At first glance, Antarctica seems inhospitable. Known for howling gales and extremely cold temperatures, the continent is blanketed with a mile-thick ice shelf. 

Sea-level rise is one of the most immediate consequences of climate change, as highlighted recently through urgent pleas from leaders of island nations at the COP26 summit.

Greenland’s glaciers grind rock into a fine powder that discolors meltwater and often makes beautiful patterns as it mixes with seawater.

Lower humidity and higher temperatures are driving extreme weather that makes wildfires more frequent and intense, say experts.

A civil and environmental engineering researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has, for the first time, assimilated satellite information into on-site river measurements and hydrologic models to calculate the past 35 years of river discharge in the entire pan-Arctic region.

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid or comet about 10 miles (14 kilometers) wide smashed into Earth. It struck what is now Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, which was then lying at the bottom of a shallow sea.

There are few other places like Daintree rainforest in far north Queensland. Thought to be among the most ancient forests in the world, Daintree has many plants with lineages that scientists have traced back hundreds of millions of years to a time when several continents were joined together as Gondwana.

With wildfires devastating mountain ecosystems across the western United States, their successful forest revegetation recovery hinges on, among other factors, an adequate lasting snowpack, according to research by the University of Nevada, Reno and Oregon State University.

Training AI to detect and identify marine mammal calls from underwater acoustic recordings opens new possibilities for more cost-effective marine mammal research.

NOAA and partners have supported communities through restoration at two urban Superfund sites in Massachusetts and Washington.