In 2015, NASA revealed that Earth’s oceans are rising faster than expected, and the space agency projected that we’re now “locked in” to at least 90 cm of sea level rise in the coming decades. That in itself would be enough to displace millions of people around the world, but if this trend continues and

Greenland, home to the Earth’s second largest ice sheet, has lost ice at an accelerating pace in the past several decades – a nearly sixfold increase that could contribute to future sea level rise, according to a new study based on nearly a half century of data. The findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of

Bryan Thomas doesn’t want any more “wishy-washy conversations about climate change.” For four years, he has served as station chief of the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory, America’s northernmost scientific outpost in its fastest-warming state. Each morning, after digging through snow to his office’s front door, Thomas checks the preliminary number on the observatory’s carbon dioxide monitor.

The Pacific Ocean off the California coast is mixed up, and so are many of the animals that live there. The violet, thumbnail-size snails washing up here in Horseshoe Cove have never been seen this far north. By-the-wind sailors, a tiny relative of warm-water jellyfish, sprinkle the tideline by the dozen. And in the tide

There’s more to the wind than meets the eye. As it whips around the world, this invisible force can carry dangerous passengers to some of the most untouched regions, including dust particles, microbes, and maybe even plastic. A small pilot study now suggests that tiny fragments of this synthetic material are raining down in some

The Sixth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6), the most comprehensive environmental assessment produced by the UN in five years, brought us both good and bad news. The environment has continued to deteriorate since the first GEO-6 report in 1997, with potentially irreversible impacts if not effectively addressed. But pathways to significant change do exist, and a

As we continue to see warming glaciers collapse and melt into the ocean, we’re potentially looking at a ticking time bomb of buried nuclear material, according to new research. Scientists have analysed 17 glacier sites and found fallout radionuclides (FRNs) trapped within ice surface sediment called cryoconite at all of them – covering the Arctic,

Interest is surging in tiny homes – livable dwelling units that typically measure under 400 square feet (37 square meters). Much of this interest is driven by media coverage that claims that living in tiny homes is good for the planet. It may seem intuitively obvious that downsizing to a tiny home would reduce one’s

Things are not looking good for Earth’s glaciers. Usually, when it comes to climate change and melting ice, we think of the Earth’s polar regions. But they’re not the only important ice formations, and they’re not the only ice that’s melting due to climate change. New research published on 8 April 2019 shows that the

Lately, the Weather Channel has been splashing out on some seriously disturbing graphics, and the channel’s most recent immersion experience is absolutely brimming with disaster. The roughly two-minute-long, mixed-reality segment takes viewers on a journey to the year 2100, when the streets of Charleston, South Carolina are perennially flooded, rendering parts of the city uninhabitable.

President Donald Trump of the United States of America has made quite the interesting claim. At the National Republican Congressional Committee fundraising dinner earlier this week, he took a tilt at windmills. “If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value,” he said. “And they

There are a lot of different ways to look at our planet’s warming climate – such as more extreme weather events, increasing levels of vegetation in the Arctic, and even shifting seasons. Now we just got a new metric showing the severity of the situation. A group of scientists have came together to discuss what

It could be a landscape on an alien world. Strange optical effects and dazzling mineral formations bloom on the edge of water so hot it would be steam if not for the pressure of all that deep ocean above it. Researchers on board the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor recently captured some amazing snapshots

When it comes to the weather systems controlling rain and shine across the planet, nothing happens in isolation – everything plays into everything else. Now, for the first time, scientists have explained how volcanic eruptions can influence the formation of hurricanes. Investigating this mechanism has been tricky until now, because in the age of sophisticated

Denali National Park in Alaska is home to North America’s highest peak, attracting long queues of humans who are keen to commune with nature.  Unfortunately, nature’s call doesn’t always align with convenient amenities, and decades of toilet breaks have added up. Now hiking companies are making it their business to fix the peak’s poo problem.

Alaska just finished one of its most unusually warm Marches ever recorded. In its northern reaches, the March warmth was unprecedented. Part of a rapid and troubling warming across the Arctic, the month concluded feverishly in the northern part of the state, with widespread temperatures 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. Many areas finished

Since 1978, Garfield the lazy, lasagna-loving feline has been one of the world’s most recognised and iconic comic strip characters. But for almost as long as the comic has been in print, a bizarre environmental mystery featuring the cantankerous cat has been polluting the shorelines of western France, and finally we have an explanation for

We just got some massive news in the ongoing drive to switch to renewable energy: scientists have identified 530,000 sites worldwide suitable for pumped-hydro energy storage, capable of storing more than enough energy to power the entire planet. Pumped-hydro is one of the best technologies we have for storing intermittent renewable energy, such as solar

It started off as an enigma. Biologists at field sites around the world reported that frogs had simply disappeared. Costa Rica, 1987: the golden toad, missing. Australia, 1979: the gastric brooding frog, gone. In Ecuador, Arthur’s stubfoot toad was last seen in 1988. By 1990, cases of unexplained frog declines were piling up. These were

Few places have served as a locus for the public’s anxiety about climate change as much as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The global seed ark, popularly known as the “Doomsday Vault”, is embedded deep in the permafrost of a northerly Norwegian island and stores nearly a million samples from around the world for safekeeping

Global energy experts released grim findings Monday, saying that not only are planet-warming carbon-dioxide emissions still increasing, but the world’s growing thirst for energy has led to higher emissions from coal-fired power plants than ever before. Energy demand around the world grew by 2.3 percent over the past year, marking the most rapid increase in

The fastest-shrinking glacier in Greenland has made an unexpected turn. Although it’s been melting for 20 years, the Jakobshavn Glacier in West Greenland – famous for producing the iceberg that sank the Titanic – has now started growing again. Since the 1980s, waters have been growing warmer around Baffin Bay, where the glacier meets the

When tropical cyclone Idai made landfall near Beira, Mozambique on March 14, a spokesperson for the UN World Meteorological Organization called it possibly the the worst weather-related disaster to hit the southern hemisphere. This massive and horrifying storm caused catastrophic flooding and widespread destruction of buildings and roads in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. Mozambique’s President

Mount Everest’s glaciers are melting – and the remnants buried for decades below the surface are beginning to reemerge. Most alarming, expedition operators are starting to find the dead bodies of climbers who attempted to scale the mountain. Hundreds of people have died while attempting to climb the mountain since the 1990s, and the majority

It all looked so promising. Ten years ago, a survey of mother humpbacks and their calves showed their numbers were on the up off the coast of Maui, Hawaii. Something has changed, with encounters plummeting by three quarters since 2013.  Of course, there could be a number of reasons behind the apparent decline in whale

Last November, a huge seismic event that shook the planet left experts wondering about its possible source. Researchers now think they know what might have caused it: an offshore volcanic event unlike any other in recorded history. If the hypothesis is right, and there has been a massive movement of magma underneath the sea floor,

By the time marine biologist Darrell Blatchley arrived at the fishing village Saturday, the young Cuvier’s beaked whale was already floating, dead in the water, its eyes sunken and ribs protruding through its skin. The current off the southern Philippine island of Mindanao had washed away the blood it vomited before its death. He already

As the frozen Antarctic landscape at the bottom of the world adjusts to an ever hotter planet, we keep finding more mysterious phenomena beneath and within the ice. Now, there are “ice quakes” to add to that list. It wasn’t all so long ago that earthquakes were thought to not exist on this unforgiving continent.

The phrase “mass extinction” typically conjures images of the asteroid crash that led to the twilight of the dinosaurs. Upon impact, that 6-mile-wide space rock caused a tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean, along with earthquakes and landslides up and down what is now the Americas. A heat pulse baked the Earth, and the Tyrannosaurus rex

The last three ice ages might have been triggered by tectonic collisions between Earth’s continents, according to new research, and it could give us clues as to how the planet’s climate might suddenly shift again in the future. What’s likely to have happened, the new study says, is these massive collisions pushed oceanic rocks up

No matter what we do, the Arctic of the future is going to be poles apart from the one we know today. A new paper from the UN reveals that even if we pull the plug on all carbon emissions tomorrow, our hands are ultimately tied; the Arctic region is still going to warm by

Congratulations Italy! Scientists just discovered a new coral reef in the Adriatic Sea, near the town of Monopoli in Puglia. Not only is it the first coral reef known to be off the Italian coast (at least in modern time), it’s also a rather unusual one. Stretching for at least 2.5 kilometres (about 1.5 miles),

Waterfalls are one of the most majestic things on the planet: a beautiful, thunderous display of water and physics. But where do these cascading creations come from? The conventional wisdom has it that waterfalls are formed by external forces, such as earthquakes, landslides, or changes in sea level that vastly alter and disrupt landscapes and

A team of scientists and designers recently teamed up to create a tool that would show Australians what the climate is expected to be like in their cities in the year 2050 – and it led to a startling discovery. “In 30 years’ time, winter as we know it will be non-existent,” researcher Geoff Hinchliffe

Death Valley, the hottest and driest place in North America, isn’t exactly known for record rainfall or pop-up lakes stretching as far as the eye can see. But after a massive storm lashed the desert with rain and brought chilly temperatures through Southern California, that’s exactly what happened, according to photographer Elliott McGucken. He was trying

For something that’s supposed to help save the planet, solar geoengineering sure has a lot of enemies. Critics warn that artificially reflecting sunlight to cool the planet could unleash drastic, unintended consequences – but a Harvard-led team of scientists insists that such fears are overblown. In a new study, researchers say spraying chemicals into the

Much of the United States could be gripped by significant water shortages in just five decades’ time, according to predictions made in a new study. From the year 2071 on, scientists say the combined effects of climate change and population increases are projected to present “serious challenges” in close to half of the 204 watersheds

When it comes to recycling plastic waste, Norway is ahead the pack. In fact, the Scandinavian nation has virtually lapped the rest of the world. Through an organisation called Infinitum, Norway has created one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly ways of recycling plastic bottles, and the results are so impressive that many nations

Air pollution is a major problem no matter where you live, but it can get particularly bad in Seoul, the capital of South Korea – and so the government authorities are taking drastic action to try and deal with the smog that settles over the city. The latest plan from President Moon Jae-in is to

The town is called Bella Vista, but for thousands of residents living in this quiet, northwest corner of Arkansas, the outlook in recent times has been anything but. For a staggering seven straight months, Bella Vista has harboured a toxic open secret: an endless smouldering fire at a former illegal dumping site, burning deep underground

Yesterday, over the course of a single afternoon, Lee County, Alabama, was ravaged by back-to-back tornadoes. The one-two punch brought winds of 170 miles per hour (270 kilometres per hour), which ripped homes off their foundations, destroyed property, injured dozens, and killed at least 23 people. But these twisters were only two of some three

Some icebergs look white. Others look blue. But perhaps the most precious of all appear emerald green. Ever since the 1900s, sailors and explorers have occasionally seen these strange green icebergs, or jade bergs, floating around in the grey Antarctic landscape. Their curious colour has been puzzling scientists for decades; now, we might finally have

Rare earth elements are essential for building everything from smartphones to solar power plants, but extracting them from the ground comes with a high cost in terms of expense, effort, and environmental impact. That could be about to change. Researchers have discovered a new way to get some of these elements out of phosphate rock waste (or

Species come and go, but never quite like this. Our biosphere’s diversity is thinning at a shocking rate, with fingers pointed at everything from global warming to hunting to habitat clearing as agents of destruction.  Now, it turns out one offender stands head and shoulders above the rest. Alien invaders of the Earthly variety –

Fish populations in the world’s oceans are depleting at an alarming rate, new research has found, with worrying consequences for those higher up the food chain – which includes humans. If we don’t act fast, the situation is going to get worse. Data collected from 1930 to 2010 has shown that sustainable fish stock declined

The world is getting dangerously hot. Storms have been ferocious. Whole land masses are disappearing. Have you noticed this incredibly bad weather of late? Not fully, scientists say. New research demonstrates a terrifying adaptability of 21st century human beings: in the face of unprecedented climate change, we are normalising the weather temperatures, and not realising

The deepest parts of the ocean aren’t easy to get to. They’re found in fissures in the seafloor, and the creatures there are strange – adapted to the dark, the cold, and the crushing pressure. But in those trenches, at hadopelagic depths greater than 7,000 metres (20,000 feet), our impact on this world has still

For years, scientists have warned of the “next big one,” an earthquake so powerful that it could topple buildings, slash power, and take lives across California. As far as natural disasters go, the quake represented the worst-case-scenario for cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, which are both located along the San Andreas Fault. Now