground on a coral reef off the southeastern coast of Mauritius on July 25 and began oozing oil more than a week

Greenland’s ice sheet may have hit a tipping point that sets it on an irreversible path to completely disappearing. Snowfall that normally replenishes Greenland’s glaciers each year can no longer keep up with the pace of ice melt, according to researchers at Ohio State University. That means that the Greenland ice sheet – the world’s

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. And 2019 research highlighted a very simple way that canteens in schools and colleges could greatly reduce the amount of meat eaten – without actually having to

A woolly brown rhinoceros that weighed two tons once roamed northeastern Siberia before mysteriously disappearing around 14,000 years ago. Was its demise caused by humans, or the warming climate of the time? A new study by a Swedish and Russian team of scientists who examined DNA fragments from the remains of 14 of these prehistoric mammals

Wind and solar produced a record 10 percent of global electricity in the first half of 2020 as the world’s coal plant fleet ran at less than half its capacity, analysis published Thursday showed. Despite a near-record drop in power demand due to the pandemic, renewables accounted for 1,129 terawatt-hours in January-June, compared with 992

The Arctic’s rapidly melting sea ice continues to outrun even our most dire predictions for the future, and that’s not out of line with the past. A new and improved model, based on the last warm period in Earth’s history, now suggests shallow pools of rain and melt water could bring about the end of

A massive chunk of Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf, some 4,000 years old, has broken off, reducing the shelf by more than half, scientists reported last Sunday. After separating from the shelf, the piece split in two, forming an iceberg almost the size of Manhattan. Climate change likely fuelled the collapse of the shelf, researchers

Satellite images of penguin poop in Antarctica have revealed a number of Emperor penguin colonies living and breeding on the icy continent that scientists weren’t previously aware of. Eight completely new communities have now been found in some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of Antarctica, and three additional colonies that were previously identified

Tropical Storm Isaias was set to regain hurricane strength Monday before slamming into the US eastern seaboard, bringing life-threatening storm surges to North and South Carolina. The storm, currently 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, was packing sustained winds of 70 miles (112 kilometers) per hour, with wind speeds predicted to increase

Scientists don’t always like being right: take the team that warned in a paper published in 2017 that the St. Patrick Bay ice caps in Canada would soon disappear, for example. The latest NASA satellite imagery shows that their prediction has sadly come true, and even faster than they expected. Scientists from the National Snow

Microplastics are widespread in seas and oceans, and their harmful effects on many different marine animals are well known. However, we know relatively little about the microplastics in our freshwater rivers, streams and lakes. We still don’t know exactly where they come from, where they end up – and crucially – what damage they can

Producing something useful out of waste materials that would otherwise be discarded is the ideal scenario when it comes to sustainable recycling. One place where we could put old tyres? Literally on the surface of the road. Using a blend of old tyres and rubble left over from construction projects, a newly developed material has

The perilous rise of our seas is pushing tides, waves and storms further inland from our shores – so much so, that in the coming century, scientists predict enormous swathes of land will be regularly inundated by water. By 2100, if we have failed to put up defences and do nothing to curb our global

It’s not just honeybees that pollinate our crops and put food on our plates. In North America alone there are roughly 4,000 species of native bee, and new research has calculated these wild insects provide over US$1.5 billion each year from pollinating just a handful of crops. Analysing the production of 131 commercial farms in

Air pollution cuts life expectancy for every man, woman, and child on Earth by nearly two years, according to data released Tuesday which experts said showed poor air quality is “the greatest risk to human health”. The Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) said that as the world races to find a vaccine to bring the

Common chemicals nicknamed ‘forever chemicals‘ for their tendency to stick around in the environment for a disconcertingly long time have been detected in Arctic seawater. PFAS (per and polyfluoroalkyl substances) chemicals are used in a lot of household products. While the effects of PFAS on human health are still being debated, they have been detected in

Norway’s Arctic archipelago Svalbard on Saturday recorded its highest-ever temperature, the country’s meteorological institute reported. According to scientific study, global warming in the Arctic is happening twice as fast as for the rest of the planet. For the second day in a row, the archipelago registered 21.2 degrees Celsius (70.2 Fahrenheit) in the afternoon, just

While greenhouse gases are warming Earth’s surface, they’re also causing rapid cooling far above us, at the edge of space. In fact, the upper atmosphere about 90 kilometres (56 miles) above Antarctica is cooling at a rate 10 times faster than the average warming at the planet’s surface. Our new research has precisely measured this

During a visit to a bookstore a few weeks ago, we couldn’t help but stare at a display unit featuring no fewer than 10 books telling you how to rid plastics from your daily life. We’re bombarded by information on the topic of marine litter and plastic pollution, but how much do we really know

As plants begin to spread across melting permafrost, scientists are growing ever more worried their roots will stir microbes into unleashing vast stores of carbon. To scientists, roots are known as rhizomes, and when these tendrils extend deeper into the soil, it accelerates microbial decomposition by up to fourfold, potentially ‘priming’ the frozen ground for

Landsat 8 strikes again. Landsat 8 is the United States Geological Survey’s most recently launched satellite, and it holds the powerful Operational Land Imager (OLI.) The OLI is a powerful multi-spectral imager with a wide dynamic range. The OLI does a great job of keeping an eye on Earth, and now it’s captured images of

Thermosets are some of the toughest plastics around. They’re used in products that have to be particularly durable and heat-resistant – but that also makes them very difficult to break down and recycle. That could change with the help of new research into the chemical bonds that hold these thermosets together. The study suggests that

Scientists have, for the first time, discovered an active leak of methane gas from the sea floor in Antarctica. It is a process that’s likely to accelerate the process of global heating. The finding was published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the Royal Society B scientific journal on Tuesday. Methane is powerful greenhouse gas that accelerates climate

Antarctica is known for its remote and pristine wilderness, as one of the last intact expanses of land on our planet. But after just two centuries of exploration, new research has found there are very few parts of this icy continent that have never been touched by humans. While 99.6 percent of Antarctica can still

On 15 July 2020, what looked like your typical dry waterway was engulfed by a sickening dust puffing black sludge, reminiscent of the villainous cartoon toxin, Hexxus from FernGully: The Last Rainforest. The Cañada del Oro Wash in Arizona became choked with this monstrosity – known as a sediment slug - after what officials said was a minor storm,

Climate change is starving polar bears into extinction, according to research published Monday that predicts the apex carnivores could all but disappear within the span of a human lifetime. In some regions they are already caught in a vicious downward spiral, with shrinking sea ice cutting short the time bears have for hunting seals, scientists

We might have a problem with our roads: researchers have discovered that sunlight and rain might be able to turn certain compounds in asphalt into a potentially dangerous hydrocarbons, threating the surrounding environment and people using these routes. In particular, it’s the binder (also called asphalt cement) that’s the problem. This heavy, black glue is