Environment

 A team of Russian and Norwegian scientists just made a grim, timely discovery. Just one week after a nuclear-powered Russian submarine caught fire, killing 14 sailors, researchers sent a remote submarine to collect samples around the sunken wreckage of another nuclear sub, which caught fire in 1989 leading to the deaths of 42 crew members.

Congratulations Mauna Loa, on the island of Hawaii: you are once more the biggest shield volcano on the planet, without even having done anything. New research suggests the previous record holder, Tamu Massif in the northwest Pacific Ocean, should be disqualified on a technicality. It all comes down to what you count as a single shield

The world is about to undergo a drastic transformation that will see cities around the globe inherit the disparate climates of places hundreds of miles away, new research shows. By 2050, scientists say over three-quarters of the world’s cities will have had their climate systems rearranged as part of this rapid metamorphosis. Most concerning of

In western Antarctica, a glacier the size of Florida is losing ice faster than ever before. Sections of the Thwaites Glacier are retreating by up to 2,625 feet (800 metres) per year, contributing to 4 percent of sea-level rise worldwide. That ice loss is part of a broader trend: The entire Antarctic ice sheet is melting

Nothing lasts forever. While we may think of the ground beneath our feet as part of an enduring landscape, the short-lived existence of a temporary island off the coast of Pakistan tells a much different story. Zalzala Koh, aka ‘Earthquake Mountain’, was birthed in 2013 during a powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake that killed over 800

Cloud watchers have recently been given record-breaking glimpses of the rarest clouds in the skies. Stunning rippled blue clouds have been forming in the highest reaches of the atmosphere over Europe and the USA. These clouds are normally only seen around the poles, but this summer is set to be the best observing season in

Scientists have measured what they say is the largest seaweed bloom on record, stretching 8,850 kilometres (nearly 5,500 miles) across the Atlantic Ocean and made up of some 20 million metric tons of Sargassum algae – more than the weight of 200 fully loaded aircraft carriers. The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, as it’s being called,

Before fireworks streaked across the skies of southern California on July 4, nature unleashed its own thunderous blast of energy: an earthquake. The magnitude 6.4 temblor struck near Ridgecrest around 10:34 a.m. PT, cracking roads, bursting water mains, and toppling electrical power lines with its might. A larger, 7.1 magnitude has since struck Southern California. Before that,

As human influence extends into the world’s ecosystems, some species are hit increasingly hard – and the latest symbol for this problem is an unsuspecting black skimmer parent, mistakenly trying to feed its baby trash. “These birds feed by skimming along the water with their beaks open,” the photographer, Karen Mason, explained on Facebook where she

If we all get planting, roughly 4.4 billion hectares of our planet’s surface could be shaded by trees – enough to pull decades of carbon we’ve pumped into the atmosphere. As we reported earlier this year, ETH Zurich researcher Thomas Crowther and his colleagues have made it their mission to determine how we might press

All-time heat records are at risk in Alaska in coming days as a massive and abnormally intense area of high pressure locks in and strengthens over the region. This heat dome is expected to produce temperatures near and above the highest values ever recorded for multiple days, particularly in southern parts of the state. It’s

Europe’s record-breaking heat wave last week, it turns out, was the emphatic conclusion to the hottest June ever recorded. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), a satellite agency that keeps tabs on Europe’s weather for the European Union, reported that the global average temperature for June was the highest on record for that month. Average

In the extreme cold and dark of an Antarctic winter, a remote research base seemingly cut off from the world is still running as normal – even though scientists were forced to evacuate it months ago. The Halley VI Research Station, located on Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf, is designed for year-round habitation by scientists, but

The world’s existing power plants, industrial plants, buildings and cars are already numerous enough – and young enough – to commit the Earth to an unacceptable level of warming, according to new research published Monday. This fossil fuel infrastructure merely needs to continue operating over the course of its expected lifetime, and the world will emit over

A freak hailstorm blanketed large parts of Guadalajara on Sunday, coating the southwestern Mexican city’s roads with up to 5 feet (1.5 metres) of ice. The city had been experiencing temperatures of about 31 degrees Celsius (88 degrees Fahrenheit) in the days before the unexpected storm. Dozens of vehicles were swept away, and cars and

Etched across the sky, long white lines reveal the high-altitude paths airplanes take to their destinations. But that’s not all these vapour trails signify. Most of the concern about air travel’s environmental impact focuses on aviation’s gigantic carbon footprint, but new research serves as an alarming reminder of how harmful airplane contrails themselves are. Not

Subglacial lakes are some of the least explored and most important natural features on Earth. We have also vastly underestimated their prevalence and impact. Now, more than 400 of these lakes have been found beneath the Antarctic continent. Yet as recently as the 1950s, scientists thought this ice sheet contained no liquid water whatsoever. Now,

In the salt water marshes of southern California, a splashing killifish is easy prey for a hungry shorebird. Like a jerking marionette, the helpless creature shimmies and flashes on the surface of the water. And all the while, hiding deep in its brain, an invisible other quietly pulls the strings. The puppeteer in question is

Northern Spain is facing its largest forest fires in two decades as the heat wave scorching much of Europe continues to intensify. The fires have swept across Spanish province of Tarragona, near Barcelona, with officials warning that it could eventually engulf as much as 20,000 hectares (200 square kilometers) of land. “We’re facing a serious

This April, renewables were put to the test like never before. For the first time in United States history, clean energy sources shouldered more of the nation’s electricity needs than coal. A monthly report from the Energy Information Administration shows that renewables such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric dams provided 23 percent of the month’s

An ancient water conservation technique once used in Peru could be making a comeback in the modern era, as the country struggles with extreme dry seasons amidst a population rise. Researchers estimate the technique – used by indigenous peoples of the region – is at least 1,400 years old. It involves diverting water from streams

From the air, the massive crater resembles a pink virus floating against a pool of green. But from the ground, the destruction is clear and devastating: A 33-foot (10 meter) wide, 13-foot (4 meter) gouge into the earth that began in the 1940s with an Allied sortie and ended Sunday morning in a massive blast

An intense heat wave is set to bake Europe in coming days, and it could be historic, potentially shattering records across a large portion of the continent. The heat wave is expected to peak between Wednesday and Friday, when a swath from Spain to Poland is expected to see temperatures at least 20 to 30

You might think that plastic pollution on land and sea is old news by now, but it’s taken on a new form we’ve only just noticed: Researchers have identified a crust of plastic particles building up on shoreline rocks. This ‘plasticrust’ isn’t just a worrying symbol of the garbage piling up in our oceans. The coating

Underneath the salty waters of the North Atlantic ocean, geologists have discovered a giant aquifer of freshwater, hidden from view just off the US coast. While the vast size of this massive cache is surprising, it’s not entirely unexpected. Signals of the water first showed up in the 1970s, but until now, nobody suspected that

In the pitch black waters 759 meters (2500 feet) below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a thin, undulating arm emerges from the gloom. Suddenly, it splits, and what was a lone, curious appendage is a writhing bouquet of tentacles until, finally, an honest-to-God giant squid blooms from the darkness and attacks. Then, the

Just under half a century ago a system of satellites codenamed Hexagon was circling the globe and snapping high-resolution shots of the changing landscape… not to mention a Russian airfield or two. With the Cold War long melted, those images were declassified back in 2002, providing rich pickings for all kinds of research. Now scientists have

Great news! Humankind’s greatest-ever engineering project is nearing completion. Soon we will have warmed the Earth enough to get rid of all those pesky ice sheets and other frozen areas. The finish line is in sight. If we all work together for the next thousand years, we’ll finally reach our goal! NASA has been tracking

This time last year the roughly half-a-million people who live in Cape Town were in a panic. Their city was three months away from becoming the first major metropolis to fully deplete its water sources, and as the saga unfolded, the whole world watched in earnest. Today, in Chennai – India’s sixth largest city –

Boaty McBoatface is no longer just an internet sensation – it’s also a valuable contributor to climate change research. In 2016, the Natural Environment Research Council asked internet users to name its new research ship. But when “Boaty McBoatface” won the poll, they decided the moniker would be better suited to one of the ship’s

You can now visualise our climate crisis for almost anywhere on Earth, thanks to a stunning interactive tool that will make you see red in every possible way. Last year, climate scientist Ed Hawkins unveiled a powerful schematic for visualising global temperature changes: coloured ‘warming stripes’ communicating how the world has been getting hotter since

The world is changing as temperatures rise, and just as some parts of the planet are predicted to become uninhabitable, others are heading in the opposite direction – including the freezing cold wastelands of Siberia, new research shows. Siberia and the wider Asian Russia region accounts for 77 percent of Russia’s land area but just 27

Ice is melting in unprecedented ways as summer approaches in the Arctic. In recent days, observations have revealed a record-challenging melt event over the Greenland ice sheet, while the extent of ice over the Arctic Ocean has never been this low in mid-June during the age of weather satellites. Greenland saw temperatures soar up to

If you’ve seen photos of the Los Angeles reservoir covered in millions of black balls, you might have wondered two things. One: what the heck are they? And two… could you swim in them? Derek from Veritasium recently answered the first question in a video that went viral, with more than 32 million views and

Late last month scientists undertook a pretty amazing feat, successfully installing five automated weather stations across the Himalayan region, including the highest weather station in the world, near the very top of Mount Everest. In a long-form feature by National Geographic writer Freddie Wilkinson, the international team explain how they battled extreme weather, record crowds

Despite being grown and consumed for over two decades, there’s still a huge amount of misinformation and confusion that surrounds genetically modified (GM) foods. Researchers tell us to ignore the myths about GM foods, given the overwhelming scientific consensus that GM crops are safe to eat and deliver huge benefits in farming. While the evidence

As rain deluged the Midwest this spring, commercial fisherman Ryan Bradley knew it was only a matter of time before the disaster reached him. All that water falling on all that fertilizer-enriched farmland would soon wend its way through streams and rivers into Bradley’s fishing grounds in the Gulf of Mexico, off the Mississippi coast.

If you had asked a botanist just a few years ago how many plant species have perished in modern times, their estimate would probably number fewer than 150. The most exhaustive study thus far has now quadrupled that amount. Ever since 1753, when Carl Linnaeus “the father of modern taxonomy” put together his classification of plant

Simultaneous heat waves scorched land areas all over the Northern Hemisphere last summer, killing hundreds and hospitalizing thousands while intensifying destructive and deadly wildfires. A study published this week in the journal Earth’s Future concludes that this heat wave epidemic “would not have occurred without human-induced climate change.” The alarming part? There are signs record-setting

The crust of floating ice that forms over Antarctica’s Weddell Sea every winter is home to a baffling mystery. Every now and again, a huge hole will appear, exposing the dark, icy waters below. Why do the holes appear in some years and not others? Why do they appear at all? It’s never really been

Flooding swamped parts of the Southeast over the weekend, with as much as a foot of rain falling in western North Carolina. At the same time, the Mississippi River continued its long-lasting assault on communities along its banks. Near St. Louis, the crest over the weekend was the second-highest on record. Just the latest high-water

The world has learned many lessons from the Chernobyl disaster, a devastating nuclear power plant accident that recently rejoined our cultural conversation thanks to a new series on HBO. Though many elements of the disaster are still shrouded in mystery, we know a few things for certain: On April 26, 1986, the core of a nuclear

On average, 8.8 million tons of plastic enters the ocean every year. The maximum amount could be closer to 14 million tons – about the weight of 2 million elephants. Most plastics take hundreds of years to break down. And even then, they just splinter into very small pieces called microplastics, which will likely never

Humanity has been climbing a treacherous path, and now, looking down from such great heights, our footprints are clear to see. In the middle of May, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in our planet’s atmosphere climbed over and above 415 parts per million (ppm) for the first time since the dawn of our species. That was a

A doomsday ending to climate change is not inevitable, but the situation is becoming ever more desperate. Without immediate and drastic action, reminiscent of efforts during World War II, a new analysis predicts that by 2050, climate change could become an “existential threat to human civilisation” that can never be undone. The new report, co-written

Retelling the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is an exercise in unburying the truth. In the wake of the world’s worst nuclear power plant accident, which forced the city of Pripyat in what was then part of the Soviet Union to evacuate after being exposed to toxic levels of radiation, Soviet officials publicly downplayed the incident. To

One of the most profound similarities between Earth and Mars, one which makes it a popular target for research and exploration, is the presence of water ice on its surface (mainly in the form of its polar ice caps). But perhaps even more interesting is the presence of glaciers beneath the surface, which is something

Deep below the frozen wastelands of Antarctica, scientists have discovered ancient tectonic plate structures that are having a huge impact on melting patterns around the continent’s largest ice shelf. The hidden rock, in place for hundreds of millions of years, is controlling water flow around the gigantic Ross Ice Shelf. This shelf currently acts as