Earth Science News

Glaciers in the Mount Everest region have shrunk by 13 percent and the snow-line has shifted 180 meters (590 feet) higher during the past 50 years, according to a study…

Lake sediments recorded the climate of the Arctic during the last period when CO2 levels were as high as today The future of a globally warmed world has been revealed…

Geoengineering schemes that aim to slow global warming by seeding oceans with iron to boost carbon dioxide-absorbing phytoplankton may not lead to long-term sequestration of the important greenhouse gas, finds…

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies map representing global temperature anomalies averaged from 2008 through 2012. Visualization credit: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio 2012 was the ninth warmest year since…

Soot is the second largest man-made contributor to global warming, according to a comprehensive new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. The research effectively doubles the estimate…

Scientists and experts are increasingly concerned that we are entering an age of ecological collapse with untold impacts for future generations. In Daniel Rirdan's new book, The Blueprint, he outlines…

Rainforest in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Forests worldwide are at "equally high risk" to die-off from drought conditions, warns a new study published this week in the…

Aerial photo of an Amazon rainforest tributary in Peru. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The common view of the Amazon is that it is one massive, unbroken forest. This impression…

The Global Carbon Cycle, by Dr. David Archer, is an excellent primer on the global carbon cycle. An easily readable format, this lightweight book is an excellent companion to those…

The Lamont Seamounts are an example of the view from the seafloor synthesized by a team of oceanographers at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The seamounts are due west of El Salvador,…

Deforestation and climate change will likely decimate much of the Amazon rainforest, says a new study by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and the UK's Met Office Hadley…

A Japanese home is seen adrift in the Pacific Ocean. Ships and aircraft from the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group are searching for survivors in the coastal waters near Sendai,…

Erosion caused by hurricanes and large-scale deforestation may have contributed to last year's devastating earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people in Haiti, according to a geologist at the University…

The first five months of 2010 have been the second warmest on record, according to data released by the University of Alabama Huntsville. Scientists at the university's Earth System Science…

Maule Earthquake On February 27, 2010 a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Maule, Chile causing widespread damage and casualties. The quake ranks as one of the ten strongest earthquakes ever recorded…

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has found that every ice front in the southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula—the coldest part—has been retreating overall for the past sixty years with…

Over one third of the world's land surface (38 percent) is threatened with desertification, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. The study…

Considering it is unlikely that global carbon emissions will start dropping anytime soon, researchers are beginning to look at other methods to combat climate change. One of these is to…

Allowing the climate to rise by just two degrees Celsius—the target most industrialized nations are currently discussing in Copenhagen—may still lead to a catastrophic sea level rise of six to…

The most recent survey among the ice fields atop Mount Kilimanjaro found that the ice atop Africa's most famous mountain could be gone in twenty years—and maybe even sooner. Published…

Researchers examining 43 million satellite measurements of Antarctica's thinning ice sheets and 7 million of Greenland's, show that the ice is melting faster than expected. Published in Nature the research…

The world's ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for July, breaking the previous record set in 1998, reports NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. At 62.56°F (16.99°C), ocean temperatures…

A recent study by the U.S Geological Survey (USGS) indicates a substantial decline in the number of large-diameter trees in Yellowstone National Park. Between the 1930s and the 1990s there…

Scientists are currently meeting at the 94th annual Ecological Society of America (ESA) symposium in New Mexico to discuss, among other topics, the massive upset of the natural biogeochemical cycles…

A return of El Niño could boost average global temperatures: the two warmest years on record — 1998 and 2005 — have occurred during ENSO events. Ocean temperatures in the…

Global ocean temperatures rose to the warmest on record, according to data released last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The combined average global land and ocean…

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are higher than any point in the last 2.1 million years, report researchers writing in the journal Science. Analyzing the shells of single-celled plankton buried under…

Rising temperatures could reverse the role forests play in mitigating climate change, turning them into net sources of greenhouse gases, reports a new assessment by the International Union of Forest…