Despite the cooling influence of La Nina this winter, the global temperature ranked among the five warmest on record in January. Earth’s polar regions continued to experience record-low ice conditions.  

Wind and solar power could generate most but not all electricity in the United States, according to an analysis of 36 years of weather data by Carnegie’s Ken Caldeira, and three Carnegie-affiliated energy experts: Matthew Shaner, Steven Davis (of University of California Irvine), and Nathan Lewis (of Caltech).

The creation of Camp Century, from the outset, was an audacious scheme. Under the thick ice of Greenland, a scant 800 miles from the North Pole, the US military built a hidden base of ice tunnels, imagined as an extensive network of railway tracks, stretching over 2,500 miles, that would keep 600 nuclear missiles buried under the ice. Construction began in 1959, under cover of a scientific research project, and soon a small installation, powered by a nuclear reactor, nested in the ice sheet.

Times are tough for 31 of Michigan’s 45 varieties of freshwater mussels. Sporting evocative names like wavy-rayed lampmussel and round pigtoe, these residents of the state’s rivers are imperiled by habitat disruption and pollution and are also threatened by climate change.

Researchers at the University of East Anglia have discovered a key gene for the synthesis of one of the world’s most abundant sulfur molecules.

Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) is an important nutrient in marine environments with more than one billion tonnes produced annually by marine phytoplankton (microscopic plant-like cells), seaweed and bacteria.

New research published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution demonstrates the extraordinary value of Earth’s remaining intact forests for addressing climate change and protecting wildlife, critical watersheds, indigenous cultures, and human health.  Yet the global policy and science communities do not differentiate among the relative values of different types of forest landscapes—which range from highly intact ones to those which are heavily logged, fragmented, burnt, drained and/or over-hunted—due in part to the lack of a uniform way of measuring their quality.

Global levels of ethane and propane in the atmosphere have been underestimated by more than 50%, new research involving scientists at the University of York has revealed.

Global sea level rise has been accelerating in recent decades, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data. This acceleration has been driven mainly by increased ice melting in Greenland and Antarctica, and it has the potential to double the total sea level rise projected by 2100, according to lead author Steve Nerem, a scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the University of Colorado.

Scientists from Oldenburg and Bremerhaven verify theory of the role of the South Pacific in natural atmospheric CO2 fluctuations

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, temperatures are expected to rise between 2.5 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. This warming is expected to contribute to rising sea levels and the melting of glaciers and permafrost, as well as other climate-related effects. Now, research from the University of Missouri suggests that even as rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere drive the climate toward warmer temperatures, the weather will remain predictable.