New climate change research from the Berkeley Lab suggests that boreal forests will likely shift north and will relinquish more trapped carbon than most current climate models predict. It’s difficult to imagine how a degree or two of warming will affect a location. Will it rain less? What will happen to the area’s vegetation? New [...]

A new analysis finds that swift action by politicians is the single most important factor in limiting global warming. The costs of delays outweigh any possible benefits of waiting for more scientific research into the mechanisms of climate change. The scientists published their findings in two studies in the journal Nature ¹ ². This contradicts [...]

The temperature in the inner urban areas of Honk Kong, China, is predicted to rise by two to three degrees Celsius in the next 30 years, according to researchers at the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI) of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). The scientists used remote sensing technology as well as satellite [...]

Northern exposure, aggressive snowmaking and hard manmade snow crystals are helping some of the bigger ski resorts deal with climate change, but smaller operations are under threat as the warmer winters will lead to less snow on the ground. The scientists published their findings in the journal Tourism Management. Regional operations at lower elevations that [...]

Colder temperatures have kept crabs out of Antarctic seas for 30 million years, but warmer waters from the ocean depths are now intruding onto the continental shelf, and this seems to be changing the delicate ecological balance. An analysis¹ has suggested that 1.5 million crabs already inhabit Palmer Deep, an ocean floor valley. Native organisms [...]

In the Arctic Circle, on the continental slope off Canada in the Beaufort Sea, the shallowest known deposit of methane hydrate has been discovered. The crystalline solid is comprised of methane molecules trapped in an ice-lattice structure. The scientists presented their findings at the annual meeting of the Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California. The [...]

Fresh concerns are being expressed about the carbon locked in the Arctic’s permafrost. New studies presented at the American Geophysical Union quantify the amount of soil carbon at about 1.9 trillion metric tons, indicating that previous estimates underestimated the climate risk if this carbon is released due to warming temperatures. New laboratory experiments that are [...]

A new study has come up with the most accurate estimate yet for the melting of the polar ice sheets, possibly ending decades of uncertainty about whether the sheets will melt further or actually gain mass in the face of climate change. The scientists published their findings in the journal Science. The ice sheets in [...]

Deforestation in tropical rainforests adds more carbon dioxide to the Earth’s atmosphere than the sum total of cars and trucks on the world’s roads. Cars and trucks account for 14% of global carbon emissions, while most analysts attribute 15% to deforestation. One of the reasons why logging is bad for the climate is that when [...]

Global sea levels have risen about seven inches in the past hundred years, and that pace is steadily accelerating thanks to climate change. This rise in sea levels threatens most coastal areas, and makes storm surges much worse, as in the case of hurricanes as well as smaller storms. Scientists published their findings in the [...]

Scottish scientists have proposed to use a giant space-based dust cloud, blasted off an asteroid, to shade the Earth from the sun. Deliberately manipulating the Earth’s climate with large-scale engineering projects is called geoengineering and these proposals are always controversial because of the risk that they entail. The scientists will publish their findings in the [...]

As carbon dioxide levels continue to climb in the Earth’s atmosphere, most current climate models project that the world’s oceans and trees will keep soaking up more than half of the extra CO2. However, researchers have spotted a problem with the capacity of plants to absorb more CO2. It’s now expected that this capacity will [...]