An international agreement is now in place to give special protection to the area of ocean left exposed when one of the largest icebergs ever recorded broke free from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in July this year. The iceberg – known as A68 – is starting to move north, and it will leave behind a 5,818 km2 area of seabed exposed to open marine conditions. Much of this area may have been ice-covered since the last inter-glacial period around 120,000 years ago, providing a unique opportunity for scientists to study how marine life responds to this dramatic change.

They produce winds strong enough to swallow whole islands in their maw. They whip up waves that re-shape cityscapes. And they bring rains and floods, devastating and seemingly relentless.

The hurricane trifecta of Harvey, Irma and Jose have dominated headlines weeks. Irma alone has set a series of records.

NASA and NOAA satellites have provided data on Maria as it strengthened into a major Hurricane headed toward the Leeward Islands. NASA's Aqua satellite provided an infrared look at Maria that showed cooling cloud top temperatures and NOAA's GOES satellite provided an animation of imagery that showed the storm developing and strengthening. The GPM satellite found "Hot" towering clouds that indicated strengthening was occurring before Maria became a major hurricane.

Visible imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite showed Tropical Depression Lee as a weak swirl of clouds around its center with most of its clouds and thunderstorms pushed east of its center.

Genome decoding provides information about dry and heat-resistant cereals

Significant emission reductions are required if we are to achieve one of the key goals of the Paris Agreement, and limit the increase in global average temperatures to 1.5°C; a new Oxford University partnership warns.

Tropical Storm Talim made landfall on Kyushu, the large island of southwestern Japan, where it weakened to an extra-tropical storm. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured an image of the storm after its transition.

Major floods and droughts receive a lot of attention in the context of climate change, but University of Illinois researchers analyzed over five decades of precipitation data from North America to find that changes in nonextreme precipitation are more significant than previously realized and larger than those in extreme precipitation. These changes can have a strong effect on ecosystems, agriculture, infrastructure design and resource management, and point to a need to examine precipitation in a more nuanced, multifaceted way.

Bigger than any medieval castle, with its 12 giant white cooling towers gleaming in the sun, the Drax Power Station dominates the horizon for tens of miles across the flat lands of eastern England. For four decades, it has been one of the world’s largest coal power plants, often generating a tenth of the U.K.’s electricity. It has been the lodestar for the final phase of Britain’s 250-year-long love affair with coal – the fuel that built the country’s empire and industrialized the world.

In a groundbreaking public-private partnership, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory will deploy a large array of new deep ocean floats to expand ocean observations in a key area of the western South Atlantic Ocean.

These instruments, called Deep Argo floats, can collect data down to nearly four miles deep, and promise to lead scientists to a better understanding of how the bottom half of the ocean may influence long term weather, climate, and sea level rise.