Environment

The world could lose half of its best coffee-growing land under a moderate climate change scenario. Brazil, which is the currently world’s largest coffee producer, will see its most suitable coffee-growing land decline by 79 percent. That’s one key finding of a new study by scientists in Switzerland, who assessed the potential impacts of climate

Glaciers are retreating faster globally due to climate change but they melt more quickly when they flow into a lake than when they end on land, with consequences for water supplies, a new study found on Thursday. The Swiss-funded study is the first large-scale, detailed analysis of the phenomenon in mountain glaciers and could help

A Lima zoo is racing to save dozens of seabirds, including protected penguins, left covered in oil after 6,000 barrels of crude spilled off Peru’s coast in the aftermath of the Tonga tsunami. More than 40 birds, including Humboldt penguins – listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature – were brought to

We know that the climate crisis is already having a profound effect on global weather systems, altering temperatures, rainfall, wind patterns, and more – and a new study predicts likely deluges over the mountainous parts of East Asia in the future. The pouring rain will be brought on by atmospheric rivers, scientists predict. These narrow

Scientists have been keeping a close eye on the ‘megaberg’ designated as A68a since it split off from Antarctica back in July 2017 – and new research highlights just how much freshwater it’s released into the ocean during its late melting process. Satellite monitoring systems indicate that for three months at the end of its lifetime,

In less than 24 hours the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will update the Doomsday Clock. It’s currently at 100 seconds from midnight – the metaphorical time when the human race could destroy the world with technologies of its own making. The hands have never before been this close to midnight. There is scant hope

From sea to land to sky, Earth’s systems are contaminated with synthetic substances, and scientists warn it has already pushed the integrity of our planet over the brink. Today, there are about 350,000 human-made chemicals on the market, including plastics, pesticides, industrial chemicals, cosmetic chemicals, antibiotics, and other drugs. The fact this number continues to

Planetary-scale engineering schemes designed to cool Earth’s surface and lessen the impact of global heating are potentially dangerous and should be blocked by governments, more than 60 policy experts and scientists said on Monday. Even if injecting billions of sulphur particles into the middle atmosphere – the most hotly debated plan for so-called solar radiation modification

The nine years spanning 2013-2021 all rank among the 10 hottest on record, according to an annual report a US agency released Thursday, the latest data underscoring the global climate crisis. For 2021, the average temperature across global surfaces was 1.51 degrees Fahrenheit (0.84 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average, making the year the sixth-hottest

Thawing Arctic permafrost laden with billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases not only threatens the region’s critical infrastructure but life across the planet, according to a comprehensive scientific review. Nearly 70 percent of the roads, pipelines, cities, and industry – mostly in Russia – built on the region’s softening ground are highly vulnerable to acute

Ocean temperatures the world over are building at a relentless rate as humans continue to alter the atmosphere around them. In 2021, according to a new summary of two international datasets, the wave of warmth in our oceans hit a new peak, eclipsing the influence of cooler regional episodes. While last year’s ocean warming is

Extreme weather in Alaska that has brought record high temperatures and torrential downpours has left authorities in the far northern US state warning of “Icemageddon”. Huge sheets of ice are blocking roads and choking traffic in Fairbanks, Alaska’s second largest city, reported the state’s transportation department, which has coined the neologism – a play on

The massive Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 65cm if it were to completely collapse. And, worryingly, recent research suggests that its long-term stability is doubtful as the glacier hemorrhages more and more ice. Adding 65cm to global sea levels would be coastline-changing amounts. For context, there’s

We’re so far down the road of climate change, that even making drastic cuts to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels won’t be enough for the world’s weather systems to fall back into their previous patterns, according to a new study. But the research also suggests we still can have a huge impact on how severe that

According to the first global analysis of plant diversity, the world’s flora is growing increasingly uniform, even on isolated islands like Australia. For decades now, scientists have been warning the world we are headed for a new geological epoch, called the ‘Homogecene’, when unique life forms become overshadowed by more adaptable species that can live

Archaeologists have linked rising and lowering sea levels in the Atlantic Ocean to the ebbs and flows of ancient civilizations in southern Brazil. The findings, which incorporate several lines of past archaeological evidence, suggest even large, resilient, and cooperative coastal communities can easily go out with the tide. When analyzing and dating a series of

We have a lot to thank meteorites for. Had they not instigated several mass extinction events, including wiping out non-avian dinosaurs, we probably wouldn’t be here today. But some things still don’t add up about the massive scale of decimation they can cause. “For decades scientists have puzzled over why some meteorites cause mass extinctions,

Severe coastal flooding inundated islands and atolls across the western equatorial Pacific last week, with widespread damage to buildings and food crops in the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands. On one level, very high tides are normal at this time of year in the western Pacific, and are

The UN on Tuesday officially recognized the 38 degrees Celsius measured in Siberia last year as a new record high for the Arctic, sounding “alarm bells” over climate change. The sweltering heat – equivalent to 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit– was seen on June 20, 2020 in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk, marking the highest temperature ever

A crucial ice shelf on Antarctica‘s Thwaites Glacier is on track to collapse within five years, accelerating the melting of the notorious ‘doomsday glacier’. Thwaites, which is the size of Florida, is already melting quickly, losing about 50 billion tons of ice per year. The glacier earned its grim nickname because its total collapse would raise global sea

The deadly tornado outbreak that tore through communities from Arkansas to Illinois on the night of 10-11 December 2021, was so unusual in its duration and strength, particularly for December, that a lot of people including the US president are asking what role climate change might have played – and whether tornadoes will become more

A major part of tackling the climate crisis is in understanding what’s happening in Earth’s atmosphere in terms of heating, cooling, and the factors playing into that. Now scientists have discovered a massive new source of nitrous oxide (N2O), one of the greenhouse gases causing our planet to warm up. This nitrous oxide source is

While southern Australia experienced a wet winter and a soggy spring, northern Australia has seen the opposite. Extreme fire weather in October and November led to bushfires across 120,000 square kilometers of southern savanna regions. Significant fires continue to burn in the Kimberley, the Top End, Cape York, and the northern deserts. And while recent

The western United States has built their water infrastructure on a melting foundation, and unless we do something about global warming, scientists worry the consequences will be catastrophic. According to new models, the snow season in states like California could be virtually nonexistent by the end of the century, impacting water supply systems as well

With its large crater lake of turquoise water, plumes of smoke and sulfurous bubbling of mud and gases, the Krafla volcano is one of Iceland’s most awe-inspiring natural wonders. Here, in the country’s northeast, a team of international researchers is preparing to drill two kilometers (1.2 miles) into the heart of the volcano, a Jules

Here’s another reminder of the precarious position that the world’s climate and ecosystems are in: a new study estimates that global warming could push the Antarctic ice sheet past a tipping point in as little as 10 years. In other words, the point of no return in terms of ice sheet loss is arriving earlier

Outbreaks of invasive moth caterpillars, Lymantria dispar dispar, and forest tent caterpillar moths, Malacasoma disstria, occur at least every five years in temperate forests. The insects munch through so many leaves that our research has found the resulting decrease in leaf-fall and increase in caterpillar poop hugely alter the way nutrients, particularly carbon and nitrogen,

The world is warming at an “extraordinary” pace unlike anything seen over the past 24,000 years, according to a new study that has amassed hundreds of temperature records from around the globe to map past climate change. Reconstructing past temperatures from marine sediments dating back to the peak of the last ice age, the study

Just as with planetary or molecular systems, mathematical laws can be found that accurately describe and allow for predictions in chaotically dynamic ecosystems too – at least, if we zoom out enough. But as humans are now having such a destructive impact on the life we share our planet with, we’re throwing even these once

During the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 28,000 tons (25,000 metric tons) of pandemic-related plastic waste, such as masks and gloves, have ended up in the ocean, according to a new study.  That’s more than 2,000 double-decker buses worth of waste, The Guardian reported. And within a few years, a portion of those plastic gloves and packaging

We can’t afford to delay the switch over to renewable energy sources, and while there’s much debate about how to achieve this, more and more research along with growing real-world evidence suggest that it’s absolutely a viable, practical option. Now, a new study from an international team of researchers will hopefully help settle this for good.

Global carbon dioxide emissions are expected to increase to almost 2019 levels this year, upending last year’s unprecedented drop caused by COVID-19 lockdowns. This means that emissions are trending upwards again, when they should be in rapid decline if we are to meet the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels. We

If fossil fuel emissions do not dramatically decrease and soon, a new study suggests the various ecosystems of life on our planet will be rapidly transformed, especially in the tropics and polar regions. Instead of predicting the future of a single species or a specific habitat under climate change, the current research categorizes Earth into

The United Nations Secretary-General has called 2021 “the make it or break it year” for climate action. 2021 is not over yet, but a provisional report on the state of the planet suggests we are leaning heavily towards breaking it. Experts at the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently calculated the last seven years have

The United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) begins on Sunday 31 October in Glasgow, and the outcome may determine whether the world moves closer to a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.  The climate conference will bring together delegates from around the world to discuss their plans for reducing emissions and limiting climate change.

A talking CGI dinosaur just gave an impassioned speech about climate change to world leaders in a new UN video. Will they take it seriously? The dinosaur, named Frankie according to its Twitter page, bears a strong resemblance to the velociraptors from the film Jurassic World and is voiced by multiple celebrities in different languages, including film star and musician Jack

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached record levels last year, the United Nations said Monday, in a stark warning as Britain’s Boris Johnson admitted being “very worried” about the COP26 summit going awry. The UN’s blunt report on rising global warming comes as Prime Minister Johnson, the COP26 host, said it was “very, very

If you’re wondering just how much scientific consensus there is that humans have caused the climate of our planet to change, we can now put a number on it: 99.9 percent. That doesn’t leave much room for doubt. To get to that figure, researchers looked in detail at a total of 3,000 peer-reviewed studies randomly

Microplastics are turning up everywhere. We’ve found them in rivers, lakes, and oceans; in soil, snow and ice; in fish, whales, and us. In recent years, we’ve even started to measure these tiny particles in the very air we breathe. We still don’t know what, if anything, that’s doing to human health, but researchers in

The Arctic may no longer be the refuge it once was for migrating animals. Scientists now fear that climate change and environmental degradation have turned the yearly journey of numerous species, including birds, butterflies and ungulates, into an ecological trap. Upon reaching their destination, many animals are likely starving, being hunted or dying of disease

If Earth’s temperature rises by a significant enough margin, we could see a major restructuring of the plankton species living in our oceans. Not only would the diversity of species radically change, but warming oceans could see plankton migrating from the tropics towards the poles, away from waters growing too warm for habitability. In fact,

The aviation industry is necessary for the world we live in today, but it places a strain on the environment, thanks to emissions from petroleum-based fossil fuel. According to a new study, we could reduce these emissions by up to 68 percent – by switching to a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) derived from plants. Specifically,

A single bad El Niño can drive almost 6 million children into severe hunger, a new study has found. This is up to three times as many children that have gone hungry due to the global pandemic, and a clear demonstration of how El Niños can directly impact human wellbeing on a massive scale.  “It’s

Even if humanity beats the odds and caps global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, seas will rise for centuries to come and swamp cities currently home to half-a-billion people, researchers warned Tuesday. In a world that heats up another half-degree above that benchmark, an additional 200 million of today’s urban dwellers would

Some problems are so big, you can’t really see them. Climate change is the perfect example. The basics are simple: the climate is heating up due to fossil fuel use. But the nitty gritty is so vast and complicated that our understanding of it is always evolving. Evolving so rapidly, in fact, that it’s basically

For now, life is flourishing on our oxygen-rich planet, but Earth wasn’t always that way – and scientists have predicted that, in the future, the atmosphere will revert back to one that’s rich in methane and low in oxygen. This probably won’t happen for another billion years or so. But when the change comes, it’s

Communities that rely on the Colorado River are facing a water crisis. Lake Mead, the river’s largest reservoir, has fallen to levels not seen since it was created by the construction of the Hoover Dam roughly a century ago. Arizona and Nevada are facing their first-ever mandated water cuts, while water is being released from

Our planet’s air during the preindustrial period was not quite as pristine as you might think, according to new research out of Antarctica. An analysis of six ice core drillings taken from the southernmost continent has revealed a substantial increase in black carbon starting in the 14th century. That’s long before humans in the southern