The urgent need to remove excess carbon dioxide from Earth’s environment could include enlisting some of our planet’s smallest inhabitants, according to an international research team led by Michael Hochella of the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Greater atmospheric demand for water means a dramatic increase in the risk of major fires in global forests unless we take urgent and effective climate action, new research finds.

Cumulus clouds in trade-wind regions cover nearly 20 percent of our planet, producing a cooling effect.

The calculation method is based solely on observations rather than models and scenarios. According to the study, international climate policy has to become even more ambitious.

Dust storms are common in dry, sandy places like the Sahara, but they also happen beyond the planet’s desert regions.

The world’s largest active volcano—Hawaii’s Mauna Loa—has been quiet for the past four decades. But in November 2022, the volcano began to stir.

As climate change is expected to lead to more frequent periods of drought, researchers are increasingly working to make discoveries that can help plants adapt to prolonged water stress.

Ecosystem ecology studies often focus on what’s happening to plants above ground, for instance exploring photosynthesis or water loss in leaves. 

Global warming and ocean acidification are threatening marine organisms, such as corals, bryozoans, molluscs, sea urchins or crustaceans, that build their skeletons and shells with calcium carbonate (chalk) according to a new study published this week in the journal Ecography.

The idea that climate change and geological events can shape evolution isn’t a new one: anyone who’s heard of dinosaurs knows that a big change in the environment (like, say, a meteor hitting the Earth 66 million years ago and causing a chain reaction of storms, earthquakes, cold, and darkness) can dictate how animals live, die, and evolve.