Environment

For years, scientists have warned that melting Antarctic ice could push sea levels dangerously higher by the end of this century. But a new study led by University of Maryland scientist Madeleine Youngs suggests those warnings may still be too conservative because they leave out a crucial factor: the ocean's... Read more

According to a study published in Science Advances on May 15, global rivers are undergoing widespread and sustained deoxygenation driven by climate warming, among which tropical rivers are the most vulnerable ecosystems, with an urgent need to combat oxygen loss.... Read more

As tropical cyclones (TCs) are among the most destructive natural hazards worldwide, understanding how TCs change under climate warming is of critical importance. While substantial progress has been made in projecting changes in TC intensity and precipitation, much less is known about how their vertical structure will respond to a... Read more

Environmental conservation is one of the most pressing debates across the world. For decades, it has often been viewed as a choice between strict government regulation and voluntary community action. However, a new research study on the conservation of Tokyo's Zushi-Onoji satoyama introduces a more effective approach that combines both.... Read more

Scientists, including those working with the Earth Commission, are calling for a fundamental rethink of how the world imagines its future, arguing that today's dominant climate and biodiversity models are too narrow to deal with the scale and complexity of the crises ahead.... Read more

University of Delaware geologist Jessica Warren has contributed to research that brings us one step closer to better understanding how earthquakes operate. Situated along a stretch of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, between Indonesia and Central America, the Gofar transform fault is one of the fastest moving faults on... Read more

The fresh air, picturesque vistas and pristine bush of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney draw millions of visitors a year. Unfortunately, the Blue Mountains are also the site of a controversial investigation into water contamination with "forever chemicals," also called PFAS.... Read more

For an agricultural nation like New Zealand, severe drought is one of the most ominous consequences of a warming planet.... Read more

New research led by the University of Oxford and University College London (UCL) has revealed that pollution from coal-fired power plants is significantly reducing the energy output of solar photovoltaic (solar PV) installations, particularly where these are expanding side by side. The findings have been published in Nature Sustainability.... Read more

Multi-year La Niña events—so-called "double-dip" or even "triple-dip" La Niñas—are becoming more common. But why do these events persist for multiple years in the first place?... Read more

Heat waves are a growing global threat to human health, well-being and livelihoods. Across 12 major European cities during the summer of 2025, a 10-day period of extreme heat led to 2,300 deaths—1,500 of them were attributed to climate change amplifying temperatures by 1°C–4°C. Heat waves were responsible for nearly... Read more

As densely populated coastal communities struggle to keep up with rising sea levels, new research reveals a way to predict how river deltas build land and protect coastal regions from encroaching oceans. This insight will help engineers and policymakers estimate how much new land can be created or maintained when... Read more

The amount of sunlight, or solar radiation, that a location receives makes a big impact on weather conditions, crop success, rainfall and overall climate trends. Today, instruments called pyrheliometers are used to carefully calculate how much sunlight occurs at a particular location, but these instruments weren't available to quantify sunlight... Read more

The Tenpō Famine of the 1830s was one of the worst in Japanese history, with the poor weather causing escalating rice prices as a major cause. To better understand how historical weather anomalies affected crop prices in Japan and ultimately led to the famine, researchers developed a new framework to... Read more

A major international study has found that contact with the natural world is linked to higher levels of life satisfaction—and we have our bodies to thank for unlocking this benefit.... Read more