Climate

Tech

The U.S. power grid desperately needs upgrades to handle climate change

The climate is changing faster than the U.S. power grid is adapting. Smarter grids and smaller grids could help.

Ecosystems

Will Australia’s forests bounce back after devastating fires?

Intense bushfires that have blazed down Australia’s eastern coast could have long-lasting effects on the continent’s unique plants and animals.

Oceans

Noise pollution from ships may scare Arctic cod from feeding grounds

Melting Arctic sea ice is opening up northern waters to increased shipping, and the vessel noise is taking a toll on Arctic cod.

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.

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.

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.

Earth

A 2.2-billion-year-old crater is Earth’s oldest recorded meteorite impact

The newly dated Yarrabubba crater in Western Australia extends Earth’s impact record by more than 200 million years.

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.

Life

The ‘Blob,’ a massive marine heat wave, led to an unprecedented seabird die-off

Scientists have linked thousands of dead common murres in 2015–2016 to food web changes caused by a long-lasting marine heat wave nicknamed the Blob.

Archaeology

After the Notre Dame fire, scientists get a glimpse of the cathedral’s origins

Researchers will tackle the scientific questions behind rebuilding Notre Dame, and learn more about its history.

Animals

Australian fires have incinerated the habitats of up to 100 threatened species

Hundreds of fires that are blazing across the continent’s southeast have created an unprecedented ecological disaster, scientists say.

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.