The impacts of global warming are felt especially in mountainous regions, where the rise in temperatures is above average, affecting both glacierized landscapes and water resources. The repercussions of these changes are manifold and varied, from retreating glaciers to an increase in the frequency and intensity of snow avalanches. A team of researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, has employed dendrochronology– the reconstruction of past disasters as recorded in growth series of trees– to disentangle the role of global warming in the triggering avalanches. The results of this study are published in the Proceedings of the National Academic of Science – PNAS.

The eastern Mediterranean — an area that covers Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and southern Turkey — is experiencing monumental climate changes poised to significantly affect regional ecosystems and human health. According to a new Tel Aviv University study, these changes will alter the duration of summer and winter in the region by the end of this century.

A growing network of lakes on the Greenland ice sheet has been found to drain in a chain reaction that speeds up the flow of the ice sheet, threatening its stability. 

Species living in coastal regions could face a significant future threat from reduced levels of oxygen in the marine environment, according to research published in Nature Scientific Reports.

A team of military veterans is putting their hard-earned skills toward a different challenge: Restoring damaged corals in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.

UCLA led-research shows Earth may be approaching a carbon dioxide threshold for melting ice in the Arctic

Researchers found that 19 of 29 large cities depend on evaporation from surrounding lands for more than one-third of their water supplies.

Scientists from Rutgers University-New Brunswick and Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) have linked the frequency of extreme winter weather in the United States to Arctic temperatures.

In winter, cold water masses in the North Atlantic sink from the sea surface into the deep ocean. This process, known as convection, is one of the key components of the large-scale ocean circulation. Based on long-term observations, scientists from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel have now demonstrated the influence of increased surface freshening in summer on convection in the following winter. As the researchers write now in the international journal Nature Climate Change, enhanced surface freshening and warmer winters have significantly shortened the duration of ocean convection in the last decade.

An international collaboration between researchers at the University of Copenhagen, Nagoya University and the University of Western Australia has resulted in a breakthrough in plant biology. Since 2014, the researchers have worked on identifying the genetic background for the improved flood tolerance observed in rice, wheat and several natural wetland plants. In a New Phytologist, article, the researchers describe the discovery of a single gene that controls the surface properties of rice, rendering the leaves superhydrophobic.