Environment

Households with high incomes are the main beneficiaries of subsidy programs supporting the clean energy transition. A team of researchers from the University of Freiburg, Stanford University, Indiana University and the University of Pennsylvania has analyzed why this is the case and how energy policy can be made more equitable.... Read more

Billed as the first comprehensive report on the state of U.S. lands, water, and wildlife, the Nature Record National Assessment includes the decline of butterfly populations and other species to the remarkable comeback of the bald eagle.... Read more

Imagine a man wants to buy a new shirt for work that he plans to wear once a week for at least the next five years. When browsing for options, he finds one shirt from a lower-quality brand priced at £20 and one shirt from a high-quality brand for £50.... Read more

Many countries have adopted ambitious climate protection targets, typically measuring progress through emissions reductions and the expansion of renewable energy. But according to a research team led by Germán Bersalli of the Research Institute for Sustainability, such indicators offer only limited insight. In Current Research in Environmental Sustainability, the researchers... Read more

Offshore wind farms are an important pillar of the European Union's strategy for renewable energy—by 2050, the EU aims to increase capacity in the North Sea more than tenfold. A new study by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon shows that the expansion of wind farms can alter the natural transport and deposition... Read more

Sea ice is sticking to Alaska's northern coast for less time each year, according to 27 years of data analyzed by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists. Such landfast ice, which stays attached to the shoreline instead of drifting with winds and currents, also has covered less total area in recent... Read more

A new Stanford University study has helped solve a mystery about dramatic swings in sea ice extent around Antarctica.... Read more

A new study finds that commercial satellite imagery data often outperforms public data sets when identifying surface water, but that public data sets may be better at detecting water hidden by forest cover. Satellite imagery is a powerful tool for mapping surface water, from the movement of rivers and streams... Read more

As bubbles rippled across the frigid Finnish lake, diver Daan Jacobs emerged from a hole carved out of the thick, crackling ice.... Read more

Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle continues to amaze us with its long journey across northern Australia. This cyclone began life near the Solomon Islands on March 16, when moist air rose rapidly and created a low-pressure zone.... Read more

New research by MIT Sloan School of Management finds that global leaders who participate in facilitated engagements using an interactive climate policy simulator, En-ROADS, demonstrated a stronger understanding of climate solutions, felt more personally connected to the issue, and were more likely to take climate-related action or advocate for change... Read more

It seems like every day a new study finds tiny plastic particles called microplastics where they should not be: in our bodies and our food, water and air.... Read more

A new paper investigates how raptors, or birds of prey like hawks and eagles, act as a sentinel species that can reveal the level of forever chemicals in the local environment. The forever chemicals, or PFAS, are especially high in species that eat fish. The review titled, "Raptors as Sentinels:... Read more

Combined sewer overflows (CSOs) could be contributing far more pollution to England's rivers than previously recognized, according to new research involving scientists from Imperial College London and Brunel University London. The study, published in Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology, was led by Professor Nick Voulvoulis from Imperial's Centre for... Read more

The structure of the plant communities that grow on the thawing permafrost in the Arctic is changing, with grasses displacing slower-growing shrubs. Although these grasses bind more carbon dioxide than previous plant communities, they lead to far more methane emissions over the course of the year. Methane is a greenhouse... Read more