So much on this planet depends on a simple matter of density. In the Atlantic Ocean, a conveyor belt of warm water heads north from the tropics, reaching the Arctic and chilling. That makes it denser, so it sinks and heads back south, finishing the loop. This system of currents, known as the Atlantic Meridional […]
Read MoreSteps away from the public restrooms in Yosemite Village, a buzzy stop in Yosemite National Park’s iconic valley, sits a brown metal dumpster. Visitors reach up to open the trash chute. Their peanut butter jars and apple cores tumble into a sealed compartment. The slot slams shut. Then, they clip a tethered steel carabiner through […]
Read MoreSteps away from the public restrooms in Yosemite Village, a buzzy stop in Yosemite National Park’s iconic valley, sits a brown metal dumpster. Visitors reach up to open the trash chute. Their peanut butter jars and apple cores tumble into a sealed compartment. The slot slams shut. Then, they clip a tethered steel carabiner through […]
Read MoreHometree’s restoration effort, says Ó Foghlú, will be based on the advice of ecologists and foresters. But the tentative vision is to return pine forests to the upper slopes of the valley, willow and alder to the floodplain, and oak and birch to the valley sides. The group will also work to regenerate blanket bogs […]
Read MorePreviously, scientists reckoned that Greenland iced over some 2.5 million years ago, and has been that way since. In 2021, Bierman and his colleagues determined that it was actually ice-free sometime in the past million years. Now, they’ve dated the tundra ecosystem captured in the Camp Century core to a mere 416,000 years ago—so northwestern […]
Read MoreFor a final point of comparison, Smith calculates that cosmic rays interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean annually cause the natural deposition of 2,000 times more tritium than will be introduced by the gradual Fukushima release. Tatsujiro Suzuki at Nagasaki University remembers watching in horror as the disaster unfolded back in 2011. […]
Read More“If we’ve lost the ice, we’ve lost the 2-degree water,” Michael Litzow, shellfish assessment program manager with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told me. “Cold water, it’s their niche—they’re an Arctic animal.” The snow crab may rebound in a few years, so long as there aren’t any periods of warm water. But if warming […]
Read MoreThe current heat wave in Italy is “very unusual,” says Mercalli, because of its long duration: The heat event is expected to last roughly two weeks. A study published in May estimated that, until the late 1990s, the average European heat wave would last one week or less, but this has since increased significantly due […]
Read MoreJust weeks after a third of the US population was hit with air-quality alerts thanks to smoke from climate-change-fueled fires in Canada, 100 million Americans are now under heat alerts. A cap of extra-hot air, known as a heat dome, has settled over the West and South, pushing temperatures relentlessly higher. The map below shows […]
Read MoreNightmare summer travel is upon us as vacation season coincides with high temperatures and severe weather capable of disrupting flights. By Wednesday of this week, FlightAware, a site that follows air traffic around the world, had tallied some 30,000 delays and between 900 and 1,400 cancellations per day. In the US, more severe weather is […]
Read MoreThe island of Svalbard, about halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, is warming twice as fast as the rest of the Arctic, which itself is warming up to four and a half times faster than the rest of the planet. Scientists just discovered that the island’s retreating glaciers are creating a potentially significant […]
Read MoreNot even the Arctic Ocean is immune to the incessant growth of microplastic pollution. In a new study that analyzed sediment core samples, researchers quantified how many of the particles have been deposited since the early 1930s. As scientists have shown elsewhere, the team found that microplastic contamination in the Arctic has been growing exponentially […]
Read MoreThis story originally appeared in High Country News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The first grainy film clip shows a black bear exploding out of the trail camera’s frame. In another, a mule deer stops munching wildflowers, backs away, and takes off in the opposite direction. In a third, a moose doesn’t […]
Read More“I would feel relief and joy, that what we’re doing matters,” said 18-year-old Kian Tanner, “that when we speak out, when we create action, we can create positive change in the world.” The tension between the two sides was especially apparent while the defense was cross-examining the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses, attempting to prove that any […]
Read MoreSubmersible disasters are extremely rare—and vessels are built to last. Girguis cites the Alvin: Commissioned in 1964, the deep-ocean research submersible was the first crewed vessel to explore the Titanic wreckage, in 1986. It’s still in operation, having made more than 5,000 dives. “I feel safer in a research submersible than I do on the […]
Read MoreUsually by this time of year, sea surface temperatures—as a global average—drop dramatically. The southern hemisphere has much more water than the northern hemisphere, and it’s now winter there. Yet this year the average remains anomalously high. Yes, the oceans have been getting hotter because of climate change. But something else is going on in […]
Read MoreRight now, Detroit, Chicago, and Minneapolis have the unhealthiest air in the world, save for Dubai. Canadian wildfires are spewing smoke that’s wafting south, blanketing the Midwest in a toxic haze, just as they did earlier this month along the East Coast. Seventeen states—nearly a third of the US population—are under air quality alerts. Video: […]
Read MoreConsider this nightmare scenario. For four days now, temperatures have soared past 110 degrees. Those able to stay home are cranking their air-conditioning while officials scramble to move the unhoused into cooling centers. Even at night, the sweltering is relentless, thanks to the urban heat island effect: The concrete and brick of this metropolis absorbs […]
Read MoreThis story originally appeared in Hakai Magazine and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In the Fram Strait off Greenland’s west coast, Véronique Merten encountered the foot soldiers of an invasion. Merten was studying the region’s biodiversity using environmental DNA, a method that allows scientists to figure out which species are living nearby by […]
Read MoreSome reports have also sparked fears of “flesh-eating bacteria” among the algae, but there is no evidence for this. When people come into close contact with rotting sargassum, they can experience health problems, including diarrhea, vomiting, and eye irritation, so it is sometimes more than just an inconvenience. Plus, while local authorities have spent millions […]
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