Search Content
-
News
Heat waves are roasting reefs, but some corals may be resilient
It’s no secret that warming ocean waters have devastated many of the world’s coral reefs. For instance, a 2016 marine heat wave killed 30 percent of coral in the Great Barrier Reef, a study published online April 18 in Nature reports. But some coral species may be able to adapt and survive in warmer waters for another century, or even two, a second team reports April 19 in PLOS Genetics. And...
-
News
Rising CO2 levels might not be as good for plants as we thought
Two major groups of plants have shown a surprising reversal of fortunes in the face of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
During a 20-year field experiment in Minnesota, a widespread group of plants that initially grew faster when fed more CO2 stopped doing so after 12 years, researchers report in the April 20 Science. Meanwhile, the extra CO2 began to stimulate the...
-
News
Cargo ships must cut their emissions in half by 2050
A new, hard-fought international deal will set limits on greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping for the first time.
Delegates to the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization, or IMO, met for a week in London to hash out the details of the plan. On April 13, more than 170 states agreed to the new road map, which aims to reduce shipping emissions at least 50...
-
Science Stats
Ocean heat waves are becoming more common and lasting longer
The world’s oceans are sweltering. Over the last century, marine heat waves have become more common and are lasting longer. New research suggests the annual number of days that some part of the ocean is experiencing a heat wave has increased 54 percent from 1925 to 2016, researchers report April 10 in Nature Communications.
Typically, scientists define a marine heat wave as at least five...
-
News
Efforts to contain Mississippi floods may have made them worse
The world’s longest system of levees and floodways, meant to rein in the mighty Mississippi River, may actually make flooding worse.
Using tree rings and lake sediments, researchers re-created a history of flooding along the lower Mississippi River extending back to the 1500s. This paleoflood record suggests that the past century of river engineering — intended to minimize flood damage...
-
Feature
Are we ready for the deadly heat waves of the future?
Some victims were found at home. An 84-year-old woman who’d spent over half her life in the same Sacramento, Calif., apartment died near her front door, gripping her keys. A World War II veteran succumbed in his bedroom. Many died outside, including a hiker who perished on the Pacific Crest Trail, his water bottles empty.
The killer? Heat. Hundreds of others lost their lives when a...
-
News
Seafloor map shows why Greenland’s glaciers melt at different rates
Greenland is melting rapidly, but some glaciers are disappearing faster than others. A new map of the surrounding seafloor helps explain why: Many of the fastest-melting glaciers sit atop deep fjords that allow Atlantic Ocean water to melt them from below.
Researchers led by glaciologist Romain Millan of the University of California, Irvine analyzed new oceanographic and topographic data...
-
News
Tree rings tell tale of drought in Mongolia over the last 2,000 years
A new analysis is shedding light on drought in Mongolia, both past and future.
By studying the rings of semifossilized trees, researchers constructed a climate history for the semiarid Asian nation spanning the last 2,060 years — going 1,000 years further back than previous studies.
It was suspected that a harsh drought from about 2000 to 2010 that killed tens of thousands of...
-
Science & the Public
What we can and can’t say about Arctic warming and U.S. winters
It certainly feels like the northeastern United States is getting snowier.
In the first two weeks of March, three winter storms slammed into the northeast corridor from Washington, D.C., to Boston. Over the last decade, a flurry of extreme winter storms has struck the region, giving birth to clever portmanteau names such as Snowpocalypse (2009), Snowmageddon (2010) and Snowzilla (2016...
-
Feature
When bogs burn, the environment takes a hit
In 2015, massive wildfires burned through Indonesia, sending thick smoke and haze as far as Thailand.
These fires were “the worst environmental disaster in modern history,” says Thomas Smith, a wildfire expert at King’s College London. Smith estimates that the fires and smoke killed 100,000 people in Indonesia and neighboring countries and caused billions of...