Environment

Using a new method to track groundwater levels and greenhouse gas emissions, researchers uncover the climate impact of Southeast Asia's peatlands. In Indonesia, Malaysia, and other parts of Southeast Asia, vast areas spanning up to 300,000 square kilometers have emerged over thousands of years as plants grow and thrive in... Read more

Australia has always had heat waves. But this week's heat wave in southeastern Australia is something else. Temperatures in some inland towns in South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria were up to 20°C above average for the time of year, which meteorologists described as "incredibly abnormal." Victoria's heat record... Read more

This week, Victoria recorded its hottest day in nearly six years. On Jan. 27, the northwest towns of Walpeup and Hopetoun reached 48.9°C, and the temperature in parts of Melbourne soared over 45°C. Towns in South Australia also broke heat records.... Read more

Far from simply a source of unstructured online content, disaster management in the digital age can be supported by careful analysis of online social-media data, suggests a paper published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS) titled "Social Media for Managing Disasters Triggered by Natural Hazards: A Critical Review... Read more

The Sierra Nevada snowpack, the source of nearly one-third of California's water supply, is looking a little like a New Year's resolution: full of hope and promise at the beginning of January, but now struggling with a bothersome reality check. Starting on Christmas Eve, big storms dumped 7 to 8... Read more

New research looks at carbon dioxide removal—where carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere and stored—and finds that large-scale reliance on land-based methods, such as planting forests or bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), can protect biodiversity by avoiding climate impacts, but could also compete with biodiversity protection unless site... Read more

Argentina's government on Thursday declared an emergency in Patagonia, where wildfires have ripped through vast tracts of forest since the start of the Southern Hemisphere summer.... Read more

With another wave of dangerous cold heading for the U.S. South on Friday, experts say the risk of hypothermia heightens for people in parts of Mississippi and Tennessee who are entering their sixth day trapped at home without power in subfreezing temperatures.... Read more

The patchwork efforts to identify and safely remove contamination left by the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires have been akin to the Wild West. Experts have given conflicting guidance on best practices. Shortly after the fires, the federal government suddenly refused to adhere to California's decades-old post-fire soil-testing policy; California... Read more

Researchers at Concordia have developed a new method of measuring the amount of usable water stored in snowpacks. The comprehensive technique, known as snow water availability (SWA), uses satellite data and climate reanalysis techniques to calculate snow depth, snow density, and snow cover across a wide swath of Canada and... Read more

A new study evaluating climate policies in 40 countries over a 32-year period finds that carbon pricing and taxation—combined with investments in renewable energy and research—are among the most effective tools governments can use to reduce CO₂ emissions.... Read more

In North America and Europe, emissions of ozone precursors such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) declined by half between 2000 and 2018. However, the ozone content of the air—and thus the risk to human health—has not decreased proportionally. Until now, theories about the causes have been... Read more

Should growing glacial lakes be used for energy production and water supply—or remain protected as ecologically valuable systems? A research team from the University of Potsdam, together with partners from the University of Leeds, has recorded the distribution and volume of glacial lakes worldwide. Their findings allow various usage scenarios... Read more

A new study out of York University has found that the amount of atmospheric trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), the tiniest forever chemical, significantly declined in Toronto during COVID in 2020, which researchers say is good news for the world's ability to mitigate it in the future. The paper, "Atmospheric Removal of... Read more

Another blast of Arctic air was set to spread across much of the United States from Thursday night, even as local authorities struggled to dig out from mounds of snow and ice days after a giant storm passed.... Read more