Environment

Wildfires are burning the West Coast, hurricanes are flooding the Southeast — and some of those storms are rising from the dead.  “Zombie storms”, which regain strength after initially petering out, are the newest addition to the year 2020. And these undead weather anomalies are becoming more common thanks to climate change. “Because 2020, we

As the streets of San Francisco emptied out in the first months of the pandemic, the city’s male birds began singing more softly and improving their vocal range, making them “sexier” to females, according to a new study published Thursday. The paper adds to a growing body of research describing how animals – from whales

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday ordered all passenger vehicles sold in the state to be zero-emission by 2035 to fight climate change and smog-fouled air. The transportation sector causes more than half of California’s carbon pollution, and parts of the state are vexed by some of the most toxic air in the country, according

In 2013, a suffocatingly hot blob of water brewed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of North America. It then decimated marine life. Thousands of seabirds washed up dead on shores, along with starving baby sea lions. Salmon, krill, and other marine animals vanished as the warmth fuelled a massive toxic algal bloom that

Raising Earth’s average surface temperature another degree Celsius will lock in 2.5 metres of sea level rise from Antarctica alone and an extra three degrees see the frozen continent lift oceans 6.5 metres, scientists warned Wednesday. These devastating increases in the global waterline – enough to cripple coastal cities from Mumbai to Miami and displace

Innovative ways to live more sustainably are urgently required – including in how we ship items across the planet. Right now, 90 percent of the world’s merchandise is transported by shipping, and although that can be better for the environment than air freight according to certain measures, cargo ships are still powered by fossil fuels,

US government scientists reported Monday that the Arctic Ocean’s floating ice cover has shrivelled to its second lowest extent since satellite records began in 1979. Until this month, only once in the last 42 years has Earth’s frozen skull cap covered less than 4 million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles). The trend line is

Two extremely rare Javan rhinoceros calves have been spotted in an Indonesian national park, boosting hopes for the future of one of the world’s most endangered mammals. The rhino calves – a female named Helen and male called Luther – were seen with their mothers in footage taken from nearly 100 camera traps installed in

According to the IUCN Red List 32,000 species are threatened with extinction – everything from birds and mammals, to reef corals and crustaceans. And that’s only the species we know about. But although we might be working hard to help some species come back from the brink, we might also be eating some threatened species without even

Human-made plastic isn’t just flooding the world’s oceans, it’s also piling up on the land and in the soil. For years now, the synthetic microfibres woven into our clothing have been leaching into the environment. Even when we don’t throw away our clothes or when we buy them secondhand, wastewater from our washing machines can

The world’s most advanced telescopes were not made for today’s temperatures, and it’s messing with our observations of the night sky.  Three decades-worth of data from the Paranal Observatory in northern Chile – home of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) – has revealed several ways in which climate change is already impacting

Here’s how active this year’s Atlantic hurricane season has been: When Tropical Storm Wilfred formed on September 18, the National Hurricane Center exhausted its list of storm names for only the second time since naming began in 1950. Within hours, two more storm had formed – now known as Alpha and Beta. Even more surprising

Scientists call it the doomsday glacier. That’s partly because the Thwaites, a Britain-sized glacier in western Antarctica, is melting at an alarming rate: It’s retreating by about half a mile (2,625 feet) per year. Scientists estimate the glacier will lose all of its ice in about 200 to 600 years. When it does, it will raise

Countries are set to miss all of the targets they set themselves a decade ago to preserve nature and save Earth’s vital biodiversity, the United Nations (UN) said Tuesday. Humanity’s impact on the natural world over the last five decades has been nothing short of cataclysmic: since 1970 close to 70 percent of wild animals,

A massive chunk of ice – larger than the city of Paris – has broken off from the Arctic’s largest ice shelf because of warmer temperatures in Greenland, scientists said Monday. The 113-square-kilometre (43-square-mile) block broke off the Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden glacier in Northeast Greenland, which the scientists said had been expected given the rising average temperatures.

In the salt water marshes of southern California, a splashing killifish is easy prey for a hungry shorebird. Like a jerking marionette, the helpless creature shimmies and flashes on the surface of the water. And all the while, hiding deep in its brain, an invisible other quietly pulls the strings. The puppeteer in question is

Sixty-six million years ago, after a massive asteroid hit Earth with the explosive energy of roughly 1 billion nuclear bombs, a shroud of ash, dust and vaporized rock covered the sky and slowly rained down on the planet. As plant and animal species died en masse, tiny undersea amoebas called forams continued to reproduce, building sturdy shells out of

San Francisco residents awoke on Wednesday to discover a glowing orange sky. Smoke from wildfires has been covering San Francisco for weeks, but the layer that blew in on Wednesday morning was much thicker. And as the day wore on, the sky took on a darker hue of orange, making life in the city at

New research shows that around a fifth of all carbon emissions in recent years has come from the assets and suppliers of multinational corporations – and the flow of money indicates that pollution is effectively being outsourced from the developed to the developing world. The team behind the study wants to highlight how much of

Trees that grow quickly die younger, risking a release of carbon dioxide that challenges forecasts that forests will continue to be a “sink” for planet-warming emissions, scientists said Tuesday. Tree cover absorbs a significant proportion of carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels and plays a crucial role in projections for our ability to wrestle

“Zombie” wildfires that were smoldering beneath the Arctic ice all winter suddenly flared to life this summer when the snow and ice above it melted, new monitoring data reveal. And this year has been the worst for Arctic wildfires on record, since reliable monitoring began 17 years ago. Arctic fires this summer released as much carbon in the first

The physical footprints left behind by humankind don’t wash away with the waves.  Human construction has modified the oceans as much as it has urbanised the land, a new analysis reveals. Mapping the global extent of human development in Earth’s oceans, an international team calculated the footprint occupied by human built structures as of 2018,

In the hot sunshine, asphalt road and roof coverings can put out more secondary organic aerosol (SOA) pollutants than the cars on the road, according to a new study that looked at the South Coast Air Basin in California. Cars still produce more overall pollution, but SOAs – such as the ones emitted by hot

The volume of lakes formed as glaciers worldwide melt due to climate change had jumped by 50 percent in 30 years, according to new study based on satellite data. “We have known that not all meltwater is making it into the oceans immediately,” lead author Dan Shugar, a geomorphologist and associate professor at the University

There is no doubt that Australia’s Black Summer last year was absolutely devastating. Fires across the country burnt through 186,000 square kilometres (72,000 square miles) of land, killing 34 people, while billions of animals were affected.   But there’s something particularly chilling about seeing the end results of the blaze. Australian aerial analysis company Geospatial Intelligence

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which hold enough frozen water to lift oceans 65 metres, are tracking the UN’s worst-case scenarios for sea level rise, researchers said Monday, highlighting flaws in current climate change models. Mass loss from 2007 to 2017 due to melt-water and crumbling ice aligned almost perfectly with the Intergovernmental Panel

Researchers working on the Central Andean Plateau (or Altiplano) in Peru have discovered a giant tree fossil buried in the plains – and the 10 million years of history that it reveals don’t quite match up with what we thought we know about the ancient climate. Back when this tree died, a little more than

It might sound like a bad movie, but extreme wildfires can create their own weather – including fire tornadoes. It happened in California as a heat wave helped to fuel hundreds of wildfires across the region, many of them sparked by lightning. One fiery funnel cloud on 15 August was so powerful, the National Weather

Songbirds in tropical rainforests curtail their reproduction to help them survive droughts, according to a study Monday. Species with longer lifespans were better able to cope with this environmental volatility than previously thought, researchers found. With more record hot spells gripping parts of the planet and biodiversity threatened by human encroachment on habitats, a crucial

In the shadow of Canada’s largest cluster of skyscrapers, Toronto is looking to preserve a majestic, centuries-old oak tree – but efforts have been complicated by the pandemic. The towering 24-meter (79-feet) high Northern Red Oak is one of the oldest trees in these parts, having sprouted an estimated 300 years ago, around the time

More than half the ice shelves ringing Antarctica that prevent huge glaciers from sliding into the ocean and lifting sea levels are at risk of crumbling due to climate change, researchers said Wednesday. Melt water running into deep fissures caused by warming air is undermining the structural integrity of these natural barricades, they reported in

Water covers 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and is crucial to life as we know it, but how it got here has been a longstanding scientific debate. The puzzle was a step closer to being solved Thursday after a French team reported in the journal Science they had identified which space rocks were responsible,

Our planet’s water supply is an incredibly valuable resource that we need to protect, and worrying new figures show between 30-50 percent of it is being stolen – meaning that water isn’t paid for or counted. This theft occurs when people and companies obtain water illegally – often for agricultural purposes. That could mean getting

Firefighters on Sunday battled some of California’s largest-ever fires that have forced tens of thousands from their homes and burned one million acres, with further lightning strikes and gusty winds forecast in the days ahead. Thousands of lightning strikes have hit the state in the past week, igniting fires that left smoke blanketing the region,

Scientists from Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London analysed satellite surveys of glaciers, mountains, and ice sheets between 1994 and 2017 to identify the impact of global warming. Their review paper was published in the journal Cryosphere Discussions. Describing the ice loss as “staggering,” the group found that melting glaciers and ice sheets could cause

The world’s oceans have turned into a veritable sponge for our emissions, and new climate models suggest we’ve soaked them right through. Since the 1950s, our planet’s vast bodies of water have absorbed roughly 93 percent of the energy entering the climate system, and while most of that heating has been observed near the ocean

Next week for the first time on record, two hurricanes could hit  the Gulf of Mexico at the same time. Twice before, in 1959 and 1933, two tropical storms have entered the Gulf at the same time. But never before have both been hurricanes. It might not go that way. Only one of the storm systems

Greenland’s massive ice sheet saw a record net loss of 532 billion tonnes last year, raising red flags about accelerating sea level rise, according to findings released Thursday. That is equivalent to an additional 3 million tonnes of water streaming into global oceans every day, or six Olympic pools every second. Crumbling glaciers and torrents

Humanity will have burned through all the natural resources that the planet can replenish for 2020 by Saturday, according to researchers who said the grim milestone is slightly later than last year after the pandemic slowed runaway overconsumption. So-called Earth Overshoot Day – the date when humanity has used all the biological resources that Earth

California’s Death Valley recorded what may be its hottest ever temperature on Sunday (August 16) – a blazing 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius). If that National Weather Service (NWS) measurement holds up, it will have been the hottest August temperature recorded there by 3 F (1.7 C), the hottest temperature recorded in Death Valley

A ship that has leaked more than 1,000 tonnes of oil in pristine waters off the Mauritius coast has split in two, its Japanese operator said Sunday. The bulk carrier MV Wakashio ran aground on a coral reef off the southeastern coast of Mauritius on July 25 and began oozing oil more than a week

Greenland’s ice sheet may have hit a tipping point that sets it on an irreversible path to completely disappearing. Snowfall that normally replenishes Greenland’s glaciers each year can no longer keep up with the pace of ice melt, according to researchers at Ohio State University. That means that the Greenland ice sheet – the world’s

We all know by now that eating less meat is good for the planet – the production of meat products for human consumption leaves behind a hefty carbon footprint. And 2019 research highlighted a very simple way that canteens in schools and colleges could greatly reduce the amount of meat eaten – without actually having to

A woolly brown rhinoceros that weighed two tons once roamed northeastern Siberia before mysteriously disappearing around 14,000 years ago. Was its demise caused by humans, or the warming climate of the time? A new study by a Swedish and Russian team of scientists who examined DNA fragments from the remains of 14 of these prehistoric mammals

Wind and solar produced a record 10 percent of global electricity in the first half of 2020 as the world’s coal plant fleet ran at less than half its capacity, analysis published Thursday showed. Despite a near-record drop in power demand due to the pandemic, renewables accounted for 1,129 terawatt-hours in January-June, compared with 992

The Arctic’s rapidly melting sea ice continues to outrun even our most dire predictions for the future, and that’s not out of line with the past. A new and improved model, based on the last warm period in Earth’s history, now suggests shallow pools of rain and melt water could bring about the end of

A massive chunk of Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf, some 4,000 years old, has broken off, reducing the shelf by more than half, scientists reported last Sunday. After separating from the shelf, the piece split in two, forming an iceberg almost the size of Manhattan. Climate change likely fuelled the collapse of the shelf, researchers

Satellite images of penguin poop in Antarctica have revealed a number of Emperor penguin colonies living and breeding on the icy continent that scientists weren’t previously aware of. Eight completely new communities have now been found in some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of Antarctica, and three additional colonies that were previously identified