Hurricane Harvey and its remnants have quickly become one of the worst natural disasters in US history. The unprecedented duration and intensity of the storm has sparked a heated debate about how much climate change is to blame. The short answer is that we don’t really know, yet. But attempting to answer that question…
Hurricane Harvey and its remnants have managed to dump likely record-setting amounts of rainfall across Texas. The Weather Channel expects that some locations could see accumulation totals of 50 inches before the weather finally lets up. Some locations around and outside of Houston have already have seen floods higher…
Earth’s magnetic field does way more than guide our compasses and cause occasional worry. It’s part of the reason there’s life at all on this planet—it protects us from harmful solar radiation that might otherwise blow our ozone layer away.
Last night, planet Earth rumbled in a place where it usually doesn’t rumble: Montana. But it also rumbled in the Philippines. Come to think of it, it rumbled in Vanuatu and Japan too. The Earth rumbles a lot.
In news that is sure to vindicate chemtrail truthers, NASA has finally delivered on its longstanding promise to produce a dazzling display of artificial clouds. And dang, was it cool.
Xenon is a peculiar element. It certainly has one of the most mysterious names (from the Greek xenos, or “stranger”). As a noble gas, it refuses to bond with other elements except under exotic conditions. And its uses are all about as creepy as its name: Folks use it for its eerie glow, to detect radiation, or in its…
In a dramatic development, the giant rift in the Larsen C ice shelf has grown an additional 11 miles (17 km) since last week, and the leading tip of the crack is now exceptionally close to the ocean. There’s now very little to prevent a complete collapse—an event that will produce one of the largest icebergs in…
In the past 137 years, there’s only been one March hotter than March 2017, and it was March 2016. That’s according to the latest iteration of NASA’s global temperature dataset, released today, which points to the dreadfully predictable conclusion that our round Earth is still getting hotter.
Earth has been the Airbnb for some questionable guests over the years, but none have been more deplorable than humans. Our bad habits are screwing up the planet big time, causing arctic glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise eight inches over the last century alone. At this point, getting adopted by some alien…
Once again, scientists are looking inward to explore the next frontier. Researchers at Japan’s Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) announced this week that an excavation is planned in which the team will attempt to successfully drill all the way through Earth’s crust for the first time in history.
Four and a half billion years ago, some dust from a cloud orbiting around a star coalesced into a rocky planet. But unlike most of the dusty balls in our solar system, this one was special—it was just the right distance away from the star that one day after the surface had cooled, water could exist as a liquid, rather…
Swedish researchers say they’ve discovered traces of ancient red algae preserved in sedimentary rock dating back 1.6 billion years, making them the oldest plant-like fossils ever found. The discovery shows that complex multicellular life appeared in Earth’s history much earlier than previously thought.
Just about every month, it seems, we get a report on the dismal state of Arctic sea ice. By contrast, the shiny white stuff surrounding the Antarctic continent has been remarkably stable in a warming world. This year, however, the sea ice at our planet’s south pole is crashing, and scientists don’t know why.
With the executive branch about to be handed off to climate deniers and oil tycoons, the outgoing administration is urging scientists to explore any and all options for combating the threat of climate change—including engineering the atmosphere to stop it.
Why did the dinosaurs go extinct? We may never be completely sure, although a giant asteroid and a bunch of enormous volcanic eruptions probably had a lot to do with it. But here’s another factor you may not have considered: too much time in the egg.
More than 100 small earthquakes have struck the Southern California-Mexico border since Saturday. But while ‘quake swarm’ sounds like the term Morgan Freeman uses in the disaster movie right before Los Angeles cracks off into the ocean, real scientists say this particular event is nothing to worry about.
While working at a remote weather station in the Russian Arctic might sound like a lot of fun, the reality is apparently far grimmer. In addition to the cold, the isolation and the possibility of literally falling off a cliff thanks to climate change, researchers have to deal with unruly locals, like the dozen or so…
On a tiny island at the end of the world, a lonely weather station is slowly tumbling off a cliffside. It’s a perfect metaphor for the state of our planet. Say hello to Vize Island, Russia. It won’t be around much longer.
Three months ago, Iran’s Lake Urmia was green. Today, it’s blood red. But it’s not something that’s been added to the lake that caused the change—it’s something that’s been taken out.
Italian researchers have used the location of confirmed debris from Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared two years ago, to estimate where the missing airliner might have crashed, and where further debris may be found onshore. Their simulations show that the wreckage may lie upwards of 310 miles further…
