The Arctic Ocean’s ice cover is shrinking at a record pace this year after higher-than-average temperatures hastened the annual break-up of the sea ice. The area of ocean covered by ice shrank to 1.9 million square miles on average for a 5-day period, according to the latest data from the U.S. National Snow and Ice…
When well-meaning campaigners want us to pay attention to global warming, they often end up pitching beyond the facts. And, while this may seem justified by a noble goal, such “policy by panic” tactics rarely work, and often backfire. Remember how, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Al Gore (and many others) claimed…
Small increases in temperature may have reduced the industrial and agricultural production of poor countries, according to a study by U.S. economists. Higher temperatures may also have contributed to political instability in these countries — defined as those with below-median per capita income, adjusted for the purchasing power of the country’s currency — according to…
There’s no place on Earth that’s changing faster – and no place where that change matters more – than Greenland. Late last month, NASA reported that ice all across the vast glacial interior of the world’s largest island was melting – a “freak event” that hadn’t occurred for at least 150 years. The alarming discovery…
It’s become a sport of sorts, predicting the low point of Arctic sea ice each year. Expert scientists with decades of experience do it but so do enthusiasts, whose guesses are gamely included in a monthly predictions roundup collected by Sea Ice Outlook, an effort supported by the U.S. government. When averaged, the predictions have…
The United States will suffer a series of severe droughts in the next two decades, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Moreover, global warming will play an increasingly important role in their abundance and severity, claims Aiguo Dai, the study’s author. His findings bolster conclusions from climate models used…
Our planet’s changing climate is devastating communities in Africa through droughts, floods and myriad other disasters. Using detailed regional climate models and geographic information systems, researchers with the Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) program developed an online mapping tool that analyzes how climate and other forces interact to threaten the security of African…
Parasites look set to become more virulent because of climate change, according to a study showing that frogs suffer more infections from a fungus when exposed to unexpected swings in temperatures. Parasites, which include tapeworms, the tiny organisms that cause malaria and funguses, may be more nimble at adapting to climatic shifts than the animals…
In the early 2000s, Lowell Wood of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory proposed cooling the earth by launching reflective mirrors into space, though he cautioned that the mirror should be considered only as a measure of last resort. Why? Because the mirror would have to have an area of 600,000 square miles – a slightly smaller…
Reservoirs behind dams have been identified as new culprits in global warming, releasing greenhouse gases as water levels go up and down, U.S. researchers say. Researchers at Washington State University-Vancouver measured dissolved gases in the water column of a reservoir in Clark County and found methane emissions jumped 20-fold when the water level was drawn…