Environment

The Earth is heating up, and not just its atmosphere and oceans. The soil itself is getting warmer, too, leading to more extreme soil heat around the planet – along with unclear but ominous consequences for surface dwellers like us. We have been underestimating this problem, according to a new study, focusing on rising air

Most gardeners know that earthworms help keep soils healthy, now scientists have assessed just how important their underground activities are to global food production – and how to protect them. In research published Tuesday scientists found that earthworms may be to thank for more than six percent of global grain yields every year, because of

The Gulf Stream really is weakening, a new study confirms: a finding which has profound implications for one of the biggest weather systems on our planet. When the Gulf Stream changes, so does the climate. Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the University of Miami looked at four decades of data from the

Antarctica is looking less and less recognizable with each passing year. On land, scientists have found flowering plants, moss, and algae spreading like never before, and at sea, the extent of floating sea ice has hit record lows. These dramatic changes have coincided with rising summer temperatures. In 2022, researchers at the University of Washington

Our planet has changed a lot over billions of years, from the location of the continents to the makeup of the atmosphere, and a new study looks in detail at the history of the Sahara desert – which wasn’t always an arid wilderness. Researchers from Finland and the UK reconstructed the periodic transformations of the

For such a lush, verdant paradise, the Amazon rainforest’s soil can be surprisingly barren. Yet mysteriously fertile “dark earth” called terra preta can be found in patches across hundreds of sites, the origins of which have sparked debate among scientists. Now new research from the US and Brazil says ancient Amazonians intentionally enriched areas of

When the ancient supercontinent Gondwana was torn asunder 83 million years ago, a huge chunk of it sank beneath the waves as it drifted away. According to some geologists, this submerged chunk – called Zealandia – would be considered Earth’s 8th continent, it weren’t for a thick layer of ocean water obscuring our view. Instead,

Marine heatwaves may last longer and be more intense in deeper water, potentially threatening sensitive species as climate change makes the extreme events more frequent, researchers said on Monday. Oceans have absorbed 90 percent of the excess heat produced by the carbon pollution from human activity since the dawn of the industrial age. Marine heatwaves

Like the comet striking the dinosaurs – in slower motion, but just as deadly – human activity is hacking off entire branches from the tree of life, a new study confirms. “It is changing the trajectory of evolution globally and destroying the conditions that make human life possible,” ecologists warn in their new paper. “It

Former political leaders and heads of international organisations called Thursday for national moratoriums on deploying technologies to slow global warming by dimming the impact of the Sun. The Climate Overshoot Commission said research and experiments into so-called solar radiation modification (SRM) should move forward, but only under international supervision and in jurisdictions with strong environmental

Human activity and appetites have weakened Earth’s resilience, pushing it far beyond the “safe operating space” that keeps the world liveable for most species, including our own, a landmark study said Wednesday. ​Six of nine planetary boundaries – climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, synthetic chemicals including plastics, freshwater depletion, and nitrogen use – are already

For the first time, world demand for oil, gas and coal is forecast to peak this decade due to the “spectacular” growth of cleaner energy technologies and electric cars, the International Energy Agency’s chief said Tuesday. The IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook, due out next month, will show that “the world is on the cusp

Red fire ants have marched one by one into Sicily – the first official sighting of the invasive species in Europe. If these notorious swarming insects, originally from South America, continue to spread like they have elsewhere, experts worry they could claim the whole continent. Today, imported red fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) are the fifth

Between January and August, the United States was struck by a record-breaking 23 weather and climate disasters where losses exceeded US$1 billion in each case, official data showed Monday. The tally for 2023 has already exceeded the previous record of 22 such events in 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said, and four

The United States has been pumping so much groundwater that the ground is beginning to split open across southwestern parts of the country for miles on end. These giant cracks, aka fissures, have been spotted in states including Arizona, Utah, and California. Groundwater is one of the main sources of freshwater on Earth – it

An ancient supervolcano in the United States may be hiding the largest deposit of lithium found anywhere in the world. A new study hypothesizes that the McDermitt Caldera, which sits on the border between Nevada and Oregon, contains more than double the concentration of lithium seen in any other bed of clay globally, around 20

Some parts of the United States are hitting temperatures “too hot for safe fan use” twice as often as they did decades ago, new research shows. Analyzing hourly weather data from the past 20 years and between 1950 and 1969, Luke Parsons, a climate scientist at Duke University, and colleagues found that more US residents

Geoengineering is often presented as a last-resort technological fix to the climate crisis that can still swoop in and save the day. But new models suggest that such risky measures, like dimming the Sun, are not enough to save Antarctica now. There’s only one thing left that could, and it’s the very same thing we’ve

​An unprecedentedly violent volcanic eruption that triggered a tsunami off the Pacific island nation of Tonga in 2022 unleashed the fastest underwater currents ever recorded, according to a study published on Thursday. The submerged Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai Volcano sent rocks, ash and gas racing across the seafloor at 122 kilometers (76 miles) per hour in

Forty years ago this month the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a grim report warning us of the coming perils if we did not act on climate change. “Agricultural conditions will be significantly altered, environmental and economic systems potentially disrupted, and political institutions stressed,” they predicted in a report published in September, 1983. After

Wind and snow don’t always bring about the coldest winters in the Arctic. When snow is blown across sea ice, an international team of researchers has found it can indirectly contribute to regional warming. That happens because snow in the Arctic contains tiny particles of sea salt. If these aerosols are whipped up into the

Invasive species that wreck crops, ravage forests, spread disease, and upend ecosystems are spreading ever faster across the globe, and humanity has not been able to stem the tide, a major scientific assessment said Monday. The failure is costing well over $400 billion dollars a year in damages and lost income – the equivalent to

We could be producing concrete that’s 30 percent stronger by processing and adding charred coffee grounds to the mix, researchers in Australia have discovered. Their new recipe could solve multiple problems at the same time. Every year the world produces a staggering 10 billion kilograms of coffee waste globally. Most ends up in landfills. “The

Polar bears have long symbolized the dangers posed by climate change, as rising temperatures melt away the Arctic sea ice they depend upon for survival. But quantifying the impact of a single oil well or coal power plant on the tundra predators had eluded scientists, until now. A new report published in the journal Science

Wild boars in southeastern Germany are known to contain high levels of radioactive cesium, which has been widely attributed to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. But radioactivity levels have decreased in other animals while mysteriously persisting in the boars – a peculiar behavior known as the “wild boar paradox”. New research shows nuclear weapons tests from

The fossil fuels that humanity burns today will be a death sentence for many lives tomorrow. A recent review of 180 articles on the human death rate of climate change has settled on a deeply distressing number. Over the next century or so, conservative estimates suggest a billion people could die from climate catastrophes, possibly

A forest blaze in Greece is “the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU” and the bloc is mobilising nearly half its firefighting air wing to tackle it, a European Commission spokesman said Tuesday. Firefighters have been battling the flames for 11 days in northeastern Greece which have killed at least 20 people and pose

We’ve been warned that our planet will change in unimaginable ways if we don’t act soon, and new research shows nearly 50 percent of 15–84-year-olds have already experienced significant change. Seeing what lies ahead, climate scientists have been at pains to show us how climate change will intensify such that today’s youth will bear the

In 1997, a lone wolf crossed an ice bridge that briefly connected Canada with the remote Isle Royale, which lies off the coast of Michigan in Lake Superior and is renowned for its rich biodiversity. His arrival revived the flagging fortunes of the wider wolf population, which had been hit by disease and inbreeding, and

In early 2023, the Guardian published an article suggesting that more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets are worthless. These credits are essentially a promise to protect forests and can be bought as a way to “offset” emissions elsewhere. Verra, the largest certifier of these offset credits, said the claims were “absolutely incorrect” but the

​Japan began releasing wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, prompting a furious China to ban all seafood imports from its neighbour.​ The start of the discharge of around 540 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water over several decades is a big step in decommissioning the still highly dangerous

Forests, it’s often said, are the lungs of Earth. Tall trees stretch skyward to find sunlight, sucking water up from their roots and carbon dioxide in through their leaves to photosynthesize. Like any chemical reaction, this elemental exchange works best within an optimal temperature range, outside of which a tree’s photosynthetic machinery can break down.

Japan has announced plans to release wastewater from the stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant into the ocean starting Thursday. Here is what we know about the release, how the water has been treated and concerns around the safety of the exercise. Why the release? Around 100,000 litres (26,500 gallons) of contaminated water – from cooling the

It’s the midst of winter in the Southern Hemisphere and Antarctica is missing an obscene amount of ice. “One might think that the huge remote continent of Antarctica with its kilometers-thick ice sheet could withstand extremes brought about by climate change, but this is absolutely not the case,” says University of Leeds glaciologist Anna Hogg.

Heavy rains lashed California on Sunday as Tropical Storm Hilary raced in from Mexico, bringing warnings of potentially life-threatening flooding in the typically arid southwestern United States. With people already on edge, nature struck in another scary way: a 5.1 magnitude earthquake hit near the southern California town of Ojai but there were no immediate

Over the past decade, deadly wildfires have become increasingly common because of both human-caused climate change and disruptive land management practices. Southern California, where the three of us live and work, has been hit especially hard. Southern California also experienced a wave of wildfires 13,000 years ago. These fires permanently transformed the region’s vegetation and

A little over two centuries ago, in the year 1800, roughly a billion people called Earth home. Just a century later, it had grown by another 600 million. Today, there are around 8 billion people on the planet. That sort of growth is unsustainable for our ecosphere, risking a ‘population correction’ that according to a

The single most species-rich habitat on Earth has been identified, and it’s not the oceans, rainforests, or swamps. Most life on Earth lives (at least in part) within the soils beneath our feet. “Soil is likely home to 59 percent of life, including everything from microbes to mammals, making it the singular most biodiverse habitat

NASA has just confirmed July 2023 was the hottest month since 1880. For anyone paying the slightest bit of attention this shouldn’t be a surprise. The heartbreaking disasters still cascading around the world have converted Earth’s fever into a painful reality. “NASA data confirms what billions around the world literally felt: temperatures in July 2023

Since 2006, the amount of heat-trapping methane in Earth’s atmosphere has been rising fast and, unlike the rise in carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane’s recent increase seems to be driven by biological emissions, not the burning of fossil fuels. This might just be ordinary variability – a result of natural climate cycles such as El Niño.

In a landmark climate trial, a Montana court on Monday ruled in favor of a group of youths who accused the western US state of violating their rights to a clean environment. District Court Judge Kathy Seeley said a state law preventing agencies from considering the impacts of greenhouse gases when issuing permits for fossil

From awful convulsions and paralysis in wildlife, to heartbreaking miscarriages in humans, the physical dangers of lead exposure are well established. As a neurotoxin, lead has also been implicated in mental and developmental problems, including lowering IQ. A new review suggests early-life lead exposure may be leading to increased risks of criminal behavior much later

July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, the European Union’s climate observatory confirmed Tuesday, warning of dire consequences. Marked by heatwaves and fires all around the world, the previous month was 0.33 degrees Celsius higher than the record set in July 2019 when the average temperature was 16.63C (32 Fahrenheit), it said. “It

In 2015, research on global forest cover revealed a concerning fact: 70 percent of the world’s remaining forest now lies within 1 kilometer of the forest’s edge. This process, called fragmentation, is causing the deepest and darkest parts of the world’s forests to shrink. Forest fragmentation is bad news for many unique animal and plant

Super-heated seawater off the Florida Keys has grown so perilous to the world’s third-largest barrier reef that scientists are now removing samples of coral from ocean nurseries to place in cooler land-based tanks. Sea temperatures off Florida have risen to extraordinary highs this month, presenting a severe threat to the barrier reef. “Hot water is

On the heels of a new record high in the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic reached its hottest-ever level this week, several weeks earlier than its usual annual peak, according to preliminary data released Friday by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The news comes after scientists confirmed that July is on track to be

Science fiction is rife with fanciful tales of deadly organisms emerging from the ice and wreaking havoc on unsuspecting human victims. From shape-shifting aliens in Antarctica, to super-parasites emerging from a thawing woolly mammoth in Siberia, to exposed permafrost in Greenland causing a viral pandemic – the concept is marvellous plot fodder. But just how

Twenty years of satellite data show that a stretch of coastal desert extending south from Peru’s north and into Chile is getting greener, but this is not good news. “This is a warning sign, like the canary in the mine,” cautions Cambridge University mathematician Hugo Lepage. Scattered mist oases filled with unique vegetation, called lomas,