Study documents local extinction of pikas from the largest area yet reported and projects climate change will cause drastic decline for the charismatic mammal within decades.

Officials at collegiate sporting venues have been leading efforts toward zero-waste events with many professional and collegiate leagues adopting energy and water conservation efforts as well as increased recycling and composting. Researchers at the University of Missouri recently published a study analyzing waste and recyclables during Mizzou’s 2014 home football season. By implementing several recommendations the team developed, such as offering better recycling receptacles and better sorting options for waste, sporting venues could be well on their way to achieving environmental benefits that exceed the standards for ‘zero-waste’ operations.

As Houstonians watch the waters recede, they are looking ahead to the next phase of the disaster: recovery. The unusually prolonged assault by Hurricane Harvey flooded nearly a third of Harris County, killed at least 38 people, and left thousands more homeless. The storm also effectively throttled commerce coming into and leaving Houston, the county seat. Both of its major airports closed, its rail yards and nearby ports were majorly disrupted, and the city's extensive highway system was largely underwater.

Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is in a downward spiral, with summer minimum extents about 40 percent smaller than in the 1980s. But predicting how the sea ice is going to behave in a particular year is tricky: There are still many unknowns about the conditions of the sea ice cover, to say nothing of the difficulties of forecasting weather and ocean behavior over seasonal timescales.

Typhoon Sanvu developed an eye that was about 28 nautical-miles wide when NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed overhead and captured an image.

The Eastern Pacific Ocean's potential tropical cyclone has developed into Tropical Storm Lidia. NASA's Aqua satellite observed some very high, towering thunderstorms in two areas of the storm and because of its close proximity to land, warnings are already in effect for areas in Mexico.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over Tropical Storm Irma in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and captured a visible image of the storm on the move.

A team of scientists has discovered that a 1°C rise in local sea temperature has massive impacts on an Antarctic marine community. These new results are published this week (31 August) in the journal Current Biology, and enable researchers to better understand the biological implications of the future ocean warming predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

As of this morning, 57 USGS streamgages are over National Weather Service flood levels, and water continues to rise at 118 gauges throughout Texas.  

Seventeen USGS field crews are measuring high flood flows and verifying streamgage operations on the Colorado, Brazos, San Jacinto and Trinity River basins. Preliminary data show record high flood levels were measured at 16 locations throughout the greater Houston area. Accessing specific locations has proved challenging due to road closures and many sites being flooded at levels too dangerous to measure at this time.

Ocean acidification can be a daunting topic to cover in the classroom, but for Washington state’s coastal communities, the issue is often personal.

Ocean acidification can be a daunting topic to cover in the classroom, but for Washington state’s coastal communities, the issue is often personal. In 2005, billions of oysters died along the Northwest coast, and NOAA scientist Richard Feeley and other North American scientists have linked this and other shellfish die-offs deaths to falling ocean pH1. According to Washington State’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Ocean Acidification, Washington’s ocean waters are specifically susceptible to ocean acidification because of coastal upwelling. This brings water that is low in pH and rich in carbon dioxide up from the deep ocean and onto the continental shelf. Ocean acidification, also exacerbated by nutrient runoff and local carbon emissions, threatens Washington’s marine environment, the state and local economies, and tribes.