Sea floor sediments of the Arctic Ocean can help scientists understand how permafrost responds to climate warming.

New research published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment uses data from two sustained open-ocean hydrographic stations in the North Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda to demonstrate recent changes in ocean physics and chemistry since the 1980s.

Scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and international collaborators demonstrated a new method for mapping the location and size of trees growing outside of forests, discovering billions of trees in arid and semi-arid regions and laying the groundwork for more accurate global measurement of carbon storage on land.

In this year of extreme weather events — from devastating West Coast wildfires to tropical Atlantic storms that have exhausted the alphabet — scientists and members of the public are asking when these extreme events can be scientifically linked to climate change.

A new study coordinated by CU Boulder makes clear the extraordinary speed and scale of increases in energy use, economic productivity and global population that have pushed the Earth towards a new geological epoch, known as the Anthropocene. Distinct physical, chemical and biological changes to Earth’s rock layers began around the year 1950, the research found.

Led by Jaia Syvitski, CU Boulder professor emerita and former director of the Institute of Alpine Arctic Research (INSTAAR), the paper, published today in Nature Communications Earth and Environment, documents the natural drivers of environmental change throughout the past 11,700 years—known as the Holocene Epoch—and the dramatic human-caused shifts since 1950. Such planetary-wide changes have altered oceans, rivers, lakes, coastlines, vegetation, soils, chemistry and climate.

“This is the first time that scientists have documented humanity’s geological footprint on such a comprehensive scale in a single publication” said Syvitski, former executive director of the Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System, a diverse community of international experts from who study the interactions between the Earth’s surface, water and atmosphere.

Read more at: University of Colorado at Boulder

In July heavy rains triggered landslides and floods in Nepal that ultimately killed more than 130 people. As soon as the rain started falling, BYU professor Jim Nelson knew things could get bad.

Catastrophic fires in the West are burning hotter than ever, leaving paths of destruction through both human development and native plant ecosystems.

It has been a harrowing equation out West over the past few months.

New study results show that ocean heat waves can provide enough fuel for hurricanes to gain momentum as they approach land.

Persistent drought dominates the Western landscape.