A warming Earth causes the volume of mountain glaciers and their extent to decline globally for decades. At the same time, the cover of many glaciers with debris changes. However, this debris coverage has been rarely recorded so far. A study by the scientist Dirk Scherler of the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ and two colleagues from Switzerland - one of them employed by Google - now shows a possibility to detect the extent of debris on mountain glaciers globally and automatically via satellite monitoring.

The appearance of dunes and beaches might soon be changing due to the increase in carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, already a significant factor in the ongoing phenomena of climate change.  The findings are the result of a study coordinated by the Institute for the Study of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environments of the National Research Council (CNR-IAS) of Oristano, carried out in collaboration with Ca' Foscari University of Venice. The research, published in the journal Climatic Change, analyzed the chain reaction of effects on the marine environment triggered by the rise in CO2, estimating that from now to 2100 the accumulation of sediment at the base of the Mediterranean dune systems could fall by 31%, with erosion of beaches and an increased risk of flooding. The case study analyzed by the researchers was the Bay of San Giovanni, along the Sinis peninsula in Sardinia.

Geographers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have found that coastal vegetation such as mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes may be the most effective habitats to mitigate carbon emissions.

Many countries have made commitments to restore huge areas of forest as part of the Bonn Challenge, organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. For example, Costa Rica has promised to preserve 1 million hectares (3,861 square miles) of forest by 2020—about 20 percent of the nation’s total area. However, a new paper in Conservation Letters suggests that quickly reforesting large areas may not be the best strategy to yield many of the benefits forests can provide.

As the climate changes, we must radically improve soil health in Canada.

Metal-air batteries are one of the lightest and most compact types of batteries available, but they can have a major limitation: When not in use, they degrade quickly, as corrosion eats away at their metal electrodes. Now, MIT researchers have found a way to substantially reduce that corrosion, making it possible for such batteries to have much longer shelf lives.

On August 21, 2017, at 16 points along the path of last year’s total solar eclipse, tiny microphones—each about the size of a USB flash drive—captured a unique biological phenomenon. As Earth fell into complete darkness, the bees stopped buzzing, according to researchers at the University of Missouri

A 37-year survey of monarch populations in North Central Florida shows that caterpillars and butterflies have been declining since 1985 and have dropped by 80 percent since 2005.

With its wind and precipitation patterns, the South Asian Monsoon influences the lives of several billion people. Recent studies indicate that its drivers are more complex than previously assumed. Scientists from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel have now published a reconstruction of precipitation over the eastern Indian Ocean over the past one million years in the international journal Nature Communications. It points to connections with controlling processes in the southern hemisphere that have received little attention so far.

Extreme drought is one of the effects of climate change that is already being perceived.  This year, the decrease in rainfall and the abnormally hot temperatures in northern and eastern Europe have caused large losses in cereals and potato crops and in other horticultural species. Experts have long warned that to ensure food security it is becoming necessary to use plant varieties that are productive in drought conditions. Now, a team led by the researcher at the Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) Ana Caño-Delgado has obtained plants with increased drought resistance by modifying the signaling of the plant steroid hormones, known as brassinosteroids. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, is the first to find to find a strategy to increase hydric stress resistance without affecting overall plant growth.