Carolyn Gramling

Carolyn Gramling

Earth & Climate Writer

Carolyn is the Earth & Climate writer at Science News. Previously she worked at Science magazine for six years, both as a reporter covering paleontology and polar science and as the editor of the news in brief section. Before that she was a reporter and editor at EARTH magazine. She has bachelor’s degrees in Geology and European History and a Ph.D. in marine geochemistry from MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She’s also a former Science News intern.

All Stories by Carolyn Gramling

  1. Paleontology

    This ancient dinosaur was no bigger than a hummingbird

    The skull of one of these Mesozoic Era birds — the tiniest yet known — was discovered encased in a chunk of amber originally found in Myanmar.

  2. Climate

    Australia’s wildfires have now been linked to climate change

    Australia’s devastating 2019–2020 wildfires were at least 30 percent more likely due to human-caused climate change.

  3. Climate

    Fossil fuel use may emit 40 percent more methane than we thought

    Ice cores suggest natural seeps release less methane than was estimated, meaning industry produces nearly all of today’s geologic methane emissions.

  4. Climate

    Climate change may be speeding up ocean circulation

    Circulation in the top 2,000 meters of the world’s oceans has increased as a result of faster winds around the globe, a study suggests.

  5. Climate

    A new roadmap shows how the U.S. could be carbon-neutral by 2050

    A new report charts a roadmap for the U.S. to have zero carbon footprint by 2050, but only with heavy and immediate investment in carbon removal technologies.

  6. Earth

    Tiny meteorites suggest ancient Earth had a carbon dioxide–rich atmosphere

    Simulations of reactions between 2.7-billion-year-old micrometeorites and atmospheric gases hint Archean Earth’s atmosphere had high levels of CO2.

  7. Earth

    Fed by human-caused erosion, many river deltas are growing

    Deforestation and river damming are changing the shape of river deltas around the globe.

  8. Earth

    Volcanic gas bursts probably didn’t kill off the dinosaurs

    A new timeline for massive bursts of volcanic gases suggests the Deccan Traps eruptions weren’t the real dinosaur killer 66 million years ago.

  9. Earth

    2019 was the second-warmest year on record

    2019 was the second-warmest year on record, ending a decade that topped 140 years of heat records.

  10. Earth

    Wildfires could flip parts of the Amazon from a carbon sponge to a source by 2050

    Climate change and deforestation could double the area burned by fire in the southern Amazon by 2050, flipping the forest from carbon sponge to source.

  11. Earth

    Here’s how climate change may make Australia’s wildfires more common

    An El Niño–like ocean-atmosphere weather pattern called the Indian Ocean dipole helped fuel extremely dry conditions in Australia.

  12. Climate

    Climate models agree things will get bad. Capturing just how bad is tricky

    Climate models are better than ever at simulating complex interactions between ocean, air, ice and land. But scientists still aren’t really sure what the worst-case scenario might be for Earth’s future climate.