It turns out that to tell the sex of a Galápagos penguin, all you need is a ruler.

In a paper published April 5 in the journal Endangered Species Research, scientists at the University of Washington announced that, for a Galápagos penguin, beak size is nearly a perfect indicator of whether a bird is male or female. Armed with this knowledge, researchers could determine the sex of a bird quickly and accurately in the wild without taking a blood sample — speeding up field studies of this unusual and endangered seabird.

A new study from Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden has found that climate change may drive local extinction of mason bees in Arizona and other naturally warm climates.

A new study shows that dead zones in the lower Chesapeake Bay are beginning to break up earlier in the fall, which may be an indication that efforts to reduce nutrient pollution to the Bay are beginning to make an impact. Scientists from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science examined 30 years of data on dead zones and nutrient levels in the Chesapeake Bay. They found that dead zones in the lower part of the Chesapeake Bay, the saltier part from the Potomac River south, are getting smaller in the late summer thanks to a late-season replenishment of oxygen, a natural response to decreasing nutrient pollution.

As much of the UK and Europe swelters under heatwave conditions, new research led by scientists from the University of Bristol has produced compelling evidence that loss of life through increased heat stress during heatwaves can be limited if we stabilise climate at the lower of the Paris Agreement climate goals.

Solar irradiation provides light, heat and energy for driving atmospheric motion on Earth, and is directly affected by solar activities. The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicated that solar activities have significant effects on the climate system, but large uncertainties also exist. The related mechanisms, especially how solar activities affect East Asian climate, are still unclear and need further investigation.

When Hurricane Irma slammed into the Florida Keys as a Category 4 hurricane last fall, it created widespread destruction and an intractable problem: lots and lots of marine debris.

When a powerful complex of thunderstorms affected Oklahoma NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite analyzed the power of those storms. More storms are expected on June 26.

Tropical Storm Daniel was weakening when NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead on June 24 and by June 26 the storm degenerated into a remnant low pressure area.

Selected intervals in the past that were as warm or warmer than today can help us understand what the Earth may be like under future global warming.

A latest assessment of past warm periods, published today in Nature Geoscience by an international team of 59 scientists from 17 nations, shows that in response to the warming ecosystems and climate zones will spatially shift and on millennial time scales ice sheets will substantially shrink.

Coal power versus wind and solar energy – debates about the Paris climate targets often centre around electricity supply. Yet, even in a world of stringent climate policies and a clean power generation, the remaining use of fossil fuels in industry, transport and heating in buildings could still cause enough CO2 emissions to endanger the climate targets agreed on by the international community, an international team of researchers finds. Published in Nature Climate Change, their elaborate study is the first to focus specifically on the residual fossil fuel emissions from sectors that are not as easily decarbonized as power generation.