Scientists have found that permafrost buried beneath the Arctic Ocean holds 60 billion tons of methane and 560 billion tons of organic carbon — making it a major source of greenhouse gases not currently included in climate projections that could have a significant impact on climate change in the longer-term.

Scientists at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) developed a method using a DNA biomarker to easily screen pregnant women for harmful prenatal environmental contaminants like air pollution linked to childhood illness and developmental disorders.

Scientists have little understanding of the role fishes play in the global carbon cycle linked to climate change, but a Rutgers-led study found that carbon in feces, respiration and other excretions from fishes – roughly 1.65 billion tons annually – make up about 16 percent of the total carbon that sinks below the ocean’s upper layers.

A study recently completed in Europe and North America indicates that the composition of wintering and breeding bird communities changes in line with global warming. 

Some of the planet’s rarest metals – used in the manufacture of smartphones and other electrical equipment – are increasingly being found in everyday consumer plastics, according to new research.

At a glacier near the South Pole, earth scientists have found evidence of a quiet, slow-motion fault slip that triggers strong, fast-slip earthquakes many miles away, according to Cornell research published Feb. 5 in Science Advances.

Iceberg melt is responsible for about half the fresh water entering the ocean from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. 

Climate change is rapid in the Arctic. As the climate warms, shrubs expand towards higher latitudes and altitudes. Researcher Julia Kemppinen together with her colleagues investigated the impacts of dwarf shrubs on tundra soils in the sub-Arctic Fennoscandia.

Iron minerals and bacteria can be the main agents of carbon dioxide emissions from the soil. A soil scientist from RUDN University made this conclusion after studying the process of organic plant waste decomposition of the micro-level.

Rice University engineers have suggested a colorful solution to next-generation energy collection: Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) in your windows.