Alexandra Witze

Contributing Correspondent

Alexandra Witze is a contributing correspondent based in Boulder, Colorado. Among other exotic locales, her reporting has taken her to Maya ruins in the jungles of Guatemala, among rotting corpses at the University of Tennessee's legendary "Body Farm," and to a floating sea-ice camp at the North Pole. She has a bachelor's degree in geology from MIT and a graduate certification in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Among her honors are the Science-in-Society award from the National Association of Science Writers (shared with Tom Siegfried), and the American Geophysical Union's award for feature journalism. She coauthored the book Island on Fire, about the 18th-century eruption of the Icelandic volcano Laki.

All Stories by Alexandra Witze

  1. illustration of different mars rovers on the martian surface
    Space

    How Mars rovers have evolved in 25 years of exploring the Red Planet

    Over 25 years, remotely controlled rovers have uncovered Mars’ watery history and continue to search for evidence that life once existed there.

  2. icebergs in Ilulissat Icefjord in Greenland
    Climate

    A global warming pause that didn’t happen hampered climate science

    Trying to explain why global warming appeared to slow down in the early 2000s distracted scientists and shook their confidence.

  3. photo of Wally Broecker sitting in a lab
    Climate

    Wally Broecker divined how the climate could suddenly shift

    Wally Broecker’s insight into the shutdown of the great ocean conveyor belt spurred the study of abrupt climate change.

  4. illustration in the shape of the Earth showing a train, a car, airplanes, felled trees, an oil spill, and other examples of humans' impact on their environment
    Climate

    How did we get here? The roots and impacts of the climate crisis

    Over the last century and a half, scientists have built a strong case for the roots and impacts of human-caused climate change.

  5. an illustration of a wave overwhelming people
    Science & Society

    How to detect, resist and counter the flood of fake news

    Misinformation about health is drowning out the facts and putting us at risk. Researchers are learning why bad information spreads and how to protect yourself.

  6. Typhoon Kammuri
    Earth

    Improved three-week weather forecasts could save lives from disaster

    Meteorologists are pushing to make forecasts good enough to fill the gap between short-term and seasonal.

  7. southern ocean in Antarctica
    Climate

    The Southern Ocean may be less of a carbon sink than we thought

    The Southern Ocean’s ability to suck up much of the carbon that humans pump into the atmosphere is in question.

  8. mammoth, mastodon, and gomphothere
    Ecosystems

    How mammoths competed with other animals and lost

    Mammoths, mastodons and other ancient elephants were wiped out at the end of the last ice age by climate change and spear-wielding humans.

  9. child drinking
    Life

    More than 2 billion people lack safe drinking water. That number will only grow.

    By 2050, half the world’s population may no longer have safe water to drink or grow food. What then?

  10. Fuego volcano
    Earth

    Here’s a look at the world’s deadliest volcanoes — and the ways they kill

    Scientists gathered data on nearly 280,000 global volcano deaths from 1500 to 2017 and sorted fatalities by cause of death, such as lava flows or gas.

  11. hawk moth
    Animals

    Flying insects tell tales of long-distance migrations

    Researchers are asking big questions about animal movements and pest control by tracking tiny insects in flight.

  12. illustration of life in the Pliocene
    Earth

    What the Pliocene epoch can teach us about future warming on Earth

    By simulating the changes that occurred during the warm Pliocene epoch, researchers are trying to predict Earth’s future hundreds of years from now.