Environment

Over ten years ago, a tsunami triggered a disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on Japan’s east coast. After the accident, large amounts of radioactivity contaminated the ocean leading to the imposition of a marine exclusion zone and huge reputational damage to the regional fishing industry. Huge volumes of contaminated water have accumulated

Plastic pollution is out of control. Each year, more than 8 million tonnes of synthetic polymers enter the ocean, and while some sinks to the floor, returns to the shore, or collects in the middle of nowhere, a significant portion isn’t so easily accounted for. All that missing plastic is a mystery, but some researchers

A huge iceberg nearly the size of Greater London has broken off the Antarctic ice shelf near a research station, the second such split in two years, researchers announced Monday. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said the formation of the new iceberg – in a natural process called “calving” – was not due to climate

Increasingly tempestuous winds have been sweeping dust from Earth’s deserts into our air at an increasing rate since the mid-1800s. New data suggests that this uptick has masked up to 8 percent of current global warming. Using satellite data and ground measurements, researchers detected a steady increase in these microscopic airborne particles since 1850. Soil

As city folk sleep blanketed by the warm glow of artificial light that surrounds urban centers, stargazers feel the chill of the night sky and see all its constellations being smudged into a fuzzy blur by those same urban lights. It’s a worrying trend that stretches back decades. In 1973, astronomer Kurt Riegel warned that

As climates around the world grow harsher and increasingly unpredictable, concerns are increasing over our world’s food security. Already, yields of staple crops like maize and wheat are dropping in low-latitude tropical regions and in dry and drying regions such as African drylands and parts of the Mediterranean. Wealthy countries are far from immune. Australia

“We know more about the Moon than the deep sea.” This idea has been repeated for decades by scientists and science communicators, including Sir David Attenborough in the 2001 documentary series The Blue Planet. More recently, in Blue Planet II (2017) and other sources, the Moon is replaced with Mars. As deep-sea scientists, we investigated

In 2013, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) had reached 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time since the Pliocene Era (ca. 3 million years ago). According to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), “excess carbon dioxide” in our atmosphere will result in a

Deforestation in the Amazon is nearing the point of no return, and if this ecosystem falls, it could flip from a vast carbon sink to a gushing carbon tap. Already, some climate scientists suspect the rainforest is spewing more carbon than it’s absorbing. If the Amazon crosses a critical threshold of self-resilience, a new study

ExxonMobil – formerly known as Exxon, and one of the world’s leading oil and gas companies – had the numbers on climate change way back in 1977, according to a recent review of internal documents held secret by the company for nearly five decades. In 2015, investigative journalists from the Los Angeles Times and The

Another year, another climate record broken. In 2022, an international team of scientists measured the hottest global ocean temperatures in human history. That makes 2022 the seventh year in a row that ocean temperatures have hit new peaks. The record is based on two international timelines of ocean heat data stretching back to the 1950s:

If nothing is done to immediately conserve water in Utah, scientists in the United States say the Great Salt Lake as we know it will disappear in as little as five years. At this point, to reverse the decline, enough water to cover more than 2.5 million acres of land (over 10,000 square kilometers) a

The last eight years were the warmest on record even with the cooling influence of a La Niña weather pattern since 2020, the European Union’s climate monitoring service said Tuesday. Average temperatures across 2022 – which saw a cascade of unprecedented natural disasters made more likely and deadly by climate change – make it the

The extinction risk to Madagascar’s mammals, including unique species like the lemur, threatens a biodiversity crisis that would take more than 20 million years to heal, scientists warned Tuesday. The southern Indian Ocean island has been cut off from the African continent for over 80 million years – a separation that has developed an extraordinary

Commercial beekeepers in the United States will soon have access to a vaccine that could save their hives from the most devastating disease honeybees face today. The medicine was designed by the biotech company Dalan Animal Health to ward off American foulbrood (AFB), a contagious condition caused by a spore-forming bacterium Paenibacillus larvae. Incorporated into

The ozone layer that shields life on Earth from deadly solar radiation is on track to recover within decades, but controversial geoengineering schemes to blunt global warming could reverse that progress, a major scientific assessment warned Monday. Since the mid-1970s, certain industrial aerosols have led to the depletion of ozone in the stratosphere, 11 to

Parasites are not all bad, and in a rapidly changing world, they need our protection, but they don’t seem to be getting it. In fact, in the second-largest estuary in the United States, scientists have cataloged a mass die-off among marine organisms that rely on free-living hosts to survive. Over the past 140 years, from

Half of the Earth’s glaciers, notably smaller ones, are destined to disappear by the end of the century because of climate change, but limiting global warming could save others, according to a new study. The findings, published in the journal Science on Thursday, provide the most comprehensive look so far at the future of the

Beavers are taking over the Alaskan tundra, completely transforming its waterways, and accelerating climate change in the Arctic. The changes are so sudden and drastic that they’re clearly visible from space. As the Arctic tundra warms, woody plants are growing along its rivers and streams, creating perfect habitats for beavers. As the furry rodents move

Catastrophic floods, crop-wilting droughts, and record heatwaves this year have shown that climate change warnings are increasingly becoming reality, and this is “just the beginning”, experts say, as international efforts to cut planet-heating emissions founder. The year did see some important progress, with major new legislation, particularly in the United States and Europe, as well

Invasive species have a notorious ability to spread rapidly through unprepared ecosystems, wreaking havoc along their way. The Asian hornet (Vespa velutina), is no exception, expanding its habitat by more than 80 kilometers (50 miles) a year while preying on honeybees, hoverflies and other insects. Nearly 20 years ago, the beefy little stingers – often

Take one look at Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa and a single question springs to mind: just how close is it to toppling right over? For decades going on centuries, engineers, historians, and onlookers have held their collective breath at the fate of the iconic bell tower, which has weathered four earthquakes and swayed back

Scientists have discovered a new way to break apart ‘forever chemicals’, the notoriously stubborn pollutants that contaminate our waterways and threaten public health, contributing to a growing list of potential methods of dealing with the long-lived compounds. News of a simple, low-energy way to degrade some, but not all, forever chemicals came in August from

Some parts of the Arctic don’t look very polar anymore. Many regions are likely transforming from snowfall- to rainfall-dominant climates, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “At the fringes, the transition is essentially occurring already,” John Walsh, chief scientist at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said in

With their massive bodies and giant plumes of poop, great whales can move a whole lot of organic material around our planet. Depending on the animal’s numbers, this might make them a valuable carbon sink, researchers propose. University of Alaska Southeast marine biologist Heidi Pearson and colleagues review the scientific literature in a new paper,

A plastic mist descends from the sky each day. You can’t see it. Or feel it. It has no smell or taste. But researchers think we are seriously underestimating the invisible downpour. New estimates by a team of scientists from the University of Auckland in New Zealand suggest an average of nearly 5000 microplastic particles

The United States is building its future on an eroding foundation. In the Midwest, one of the world’s most productive farming regions, researchers have calculated that current soil erosion is up to a thousand times greater than before modern agriculture’s rise. That’s much, much more soil loss than what should be allowed following what the

Many of the companies promising ‘net zero’ emissions to protect the climate are relying on vast swaths of forests and what are known as carbon offsets to meet that goal. On paper, carbon offsets appear to balance out a company’s carbon emissions: The company pays to protect trees, which absorb carbon dioxide from the air.

A new study has revealed that small lakes on Earth have expanded considerably over the last four decades – a worrying development, considering the amount of greenhouse gases freshwater reservoirs emit. Between 1984 and 2019, global lake surfaces increased in size by more than 46,000 square kilometers (17,761 square miles), researchers say. That’s slightly more

Our failure to decisively mitigate climate change is prompting researchers to examine more drastic approaches, like fertilizing the oceans to combat the massive excess of carbon dioxide in our air. “At this point, time is of the essence,” says Michael Hochella, an Earth scientist at the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “To

Without strong climate action, forests on every continent will be highly flammable for at least 30 extra days per year by the end of the century – and this fire threat is far greater for some forests including the Amazon, according to our new study. Our research in Nature Communications looked at 20 years of

In one of the most polluted rivers in Central America, a vulnerable crocodile species is thriving despite living in waters that have become a sewer for Costa Rica’s capital, experts say. ​Every day, trash and wastewater from San Jose households and factories flood into the Tarcoles River, which vomits tires and plastic into the surrounding

As the world warms up, vast tranches of permafrost are melting, releasing material that’s been trapped in its icy grip for years. This includes a slew of microbes that have lain dormant for hundreds of millennia in some cases. To study the emerging microbes, scientists have now revived a number of these “zombie viruses” from

Fast-melting glaciers are releasing staggering amounts of bacteria into rivers and streams, which could transform icy ecosystems, scientists warn. In a study of glacial runoff from 10 sites across the Northern Hemisphere, researchers have estimated that continued global warming over the next 80 years could release hundreds of thousands of tonnes of bacteria into environments

A fraught United Nations (UN) summit wrapped up Sunday with a landmark deal on funding to help vulnerable countries cope with devastating climate impacts – but also anger over a failure to be more ambitious on cutting emissions. ​The two-week talks in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which at times appeared to teeter

Air pollutants kill around 7 million people every year. Much of this pollution is tiny particles suspended in the air which, when inhaled, can cause people to develop heart and lung diseases, as well as cancer. Small particles in the atmosphere also birth clouds, whether they are crystals of sea salt from the Southern Ocean

Nicknamed ‘the Blob’, a large patch of abnormally warm water covering a section of the Pacific Ocean from 2014 to 2016 behaved just like a B-grade horror movie, having a devastating impact on a wide variety of species. A new study on the Santa Barbara Channel off the Californian coast highlights how this environmental horror

The link between habitat destruction, climate change, and the emergence of new viruses has never been more evident than during the pandemic. The arrival of SARS-CoV-2 and the spread of COVID-19 brought into sharp focus how human activities such as deforestation can bring wild animals bearing viruses closer to humans. In a new study, researchers

Earth is able to regulate and stabilize its own temperature across vast timescales – 100,000 years or so on average – even after dramatic shifts in climate caused by ice ages, solar radiation shifts, and intense volcanic activity, new research suggests. This ‘stabilizing feedback’ is part of the reason Earth has managed to keep life

The Pacific nation of Tuvalu is planning to create a version of itself in the metaverse, as a response to the existential threat of rising sea levels. Tuvalu’s minister for justice, communication, and foreign affairs, Simon Kofe, made the announcement via a chilling digital address to leaders at COP27. He said the plan, which accounts

Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change, are on track to rise 1 percent in 2022 to reach an all-time high, scientists said Friday at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt. Emissions from oil, fueled by the continuing rebound in aviation, will likely rise more than 2 percent compared to

While it is certainly true that plants need CO2 to thrive, it appears that even plants can overdo it. Our CO2 habit is gradually making it harder for plants to absorb the vital nutrients they need to grow, the same nutrients that we rely on them to obtain. This is what a new review of

​Each of the last eight years, if projections for 2022 hold, will be hotter than any year prior to 2015, the United Nations (UN) said Sunday, detailing a dramatic increase in the rate of global warming. Sea level rise, glacier melt, torrential rains, heat waves – and the deadly disasters they cause – have all

Scientists have to factor in all kinds of variables when it comes to predicting ice loss in Antarctica as the world warms up. Now researchers need to take into account a huge river that runs for some 460 kilometers (286 miles) deep beneath the ice; a distance longer than the river Thames that runs through

One of the more unusual consequences of extreme climate change could include an increase in the frequency of rainbows appearing across the globe by 2100 by as much as 5 percent. Researchers behind a new study modelling the less obvious effects of climate change measure this increase in terms of days in the year with

A new report from a coalition of international scientists is unequivocal about the severity of the environmental crisis that we’re in, with 16 out of the 35 ‘vital signs’ used to track climate change now rated as code red – that is, they’re at record extremes. The number of climate-related disasters is escalating, the report

NASA scientists, using a tool designed to study how dust affects climate, have identified more than 50 spots around the world emitting major levels of methane, a development that could help combat the potent greenhouse gas. ​”Reining in methane emissions is key to limiting global warming,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a press release

Plastic recycling rates are declining even as production shoots up, according to a Greenpeace USA report out Monday that blasted industry claims of creating an efficient, circular economy as “fiction.” Titled “Circular Claims Fall Flat Again,” the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by US households in 2021, only 2.4