Volcanic avalanches of rock and gas may be more destructive than previously thought
Avalanches of ash, gas and rock that cascade downhill during volcanic eruptions may be even more dangerous than scientists had realized. Pulses of high pressure…
Category: Earth
Climate change communication should focus less on specific numbers
What’s in a number? The goals of the 2021 United Nations’ climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, called for nations to keep a warming limit of…
Some volcanic hot spots may have a surprisingly shallow heat source
Some of the world’s volcanic hot spots may be fueled by molten material that originates surprisingly close to Earth’s surface. While some of the hottest…
Africa’s ‘Great Green Wall’ could have far-reaching climate effects
Africa’s “Great Green Wall” initiative is a proposed 8,000-kilometer line of trees meant to hold back the Sahara from expanding southward. New climate simulations looking…
50 years ago, scientists were genetically modifying mosquitoes
Sterility gene for mosquito control — Science News, December 18, 1971 Scientists are working hard to find a substitute for DDT in the control of…
How a warming climate may make winter tornadoes stronger
NEW ORLEANS — Warmer winters could make twisters more powerful. Though tornadoes can occur in any season, the United States logs the greatest number of…
Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier ice shelf could collapse within five years
The demise of a West Antarctic glacier poses the world’s biggest threat to raise sea levels before 2100 — and an ice shelf that’s holding…
Invasive grasses are taking over the American West’s sea of sagebrush
No one likes a cheater, especially one that prospers as easily as the grass Bromus tectorum does in the American West. This invasive species is…
The Southern Ocean is still swallowing large amounts of humans’ carbon dioxide emissions
The Southern Ocean is still busily absorbing large amounts of the carbon dioxide emitted by humans’ fossil fuel burning, a study based on airborne observations…
Fungi may be crucial to storing carbon in soil as the Earth warms
When it comes to storing carbon in the ground, fungi may be key. Soils are a massive reservoir of carbon, holding about three times as…
A new book shows how animals are already coping with climate change
Hurricane Lizards and Plastic SquidThor HansonBasic Books, $28 As a conservation biologist, Thor Hanson has seen firsthand the effects of climate change on plants and…
Corals may store a surprising amount of microplastics in their skeletons
A surprising amount of plastic pollution in the ocean may wind up in a previously overlooked spot: the skeletons of living corals. Up to about…
50 years ago, corporate greenwashing was well under way
Environmental advertising: A question of integrity— Science News, November 27, 1971 A new report published by the Council on Economic Priorities clearly outlines facts showing…
Albatrosses divorce more often when ocean waters warm
When it comes to fidelity, birds fit the bill: Over 90 percent of all bird species are monogamous and — mostly — stay faithful, perhaps…
How climate change may shape the world in the centuries to come
It’s hard to imagine what Earth might look like in 2500. But a collaboration between science and art is offering an unsettling window into how…
A new map shows where carbon needs to stay in nature to avoid climate disaster
Over decades, centuries and millennia, the steady skyward climb of redwoods, the tangled march of mangroves along tropical coasts and the slow submersion of carbon-rich…
An ancient exploding comet may explain why glass litters part of Chile
Scattered across a swath of the Atacama Desert in Chile lie twisted chunks of black and green glass. How the glass ended up there, sprinkled…
Scientists are racing to save the Last Ice Area, an Arctic Noah’s Ark
It started with polar bears. In 2012, polar bear DNA revealed that the iconic species had faced extinction before, likely during a warm period 130,000…
Climate change may be shrinking tropical birds
In a remote corner of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, researchers have spent decades catching and measuring birds in a large swath of forest unmarred by roads…
A mineral found in a diamond’s flaws contains the source of some of Earth’s heat
When it comes to knowing what actually lies deep inside the Earth, diamonds are a geologist’s best friend. A tiny bit of rock trapped inside…
Earth’s lower atmosphere is rising due to climate change
Global temperatures are rising and so, it seems, is part of the sky. Atmosphere readings collected by weather balloons in the Northern Hemisphere over the…
Earth will warm 2.7 degrees Celsius based on current pledges to cut emissions
This year was supposed to be a turning point in addressing climate change. But the world’s nations are failing to meet the moment, states a…
Here’s how ice needles sculpt patterns into cold, rocky landscapes
Neat rings, stripes and swirls embellish many cold, rocky landscapes. Although these beautiful stone patterns look like humanmade artwork, they’re all natural. Scientists have long…
How these sea-loving mangroves ended up far from the coast
Nearly 200 kilometers from the sea, red mangroves thrive in the rainforests along the San Pedro Mártir River on the Yucatán Peninsula. But how did…
Earth is reflecting less light. It’s not clear if that’s a trend
The amount of sunlight that Earth reflects back into space — measured by the dim glow seen on the dark portions of a crescent moon’s…
Work on complex systems, including Earth’s climate, wins the physics Nobel Prize
Earth’s climate is a vastly complex system on a grand scale. On a microscopic level, so is the complicated physics of atoms and molecules found…
2020 babies may suffer up to seven times as many extreme heat waves as 1960s kids
The kids are not all right. Children born in 2020 could live through seven times as many extreme heat waves as people born in 1960.…
A volcano-induced rainy period made Earth’s climate dinosaur-friendly
The biggest beasts to walk the Earth had humble beginnings. The first dinosaurs were cat-sized, lurking in the shadows, just waiting for their moment. That…
‘Ice Rivers’ invites you to get to know our world’s melting glaciers
Ice RiversJemma WadhamPrinceton Univ., $26.95 I’ve always been a sucker for glacier lingo, whimsical words for a harsh landscape gouged, smoothed and bulldozed by ice.…
Rice feeds half the world. Climate change’s droughts and floods put it at risk
Under a midday summer sun in California’s Sacramento Valley, rice farmer Peter Rystrom walks across a dusty, barren plot of land, parched soil crunching beneath…
Australian fires in 2019–2020 had even more global reach than previously thought
The severe, devastating wildfires that raged across southeastern Australia in late 2019 and early 2020 packed a powerful punch that extended far beyond the country,…
Potty-trained cattle could help reduce pollution
You can lead a cow to a water closet, but can you make it pee there? It turns out that yes, you can. Researchers in…
How AI can help forecast how much Arctic sea ice will shrink
In the next week or so, the sea ice floating atop the Arctic Ocean will shrink to its smallest size this year, as summer-warmed waters…
Clouds affected by wildfire smoke may produce less rain
When smoke rises from wildfires in the western United States, it pummels clouds with tiny airborne particles. What happens next with these clouds has been…
Cold plasma could transform the sustainable farms of the future
Physicist Stephan Reuter of Polytechnique Montréal spends most days using his expertise in energy and matter to improve medical technologies. Recently though, he stood in…
Climate change made Europe’s flash floods in July more likely
Climate change has increased the likelihood of heavy downpours in Western Europe such as the July rains that led to devastating flash floods, researchers affiliated…
Haiti’s citizen seismologists helped track its devastating quake in real time
On August 14, a powerful magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Haiti, triggering landslides, toppling buildings and killing at least 1,900 people, with over 9,000 people injured.…
A new book reveals stories of ancient life written in North America’s rocks
How the Mountains GrewJohn DvorakPegasus Books, $29.95 Imagine a world where pigeon-sized dragonflies soar above spiders with half-meter-long legs, where 2-meter-long millipedes slither and 20-kilogram…
Greece’s Santorini volcano erupts more often when sea level drops
When sea level drops far below the present-day level, the island volcano Santorini in Greece gets ready to rumble. A comparison of the activity of…
Dinosaur-killing asteroid may have made Earth’s largest ripple marks
The asteroid impact that slew the dinosaurs may have also indirectly sculpted the largest ripple marks ever found on Earth. A series of ridgelike structures…
A stunning visualization of Alaska’s Yukon Delta shows a land in transition
The westward journey of the mighty Yukon River takes it from its headwaters in Canada’s British Columbia straight across Alaska. The river has many stories…
3.42-billion-year-old fossil threads may be the oldest known archaea microbes
Threadlike filaments pressed in rock may be the remnants of archaea that burped methane near hydrothermal vents 3.42 billion years ago. If so, these strands…
How intricate Venus’s-flower-baskets manipulate the flow of seawater
A Venus’s-flower-basket isn’t all show. This stunning deep-sea sponge can also alter the flow of seawater in surprising ways. A lacy, barrel-shaped chamber forms the…
Missing Antarctic microbes raise thorny questions about the search for aliens
Even in the harshest environments, microbes always seem to get by. They thrive everywhere from boiling-hot seafloor hydrothermal vents to high on Mt. Everest. Clumps…
Collapse may not always be inevitable for marine ice cliffs
When it comes to global warming and sea level rise, scientists have made some dire predictions. One of the most calamitous involves the widespread collapse…
A satellite’s view of a deadly 2019 eruption could improve volcano monitoring
On December 9, 2019, a cloud of steam and volcanic gases blasted out of New Zealand’s Whakaari, or White Island, volcano. Relative to eruptions at…
3 things to know about the record-smashing heat wave baking the Pacific Northwest
Like a lid on a steaming pot, a high-pressure system is sitting over the U.S. Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, Canada, sending temperatures in the…
A tweaked yeast can make ethanol from cornstalks and a harvest’s other leftovers
When corn farmers harvest their crop, they often leave the stalks, leaves and spent cobs to rot in the fields. Now, engineers have fashioned a…
Human-driven climate change sent Pacific Northwest temperatures soaring
The deadly heat wave that baked the Pacific Northwest in late June would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change, an international team of…
Why planting tons of trees isn’t enough to solve climate change
Trees are symbols of hope, life and transformation. They’re also increasingly touted as a straightforward, relatively inexpensive, ready-for-prime-time solution to climate change. When it comes…