Onward! Our next order of business is to bid adieu to La Niña, as the sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific returned to neutral conditions in April—that is, within 0.5°C of the long-term average.

A ribbon of ice more than 600 kilometers long that drains about 12 percent of the gigantic Greenland Ice Sheet has been smaller than it is today about half of the time over the past 45,000 years, a new study suggests.

New research reveals the growth of carbon production from Chinese exports has slowed or reversed, reflecting a “new phase of globalisation” between developing countries that could undermine international efforts to reduce emissions.

When a team of researchers set loose a buzzing horde of Hessian flies on 20,000 seedlings in a Kansas greenhouse, they made a discovery that continues to ripple from Midwestern wheat fields to the rolling hills that surround the battered Syrian city of Aleppo. The seeds once stored in a seed bank outside of that now largely destroyed city could end up saving United States wheat from the disruptions triggered by climate change — and look likely to, soon enough, make their way into the foods that Americans eat.  

In the Arctic, marine mammals such as belugas and bowhead whales rely on a quiet environment to communicate and forage. But as Arctic sea ice shrinks and shipping traffic increases, vessel disturbance could very likely impact their social behaviours, distribution and long-term survival, warns a new study led by University of Victoria marine biologist Lauren McWhinnie.

In the weeks before Hurricane Harvey tore across the Gulf of Mexico and plowed into the Texas coast in August 2017, the Gulf's waters were warmer than any time on record, according to a new analysis led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

These hotter-than-normal conditions supercharged the storm, fueling it with vast stores of moisture, the authors found. When it stalled near the Houston area, the resulting rains broke precipitation records and caused devastating flooding.

Western China and central Asia are positioned centrally along the Millennium Silk Road—a core region bridging the east and west. Understanding the potential changes in climate over this core region is important to the successful implementation of “Belt and Road Initiative” (a US$1 trillion regional investment in infrastructure). In a recently published study in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters, scientists from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, projected both mean and extreme climate changes using the ensemble mean of CMIP5 models. The comparison of mean and extreme climate changes under 1.5°C and 2°C global warming scenarios highlights the impacts that can be avoided by achieving global warming of half a degree lower.

Above Scandinavia, on the Atlantic side of the Arctic Ocean, mackerel, cod, and other fish native to the European coast are migrating through increasingly ice-free waters, heading deeper into the Arctic Basin toward Siberia. Thousands of miles to the west, above Alaska, kittiwakes and other polar seabirds are being supplanted by southern birds following warm waters streaming north through the Bering Strait. And midway between, above Canada, sea ice-avoiding killer whales from the Atlantic are increasingly making themselves at home in a thawing Arctic.

Placing giant mirrors in orbit to reflect sunlight before it reaches Earth and launching millions of tons of sulfur into the stratosphere to simulate the effects of a major volcanic eruption are among the mind-boggling climate geoengineering projects that are starting to be considered as ways to mitigate the global warming caused by greenhouse gases.

Mixed forests are more productive than monocultures. This is true on all five continents, and particularly in regions with high precipitation. These findings from an international overview study, in which the Technical University of Munich (TUM) participated, are highly relevant for forest science and forest management on a global scale.