A large earthquake off the coast of south-central Chile in 1737 may have caused a substantial tsunami that was absent from historical records, according to new research published in the Nature journal, Communications Earth & Environment today (Thursday 9 December).

A new study demonstrates that the naturally occurring warm-to-cold change in the tropical Pacific Ocean is the major cause for the recent intensification in Pacific Walker circulation, the most prominent feature of the tropical Pacific.

Ecologists estimate that 15 to 37% of plant and animal species will go extinct as a direct result of the rapidly changing climate.

More than half of nation was in drought by the end of November

A mathematical model developed by Texas A&M researchers can predict temperatures within mosquito breeding grounds, which can be used to estimate populations and track vector-borne diseases.

Using data gathered from a specially equipped jet that spent a month flying through and studying wildfire plumes, scientists have a better understanding now of how wildfire smoke impacts air quality.

While climate change is the primary driver of permafrost degradation in Arctic Alaska, a new analysis of 70 years of data reveals that tundra fires are accelerating that decline, contributing disproportionately to a phenomenon known as “thermokarst,” the abrupt collapse of ice-rich permafrost as a result of thawing.

Across the U.S., road crews dump around 25 million metric tons of sodium chloride — much like table salt — to unfreeze roads each year and make them safe for travel.

There is growing public awareness that climate change will impact society not only through changes in mean temperatures and precipitation over the 21st century, but also in the occurrence of more pronounced extreme events, and more generally in natural variability in the Earth system.

Because plants take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into food, forests and other similar ecosystems are considered to be some of the planet’s most important carbon sinks.