Growing up in New Jersey, Emily Wilson regularly passed tidal marshes without giving them much thought. They were part of the coastal landscape—stretches of green and blue she saw from the road.

It wasn’t until she began studying environmental science as an undergraduate that she realized how remarkable they were—plants thriving in salty, waterlogged environments amidst the constant ebb and flow of tides.

Today, as a Boston University PhD candidate in Earth & Environment, Wilson studies those same ecosystems—and has discovered that the plants she once drove past may hold important information to more accurately track the global climate.

Read more at: Boston University

Photo Credit: Emily Wilson, Boston University

How are butterflies in the Alps responding to rising temperatures?

A University of New Mexico research team spent several weeks in northern Alaska this summer studying how permafrost thaw may be changing water quality and the movement of carbon through Arctic watersheds.

Climate scientists and policymakers have long warned of a dangerous threshold: If global temperatures rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial averages, we risk devastating consequences, including severe flooding, heat waves, and drought.

Beginning in the late 1990s, air pollution declined in New York City following the implementation of clean air and climate policies.

Certain kinds of clouds are misbehaving – appearing more often and lower in the sky than they used to.

The severe, drought-fueled fires now burning across much of the American West and Canada may be scorching forests so thoroughly that they cannot recover to the forests they once were, new research shows.

An ongoing drought in Europe has sapped French rivers. Officials say that 43 percent of small waterways in France have been partially or completely dried up.

For several years, climate scientists have shown that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could come to a halt if the world warms too much. 

El Niño is expected to intensify in the weeks ahead, fueling more severe heat across the globe, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization.