Midwestern agriculture contributes the vast majority of nitrogen in the Gulf of Mexico, causing an oxygen-starved hypoxic zone and challenging coastal economies.

East Africa is much drier than other tropical land regions, including the Amazon and Congo rainforests.

Dr Anran Cheng (Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford), lead author of the study, said: ‘Our model shows the importance of factoring in the high diffusivity of helium and the long timescales needed to accumulate significant gas quantities, and the fact that the entire geological system acts dynamically to affect the process.

Even in their dark isolation from the atmosphere above, caves can hold a rich archive of local climate conditions and how they’ve shifted over the eons.

With the arrival of spring, bumblebee queens take their first wing beat of the season and set out to find new nesting sites.

The oceans help to limit global warming by soaking up carbon dioxide emissions.

The researchers created maps showing where warmer weather has left trees in conditions that don’t suit them, making them more prone to being replaced by other species. 

Municipal wastewater treatment plants emit nearly double the amount of methane into the atmosphere than scientists previously believed, according to new research from Princeton University. 

Submarine landslides have a large tsunami potential and occurred on the central Norwegian shelf more frequently in the past than previously thought.

Researchers from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Aarhus University take part in an international research network, ENSA, which focuses on improving nutrient uptake by plants to reduce the need for fertilizer.