Climate Change

27 May 2009
Dire outlook for shellfish in a high CO2 world
Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide contributing to the acidification of the planet's oceans may push some shellfish populations to extinction...

20 May 2009
Earth to get hotter sooner
New modeling on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get this century shows that without rapid policy change the problem will be twice as severe as previously estimated - and could be even worse...

15 May 2009
Melting threat from ice sheet overstated?
The total or partial collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would not raise global sea levels as high as predicted contends a new study, but the effects would be most strongly felt in coastal areas of the United States...

24 April 2009
Fires responsible for 20% of CO2 emissions
Fires are a significant contributor to climate change, according to a report published in the journal Science, creating up to one-fifth of the human-caused increase in emissions of carbon dioxide...

27 February 2009
CO2 behind prehistoric global cooling
Ice in Antarctica appeared suddenly (in geologic terms) about 35 million years ago, after more than 100 million years of being ice-free. Scientists have long puzzled over what triggered the formation of Antarctica's massive ice-sheets, and they now believe they know the answer...

16 February 2009
Dire new warning on climate from IPCC scientist
Previously unconsidered positive feedbacks in the climate system (such as the release of arctic permafrost) have led a Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientist to warn that "as a society we are facing a climate crisis that is larger and harder to deal with than any of us thought..."

6 February 2009
Future sea level rise underestimated
If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, as many experts believe it will because of global warming, the resulting sea level rise will be significantly higher than is currently projected, a new study has found...

18 December 2008
Did human-induced climate change begin thousands of years ago?
The Earth would currently be experiencing an ice-age if it weren't for the fact that humans began planting crops and clearing forests thousands of years ago, contend the researchers behind a controversial new climate simulation...

25 November 2008
Ocean acidification speeding up
Scientists have established that ocean acidification is increasing 10 times faster than the rate predicted by earlier climate change models...

19 September 2008
New DOE program aims to predict abrupt climate change
The Department of Energy has brought together six national laboratories to ponder the possibility of abrupt climate change events. The new program intends to focus on four key areas; the West Antarctic ice sheet, subarctic and arctic methane deposits, the destabilization of methane hydrates in the Arctic Ocean, and the possibility of megadroughts in North America...

10 September 2008
Climatologists get to grips with aerosols
The role that aerosols (airborne particles of soot and dust) play in rainmaking has to date been very much a matter of dispute and a source of great uncertainty in climate predictions, but new research has now removed much of this confusion...

30 July 2008
Warming Britain Attracting New Bird Species
Birds such as the Cirl Bunting and Dartford Warbler are becoming more common across a wide range of habitats in Britain as temperatures rise, while numbers of some northern species, such as the Fieldfare and Redwing, are falling...

17 June 2008
Climatologists Mull Side-Effects Of Ozone Hole Closure
Climatologists modeling possible weather patterns that may occur when the ozone hole closes – projected to be sometime in the second half of this century – say that its closure may significantly affect the climate in the Southern Hemisphere, with flow-on effects that will be felt all over the planet...

19 March 2008
CO2 Emissions In China Rocketing
The growth in China's carbon dioxide emissions is far outpacing previous estimates, making the goal of stabilizing global atmospheric greenhouse gases even more difficult...

12 February 2008
Insects The Likely Winners From Warming Climate
Insects are likely to benefit from our warming climate, with new data linking past spikes in temperature with increased voraciousness in plant-eating insects...

5 February 2008
Climate "Tipping Points" Identified
An international team of researchers have described a number of small climatic changes that could have large long-term consequences for the planet...

16 January 2008
Glacial Acceleration Linked To "Plumbing" Issues
Meltwater sometimes overwhelms the interior "drainpipes" of glaciers and causes them to lurch forward, possibly explaining the widespread acceleration of glaciers observed worldwide...

11 January 2008
Glacier Woes Overstated?
New research indicates glacial ice existed on Earth during an intense period of global warming during the Cretaceous period...

12 December 2007
Missing Fallout Fuels Warming Fears
Ice cores drilled from the Himalayas lack the distinctive radioactive traces that atomic explosions produce, possibly indicating that no new ice has accumulated since the 1950s...

22 November 2007
Academics Mull Flow-On Effects Of Climate Change
More wars, starvation and population decline are just some of the less-than encouraging predictions coming from a new study based on past historical events linked to climate change...

23 October 2007
CO2 Rocketing, Carbon Sinks Failing
Carbon dioxide is building up faster than ever; while the natural processes that normally slow its build-up appear to be weakening...

27 September 2007
Arctic Heatwave Sends Climatologists Back To Drawing Board
Unprecedented warm temperatures in the arctic this summer were so extreme that researchers have begun revising their climate forecasts...

21 August 2007
Changing Climate Behind Polar Ice Clouds?
The wispy, luminescent clouds that have been shining against the deep blue of the northern sky may be a symptom of the world's changing climate, say scientists...

14 August 2007
Alpine Butterflies Getting Squeezed Out
The warming climate is expanding forests in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and inexorably isolating groups of alpine butterflies from each other, making extinction a distinct possibility...

7 August 2007
Carbon Sink Sunk
Relying on tree plantations to soak up excess carbon dioxide may not be viable, as significant uptake by the trees is only achieved with massive levels of fertilization and plentiful water...

1 August 2007
Asian Brown Clouds Accelerating Warming
Pollution-filled "brown clouds" over south Asia are major contributors to rising temperatures and the associated Himalayan glacial melt...

10 July 2007
Chill Out... And Fight!
Researchers studying Asian wars over the last 1,000 years have found that almost all peaks of warfare and dynastic changes coincided with cold phases...

22 June 2007
Icebergs - Oases Of The Ocean
Free-drifting icebergs slowly release trapped terrestrial matter into the surrounding water, creating a halo of rich biodiversity...

12 June 2007
Shrinking Icecap On Kilimanjaro Not Due To Global Warming
While there are dozens of mid-latitude glaciers that are shrinking because of a warming climate, the processes at work on tropical Mount Kilimanjaro are far different, say researchers...

7 June 2007
Greenhouse Gases Taking The Heat For Dirty Snow
Greenhouse gases may not be the main culprit in the warming of the Arctic. Instead, researchers say dirty snow may be causing the heat build-up...

30 April 2007
Plant-Methane Brouhaha Put To Bed
The suggestion that plants may be a prodigious source of the greenhouse gas methane has finally been put to the sword by Dutch scientists...

26 April 2007
Chromosomal Changes Show Effects Of Climate Change
Researchers from the University of Oregon have produced the first chromosomal map showing the regions of mosquito chromosomes that are evolving in response to climate change...

29 March 2007
West Antarctic Ice Sheet Gets Climatologists Hot And Bothered
A who's who of polar ice experts say that rapid changes in Antarctica's ice cover could trigger "runaway events" in a much shorter space of time than previously thought...

7 March 2007
Tundra In Retreat
Trees and shrubs are taking over tundra landscapes at a much faster rate than scientists originally thought...

13 February 2007
Glacier Behavior Confounds Climate Pundits
The behavior of Greenland's glaciers changes dramatically from year to year, leading climatologists to speculate that future warming may lead to rapid retreats and increased discharge rather than a long, steady melt...

9 February 2007
Going Gaga Over Gaia
As scientists continue to grapple with the complexities of climate change, one thing is becoming abundantly clear: each of Earth's seemingly discrete environmental systems is crucially dependent upon another. This basic yet important observation has led scientists to reconsider the Gaia Hypothesis - a controversial idea first proposed in 1970...

7 February 2007
Greenhouse Thermostat Kept Young Earth Balmy
Analysis of the world's oldest sedimentary rocks reveals that greenhouse gases may have saved Earth from completely freezing over early in the planet's history...

15 January 2007
Lakes Missing Their Ice Cover
Ice cover on small- and intermediate-sized US lakes will arrive later than usual this year, reflecting both continuing global warming, and a stronger-than-expected El Nino phenomenon...

5 January 2007
Fossil Records Show Yo-Yo Effect Of Changing Climate
The mid-Permian transition from ice age to an ice-free planet was marked by abrupt dips and rises in carbon dioxide and extreme swings in climate...

4 January 2007
Scientists Slam ExxonMobil's Global Warming "Disinformation"
A group of scientists say that ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics to cloud the issues behind climate change and delay action on the issue...

12 December 2006
Petite Nuke Exchange Could Derail Global Climate
Two new studies predict that even a small-scale regional nuclear war could disrupt the global climate for a decade or more and impact nearly everyone on Earth...

6 December 2006
Southern Ocean Could Put Brakes On Warming Trend
Global warming could be slowed down thanks to the Southern Ocean, which appears capable of absorbing significantly more heat and carbon dioxide than previously thought, but marine biologists are pondering the likely environmental cost...

15 November 2006
Early Biosphere Productivity Boosted By Cosmic Rays
Somewhat counter-intuitively, heavy cosmic ray bombardment led to exceptionally high productivity in the Earth's early biosphere...

8 November 2006
Plankton Generating Oceanic Cloud Cover
Emissions from phytoplankton can dramatically alter cloud formation over oceans, adding a new and important variable into the climate change equation...

6 November 2006
That's Cool: A Flotilla Of Parasols In Space
Scientists propose that a "global warming emergency" could be tackled with trillions of small sunshades launched into an orbit between the Sun and the Earth to reduce solar radiation and cool the Earth...

3 November 2006
Bow To Your Insect Overlords!
Exponential growth of insect numbers is well and truly on the cards if global warming continues unabated. They won't be huge in size, but there will be an awful lot of them. And some scientists think that's only the beginning of our problems, suggesting that we're looking at the wrong sources for the next epidemic or pandemic. While we all wring our hands over media reports of avian flu, insects really are a much bigger threat...

25 October 2006
Developing World Antes Up In Greenhouse Game
Industrialized nations may not be entirely to blame for the greenhouse effect as it seems that cooking fires in the developing world are a much bigger contributor than previously thought...

16 October 2006
Swimming Critters Add New Variable To Climate Confusion
Tiny phytoplankton have emerged as the champions of ocean mixing, with their swimming antics providing fully one-third of the energy needed to drive Earth's "conveyor belt" system of ocean circulation; a hugely important player in deciding global climates...

15 September 2006
Did Civilization Emerge Thanks To A Change In The Weather?
Using evidence from archaeological digs and the palaeoclimatic record, one scientist claims that significant changes in social organization have coincided with abrupt climate change. But this isn't about yet another ancient civilization collapsing. Rather, it's about the changes societies undergo as adaptive responses to climate change. In fact, what we call civilization may be the by-product of these social adaptations to environmental change...

14 September 2006
The Incredible Shrinking Arctic
Arctic sea ice cover has shrunk five times more in the last two years than the entire last two decades...

7 September 2006
Pleistocene Era Methane Gatecrashes Greenhouse Gig
Huge quantities of the greenhouse gas methane, frozen in the Siberian permafrost since the Pleistocene era, are now being released into the atmosphere to add to our climate woes...

22 August 2006
Forget The Thermometer, The Mercury Really Is Rising
Wildfires, more frequent and intense thanks to climate change, are unleashing high levels of toxic mercury from North American wetlands...

11 August 2006
Antarctic Snowfall Snafu Derails Climate Models
Past measurements of Antarctic snowfall look to have been inaccurate, casting a shadow of uncertainty over a number of high-profile climate models and their associated projections...

2 August 2006
Pine Plantations Not "Green"
Pine plantations are less "green" than previously thought, spewing out more carbon dioxide than natural pine forests or hardwood stands...

27 July 2006
Global Warming Behind Early Primate Diaspora?
What prompted early primates to travel between continents 55 million years ago has perplexed scientists for years. Could rapid global warming have been the driving force?

26 July 2006
Crop Yields Set To Plunge
Rising levels of greenhouse gases look set to dramatically reduce food crop yields, and scientists are warning that global food supplies could be at risk...

12 July 2006
Alpine Glaciers: Going, Going, Gone!
European Alpine glacial cover could disappear completely by 2100, say Swiss researchers...

3 July 2006
Jellyfish Squish Greenhouse Dogma
Vast swarms of small jellyfish-like creatures, known as salps, may have a greater impact on carbon cycling than previously thought, demonstrating that even the most unassuming of organisms can play a vital role in the stabilization of environmental systems...

16 June 2006
Contrails And The Dark Side
In order to curb global warming it's likely we'll need to make a number of lifestyle sacrifices. Arguably, one of the most inconvenient of these would be air travel. Jets certainly pump out their fair share of greenhouse emissions, which would be reason enough to consider cutting back air travel, but jets add to global warming in yet another way. The long trails of condensation known as contrails emitted by jet airliners are now considered to be a significant factor in global warming. Furthermore, a group of UK meteorologists recently found that night flights make contrail troubles considerably worse...

9 June 2006
Altered Seasons Driving Genetic Changes
Rather than being driven by increasing temperatures, genetic changes in many species are occurring due to altered seasons...

23 May 2006
Feedback Loop Puts The Heat On Climate Predictions
Global temperature rises could be much greater than predicted, say scientists who have quantified the effects of the feedback-loop created by man-made emissions and natural carbon dioxide and methane gas...

17 May 2006
Equatorial Glaciers Set To Disappear In 20 Years
The glaciers in the Rwenzori Mountains, East Africa, will be gone in twenty years, thanks to recent increases in air temperature...

5 May 2006
Human Activity Driving Changes In Atmospheric Circulation
A study of wind and ocean currents is the first to show that human activity is altering the circulation of the tropical atmosphere and ocean through global warming...

29 March 2006
Plants’ Capacity To Soak Up Carbon Limited
Planting trees won’t do much to halt global warming. Plants have a limited - and diminishing - capacity to clean-up excess carbon dioxide...

5 April 2006
Climate Musings Spark Religious Brouhaha
Researchers at Florida State University speculate that the popular religious figure Jesus probably walked on an isolated patch of floating ice, rather than liquid water...

24 March 2006
All Hands To The Pumps! Here Comes The Sea
New projections suggest that the warming climate could melt the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets much sooner than previously thought, leading to a global sea level rise of at least 20 feet...

17 March 2006
Tunguska Event Responsible For Warming Climate?
It’s enough to give you a migraine, trying to reconcile all the possible factors that might contribute to climate change. But what if they’re all inconsequential, and there’s only a single event causing the warming trend? The 1908 Tunguska meteor’s explosion over Siberia is what one Russian scientist believes could be behind current global temperature rises...

9 March 2006
NASA Confirms Recent Ice Sheet Losses
Satellite mapping of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to determine how fast the thickness is changing indicates a net ice loss of 20 billion tons...

21 February 2006
Carbon Dioxide 1, Coral Reefs 0
If rising CO₂ levels are left unchecked, there could be a mass extinction of marine life rivaling the one that occurred 65 million years ago...

9 February 2006
Climate Change Tackled With Constructal Theory
Scientists hope that modeling the Earth’s climate patterns using constructal theory will yield insights into climate change not possible with current models...

31 January 2006
Global Warming Study Melts Away Blair’s Doubts
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is taking climate change a lot more seriously than his old buddy President George Bush Jnr...

19 January 2006
Researchers Slam Media Over Wrong-Headed Plant-Methane Hype
The scientists behind the study that found plants emit significant quantities of the greenhouse gas methane have criticized the media for “misinterpretation of the findings”...

5 January 2006
Carbon Isotopes Reveal Ancient, Abrupt Climate Change
Deep ocean fossil records millions of years old reveal an abrupt and drastic ocean circulation reversal caused by greenhouse gas warming...

20 December 2005
Arctic Permafrost Not So Permanent
Thanks to a warming climate, 90 percent of the perennially frozen soil across the Arctic could thaw by 2100, increasing runoff to the Arctic Ocean and releasing vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere...

6 December 2005
Arctic Soil Carbon Vastly Underestimated
Climatologists trying to understand the climatic effects of warming on Arctic soil carbon may have to plug in some new figures. It appears that previous estimates of arctic soil carbon may be wrong by a factor of 100...

29 November 2005
Sea Level Rise Accelerating
Sea levels are rising twice as quickly today as they were 150 years ago, and scientists are pointing the finger at human-induced warming...

17 November 2005
Grim Future For Global Water Resources
Changes in rainfall patterns and shrinking glaciers due to climate change will mean a future where fresh water might be in very short supply...

8 November 2005
Winter Ain’t What it Used To Be
Data from the last seventy years indicate that rivers in the north-eastern United States are freezing over later and melting earlier...

2 November 2005
New Climate Studies Predict Dire Future
Two new climate change reports make gloomy reading, predicting sea levels rising by 20 feet, average temperatures up by around 14 degrees, and big increases in malaria, Lyme disease and West Nile virus...

21 October 2005
Interplay Of Glaciers And Ice Sheets Raises New Concerns
New observations suggest that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could break up much more quickly than previously thought, causing a rapid rise in sea level...

14 October 2005
Climatologists Identify Areas To Be Most Affected By Warming
Heavier rains and increased snowfalls due to global warming - a new global weather model predicts where in the world these weather patterns will start occurring...

3 October 2005
Rate of Climate Change Increasing
German scientists say a new computer model predicts an acceleration of global warming, strengthening the claims of another study that predicted the disappearance of Arctic sea ice and an increase in extreme weather events...

16 September 2005
Warming Oceans Behind Stronger Hurricanes?
Meteorologists say the number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes is increasing and there could be a connection between the increasing number of destructive storms and increases in global sea surface temperatures...

31 August 2005
Ozone Layer Decline Halts
The ozone layer appears to be on the mend according to satellite and surface monitoring which at the very least suggest that its depletion is slowing...

25 July 2005
Methane's Effect On Climate Change May Be Twice Previous Estimates
Understanding how the Earth's climate systems work is a necessary step in determining how much man contributes to climate change, but a recent study may prove that our current models of measuring climate change are dangerously inadequate...

30 June 2005
Alarm Over Rising Acidity Of Oceans
By the end of the century, rising carbon dioxide levels could lower oceanic pH levels to a point where vast swathes of marine life are threatened...

13 June 2005
New Slant On Volcanic Climate Change
Volcanic particles from eruptions can block out the sun but a more insidious global cooling threat is created by the actions of volcanic ash on microbial communities that emit methane...

6 June 2005
Arctic Lakes Shrinking
Arctic lakes in Siberia and Alaska are shrinking and in some cases disappearing. Climate experts speculate that a warming climate may be the culprit...

25 May 2005
Glaciers May Be Shrinking But Antarctic Ice Sheet Gains Mass
While previous climate change research indicated many glaciers are shrinking, the huge interior of the East Antarctic ice sheet is actually gaining mass...

24 May 2005
A Spoonful Of Science Helps The Climate Change Go Down
The general public is getting muddled messages on climate change from the media and scientists and politicians aren't helping...

16 May 2005
Atmosphere, Heal Thyself
Chemists have discovered that natural chemical processes in the atmosphere may be removing smog and breaking down pollutants at a faster rate than previously believed...

11 May 2005
Climate Change And Vegetation - Complex Feedback
Researchers studying extreme weather events are trying to understand how climate change affects vegetation, which then feeds-back and affects climate...

6 May 2005
Global Brightening Creates Warming Worries
The long-term trend of global dimming is now in reverse and more solar radiation is reaching the Earth's surface, raising the prospect that the full effects of global warming may soon start to be felt...

22 April 2005
Antarctic Glaciers In Widespread Retreat
A new survey suggests that 90 percent of the glaciers studied in Antarctica are retreating and that the retreat rates are accelerating...

18 March 2005
Warming And Sea Level Rise Inevitable
Even if no more greenhouse gases were emitted into the atmosphere, the Earth would still become warmer and sea levels would still rise...