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. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. Earth

    Debate over signs of early life inspires dueling teams to go to Greenland — together

    The remote site — which may or may not contain evidence of the most ancient life on Earth — could help scientists plan how to study such signs on Mars.

  8. Paleontology

    Science News’ favorite fossils of 2019

    Fossil discoveries reported this year included Cambrian creatures, ancient bone cancer and a peek at life’s recovery after the dinosaur die-off.

  9. Climate

    Record-breaking heat amplified waves of student climate protests in 2019

    While the world experienced record-breaking heat, Greta Thunberg and other activists pushed decision makers to take climate change seriously.

  10. Earth

    Flooding Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen may not have needed a triggering event

    Building an oxygen-rich world doesn’t require volcanism, supercontinent breakups or the rise of land plants — just nutrient cycling, a study finds.

  11. Earth

    Fingerprints of climate change are increasingly appearing in extreme weather

    A new report finds evidence that some of 2018’s extreme weather events were linked to human-caused climate change.

  12. Climate

    See how an Alaskan glacier has shrunk over time

    Scientists have created a time-lapse series of images of the retreat of an Alaskan glacier using NASA and U.S. Geological Survey Landsat data.