A new metric of extinction risk considers how cultures care for species
In shallow coastal waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans, a seagrass-scrounging cousin of the manatee is in trouble. Environmental strains like pollution and habitat…
Category: Earth
It’s possible to reach net-zero carbon emissions. Here’s how
Patricia Hidalgo-Gonzalez saw the future of energy on a broiling-hot day last September. An email alert hit her inbox from the San Diego Gas & Electric…
Earth’s inner core may be reversing its rotation
Our planet may have had a recent change of heart. Earth’s inner core may have temporarily stopped rotating relative to the mantle and surface, researchers…
New data show how quickly light pollution is obscuring the night sky
The night sky has been brightening faster than researchers realized, thanks to the use of artificial lights at night. A study of more than 50,000…
Cyclones in the Arctic are becoming more intense and frequent
CHICAGO – In January 2022, a cyclone blitzed a large expanse of ice-covered ocean between Greenland and Russia. Frenzied gusts galvanized 8-meter-tall waves that pounded…
Extreme weather in 2022 showed the global impact of climate change
It was another shattering year. Climate change amped up weather extremes around the globe, smashing temperature records, sinking river levels to historic lows and raising…
2022’s biggest climate change bill pushes clean energy
The world needed bold climate action this year, and we got it. California and other states announced plans to phase out gas-powered cars after 2035.…
The Hunga Tonga volcano eruption touched space and spawned a lightning blitz
When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in the Pacific Ocean erupted earlier this year, the event was one for the record books — in several…
Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano is erupting. Here’s what you need to know
Mauna Loa, Earth’s largest active volcano, abruptly woke up on November 27 after an almost 40-year nap. The volcano shot fountains of lava as high…
Dry pet food may be more environmentally friendly than wet food
Pet owners may have a new reason to reach for the kibble. Dry cat and dog food tends to be better for the environment than…
Tiger sharks helped discover the world’s largest seagrass prairie
Scientists have teamed up with tiger sharks to uncover the largest expanse of seagrasses on Earth. A massive survey of the Bahamas Banks —…
A UN report shows climate change’s escalating toll on people and nature
Neither adaptation by humankind nor mitigation alone is enough to reduce the risk from climate impacts, hundreds of the world’s scientists say. Nothing less than…
An ancient impact on Earth led to a cascade of cratering
A bevy of craters formed by material blasted from the carving of another, larger crater — a process dubbed secondary cratering — have finally been…
Sunlight helps clean up oil spills in the ocean more than previously thought
Sunlight may have helped remove as much as 17 percent of the oil slicking the surface of the Gulf of Mexico following the 2010 Deepwater…
Weird ‘superionic’ matter could make up Earth’s inner core
A quirky material that behaves like a mishmash of liquid and solid could be hidden deep in the Earth. Computer simulations described in two studies…
Deep-sea Arctic sponges feed on fossilized organisms to survive
In the cold, dark depths of the Arctic Ocean, a feast of the dead is under way. A vast community of sponges, the densest group…
Satellites have located the world’s methane ‘ultra-emitters’
A small number of “ultra-emitters” of methane from oil and gas production contribute as much as 12 percent of emissions of the greenhouse gas to…
The past’s extreme ocean heat waves are now the new normal
Yesterday’s scorching ocean extremes are today’s new normal. A new analysis of surface ocean temperatures over the past 150 years reveals that in 2019, 57…
What the Tonga volcano’s past tells us about what to expect next
On January 15, an underwater volcano in the island nation of Tonga erupted with the explosive force of a nuclear bomb, and it may not…
Intense drought or flash floods can shock the global economy
Extremes in rainfall — whether intense drought or flash floods — can catastrophically slow the global economy, researchers report in the Jan. 13 Nature. And…
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…
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…