Climate

If We Burned All of Our Fossil Fuels, We’d Melt Antarctica 

If we burned all the coal, oil and gas that’s left in the ground, we’d melt Antarctica and global sea levels would rise as much as 60 meters (200 feet) over the next ten thousand years. Coastal cities from New York to Shanghai would wind up deep underwater. That’s the disturbing conclusion of a new…

Humans Have Eliminated Half the World’s Trees

Human beings are having an overwhelming impact on Earth’s ecosystems, whether we’re pouring plastic into the ocean or filling the skies with carbon. But it’s not just modern society that’s to blame — our environmental legacy stretches way back into history. Since dawn of civilization, we’ve caused nearly half of the world’s trees to disappear.…

Four Storms on the Move | NASA’s GOES-West satellite captured this image of four tropical cyclones all at once in the Pacific Ocean. From left to right, there’s Typhoon Kilo, Hurricane Ignacio, Hurricane Jimena and Tropical Depression 14E.

Earth Is Probably Locked Into at Least Three Feet of Sea Level Rise

Global sea levels are expected to rise at least three feet in the coming generations, displacing hundreds of millions of people, NASA said this week. And the space agency is prepared to catalog the disappearance of Earth’s coastlines in rich scientific detail. Over at Motherboard, Becky Ferreira has a rundown of a recent NASA panel…

All the Crazy Ways Life Has Evolved to Cope with Extreme Heat

Humans aren’t very good at dealing with heat — we either sweat miserably or rack up crazy AC bills. But some life forms have to live with scorching temperatures and extreme drought all the time. Here are some of the most bizarre strategies they’ve evolved for staying cool and hydrated. Hibernate In a Mucus Sac…

Humans Have Definitely Made the California Drought Worse

The California drought is by all measures “exceptional.” But humans have made it even more so. A new scientific study offers definitive evidence that anthropogenic climate change has amplified the drought out West, making it 15 to 20% worse than it would have been otherwise. “This would be a drought no matter what,” climate scientist…

Yep, July Was The Hottest Month in Recorded History

We suspected it was coming, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has just confirmed: July 2015 was, without a doubt, the hottest month in recorded history. Hot damn. In its monthly State of the Climate Summary report, NOAA confirms that this past July was the hottest month ever since we began keeping meteorological records…

Not to be outdone by June which just had its warmest temperatures ever recorded, July has now smashed all its own previous temperature records. NASA just confirmed that the 2015 Julywas the warmest one ever seen. It’s getting pretty warm up in here, folks.

Those once-a-century food shortage events are about to get a whole lot more frequent. A new report from the US-UK Taskforce on Extreme Weather looks at what extreme weather events of the future are going to do our food supply and determines that by 2040, we’ll be getting up to three each century.

Are You Doing Anything to Prepare for the “Godzilla” El Niño?

Out here in drought-stricken California, the weather has been creepily gorgeous for over a year. But now, we’re facing one of the worst storm seasons in recorded history for this region. Are any of you in the storm’s path? What are you doing to prepare? New predictions based current climate models came out this week,…

Here it comes! Researchers at NOAA just confirmed the first signs that this year’s predicted historic El Niño has already kicked off, just like they thought it would. But what does that mean for us? Here’s a breakdown of what we can expect to happen as El Niño unfurls.

How would your coastline fare in a flood? This flood mapping tool from NOAA answers that question in a remarkably complete way—charting out exactly where sea level rises will hit, what percentage of the area lies in a flood zone, and where storm surges might be expected to bury us in water.

Cutting Emissions Through Biofuels Will Lead to Water Shortages

Climate change mitigation could actually increase water shortage in some areas rather than reduce it, according to new research. The source of the problem is clear: greater demand for biofuels, intended to reduce emissions from fossil fuels, requires massive increases in irrigation in productive but relatively arid American farmland. The study, published in the journal…

“Heat Dome” In the Middle East Creates Insanely High Temperatures

The Middle East is roasting right now. Last week, an unprecedented ‘heat dome’ descended over a vast region from Dubai to Beirut, and there’s no sign of it breaking anytime soon. Last Friday in the Iranian city of Bandar Mahshahr, the air felt like 165º F (74ºC). As The Washington Post notes, this is the…

All Signs Indicate a New Monster El Niño Is Coming

Ocean conditions in the Pacific Ocean are increasingly suggestive of a potent El Niño event later this year. While that might seem like good news to the water-starved regions of the United States, the resulting torrential rains could be exceptionally hazardous. Back in March of this year, scientists declared that El Niño conditions had emerged…

This Is Why Carbon Is Now Called Pollution

Carbon dioxide is a funny molecule. Life as we know it wouldn’t exist without CO2. But when we pump too much of it into the atmosphere, it destroys our environment. That’s why the Clean Power Plan, announced yesterday by the Obama administration, has finally decided to call carbon what it is: Pollution. This comes over…

How Climate Change Could Turn NYC Into Oklahoma City in One Generation

In 2100, Earth’s climate will have changed. But what will that feel like in your everyday life? Now, a high school student working with an atmospheric scientist has extrapolated some answers from climate data, and found that New York City’s climate will be like Oklahoma City’s in less than a century. A study published today…

What Should We Name The Drought?

It’s been called a historic drought. An exceptional drought. A catastrophic drought. But it’s four rainless years later, and we still don’t have an actual name for that drought that’s spreading throughout the Western United States. Everyone just calls it “The Drought.” It’s time to come up with something better. Maybe it’s just because our…

Why Buffalo’s Dirty Snow Pile Still Hasn’t Melted Yet

Over the winter, the Eastern US was blanketed in blizzard after blizzard. As a stark reminder of Mother Nature’s bitchiness, two snow-plowed piles of that record snowfall in two different cities lingered well into summer. One of them is still frozen—a mud-caked sno-cone slowly oozing in the sun. The giant snow piles which have managed…

Extreme Droughts Weaken Trees’ Ability to Soak Up Carbon

There’s a mystery inside trees upon which the fate of coastal cities, threatened by rising sea levels from climate change, may depend. Each year, the Earth’s forests take up about one-quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted by humans, effectively slowing the speed and severity of global warming. They lock up most of this carbon in…