New research has explained why Antarctica is not warming as much as other continents, and why southern Australia is recording more droughts. Researchers have found rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are strengthening the stormy Southern Ocean winds which deliver rain to southern Australia, but pushing them further south towards Antarctica. ...
Scientists have revealed that Earth's mantle under Antarctica is at a lower viscosity and moving at such a rapid rate it is changing the shape of the land at a rate that can be recorded by GPS. They have explained for the first time why the upward motion of Earth's crust in the Northern Antarctic Peninsula is currently taking place so quickly. ...
Powerful winds spinning around Antarctica are partially driven by global warming, and they are dragging vital rain away from Australia ...
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout discharged roughly five million gallons of oil and up to 500,000 tons of natural gas into Gulf of Mexico offshore waters over a period of 84 days. In the face of a seemingly insurmountable cleanup effort, many were relieved by reports following the disaster that naturally-occurring microbes had consumed much of the gas and oil. ...
A team of scientists has found that the woody growth of forests in north Borneo is half as great again as in the most productive forests of north-west Amazonia, an average difference of 3.2 tons of wood per hectare per year. ...
The effects of the huge El Niño of the 1990s were all the worse because cautious forecasts didn't allow people to prepare. It shouldn't happen again ...
A lack of food may have been behind the stranding of hundreds of sea lion pups last year, and it looks like this year's brood might have a similar fate ...
The world's largest land predators have evolved genes that let them eat a diet ultra-high in fat that would give most humans a heart attack ...
Up to half of the recent warming in Greenland and neighboring parts of the Canadian Arctic may be due to climate variations that originate in the tropical Pacific and are not connected with the overall warming of the planet. The other portion is likely due to global warming. ...
Half the warming in the Arctic over the past few decades is the result of huge atmospheric waves emanating from the Pacific Ocean ...
Wild weather is coming in 2014, with floods, storms and droughts expected around the Pacific, but little is being done to protect the people on the front line ...
New research has found that changes in tree-ring density in the Arctic may be evidence of changes in light intensity during the trees' growth. The finding has direct implications for the tree-ring 'divergence problem,' in which the density of tree rings in recent decades has not kept pace with increases in temperature, as expected. ...
The looming threat of climate change has been plastered all over the media in recent years. The solution just may lie in the research development of all possible scenarios that the effects of climate change may have. ...
It is estimated that ocean temperature warming will cause phytoplankton and zooplankton biomass to decrease by 6% and 11% respectively by the end of the century. A lower amount of these two main elements in the marine food web could reduce fish biomass in certain regions. ...
If undisturbed natural beauty is your bag, then the Pacific islands of New Caledonia are the place to be, with 1.3 million square kilometres now protected ...
Due to increased interest in drilling for hydrocarbons in the Arctic and the associated environmental concerns, researchers are working to evaluate whether broadband active acoustic techniques can be used to remotely detect oil spills under sea ice. ...
Overlapping impacts of climate change such as drought or flooding, declining crop yields or ecosystem damages create hotspots of risk in specific parts of Africa. These are for the first time identified in a new study. The uncertainties in assessing the impacts do not necessarily hamper but can inform development strategies, according to the scientists. Likelihood and potential severity of impacts...
Glaciologists have mapped virtually all of the world's glaciers -- including their locations and sizes -- allowing for calculations of their volumes and ongoing contributions to global sea rise as the world warms. ...
The U.S. Global Change Research Program has released the Third National Climate Assessment, the most comprehensive, authoritative, transparent scientific report on U.S. climate change impacts ever generated. The report confirms that climate change is affecting every region of the country and key sectors of the U.S. economy and society, underscoring the need to combat the threats climate change presents...
Authored by hundreds of scientists, the National Climate Assessment has found that human-induced climate change is taking a toll on the entire country ...