Environment

Nearly every part of the United States is getting walloped by wild weather or just about to be.... Read more

Ice cores taken from glaciers reveal the air pollution of the past, using atmospheric particles incorporated in snow that fell on the glacier and became ice. Now, scientists have extracted a record of thousands of years' worth of air pollution from 9.5 meters of ice at the Weißseespitze glacier, close... Read more

From coral reefs and kelp forests to the open ocean and deep-sea zones, nutrients that support phytoplankton growth and marine productivity form the foundation of oceanic ecosystems. When levels of key nutrients—such as nitrate and phosphate—get too high or too low, these ecosystems may face major disruption. However, at a... Read more

A new study using multidecade satellite imagery and face-to-face human interviews tracked the environmental and societal impacts of gravel mining in the Lubha River, Northeast Bangladesh. The researchers found that the river had recovered its natural shape within just four years after gravel mining stopped. However, the local economy did... Read more

Is industry doing enough for the climate—or are many efforts still largely plans on paper? A new study from Chalmers University of Technology examines how Sweden's 20 largest industrial emitters are working toward the goal of net-zero emissions by 2045.... Read more

Climate change is lengthening our days because rising sea levels slow Earth's rotation. Researchers from the University of Vienna and ETH Zurich now show that the current increase in day length—1.33 milliseconds per century—is unprecedented in the past 3.6 million years. The team reconstructed ancient day-length fluctuations using the fossil... Read more

The adoption of management techniques that reduce the impact of timber harvesting can promote the recovery of tropical forests, such as the Amazon, and store carbon in the long term while maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. Research published in the Journal of Environmental Management provides evidence that these good practices... Read more

Thanks to upstream diversions and climate change, Utah's Great Salt Lake has shrunk by 70% since 1989, exposing about 800 square miles of playa and mudflats—along with numerous curiosities. While a potential environmental catastrophe, the lake's dewatering presents numerous research opportunities for University of Utah geoscientists, including several who are... Read more

Winter winds lofted clouds of dust from the Sahara Desert, carrying it north toward the Mediterranean and dispersing it widely across Europe in March 2026. When the dust combined with moisture-laden weather systems, a dirty rain fell in parts of Spain, France, and the United Kingdom.... Read more

Spain endured its wettest January and February in almost half a century, with a string of deadly storms lashing the country, national weather agency AEMET said Thursday.... Read more

The Amazon rainforest is famous for storing massive amounts of carbon in its trees and soils, helping regulate the global climate. Yet a paper published in New Phytologist shows that one of South America's largest carbon-storing ecosystems exists in an often-overlooked grassy savanna: the Cerrado in Brazil.... Read more

Before rain begins to fall, scientists and engineers can predict where a storm might cause flooding thanks to advanced modeling and digital simulations that help guide billion-dollar decisions involving infrastructure design, emergency response, land-use planning, insurance, agriculture, water quality, and public safety.... Read more

Melting glaciers and ice sheets are raising sea levels while the Arctic is poised to log one of its worst winters on record.... Read more

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming weather prediction, enabling forecasts that once required hours of supercomputing time to run in just minutes. But as AI tools play an expanding role in high-stakes hazard modeling, researchers at Rice University say an essential question remains: Do AI-generated storms behave realistically?... Read more

A new study estimates that the Israel–Gaza war has generated around 33 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), highlighting the often-overlooked environmental impact of armed conflict.... Read more