Climate

‘Striking’ Expansion of Two Antarctic Flowering Plants Is a Climate Warning

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Flowering plants in the Antarctic region are rapidly expanding, scientists say, indicating the continuing effects of climate change on the continent. The findings suggest we may have reached a tipping point in this fragile, remote ecosystem.   A new study of this plant expansion looked at the two flowering plants native to Antarctica, Deschampsia antarctica … Read more

Scientists Simulated 100,000 Different Futures. Which One We Get Depends Only on Us

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Most of us have at least one moment in our lives when we wish we’d made a different choice. It’s easy to recognize what went wrong in hindsight, but key factors that could have made all the difference at the time are often easily missed as we experience them.   Understanding those pivot points becomes … Read more

The race is on to tackle climate change by pulling carbon from the air

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By Adam Vaughan Energy firm Drax has a biomass power plant in Yorkshire, UK Clare Jackson/Alamy A CATTLE shed near Edinburgh sucking up methane emissions and a team altering the acidity of seawater in the English Channel might seem unlikely prospects for avoiding increasingly dangerous climate change. But they are just two of 24 projects taking part … Read more

US Could Get a Century’s Worth of Sea Level Rise in Just 3 Decades, Report Warns

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A new federal report with up-to-date projections for all states and territories predicts sea levels in the United States will rise more than three times as fast as they did last century.   According to new lines of data, the average sea level along the nation’s coastline could increase by 0.3 meters (or a foot) … Read more

Winter Olympic Sites Are Melting Away because of Climate Crisis

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The number of places on Earth with the right combination of natural climate and geography for the Olympic Winter Games is already inherently limited. But as global temperatures rise from the burning of fossil fuels, the list is narrowing further. Factoring in the specific conditions that world-class skiers and snowboarders need to safely land tricks … Read more

Lichens Could Need More than a Million Years to Adapt to Climate Change

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Often mistaken for primitive plants such as moss (if they are even noticed in the first place), lichens are actually not plants at all. They are a group of versatile symbiotic life-forms that play crucial roles in myriad ecosystems, from rain forests to Arctic tundra. Though some do closely resemble moss, others look like little … Read more

Flower growth in Antarctica is accelerating due to warming climate

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There are only two flowering plants native to Antarctica and both have seen an explosion in their numbers in the decade from 2009 to 2019 Environment 14 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins Deschampsia antarctica is one of two flowering plants native to Antarctica Nature/Getty Images Plants in Antarctica are growing more quickly due to climate … Read more

Lichens are in peril because they adapt so slowly to climate change

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Lichens are important for stabilising soils and providing some animals with food, but the algae within them are adapting to climate change at a rate of just 1°C every million years Life 15 February 2022 By Jake Buehler Lichen (Folmannia orthoclada) on rock in Atacama Desert. This lichen contains Trebouxia algae Matthew Nelsen One of … Read more

Extreme ‘Megadrought’ Gripping The US Is Like Nothing Seen in 1,200 Years

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The megadrought that has parched the southwestern United States and parts of Mexico over the last two decades is the worst to hit the region in at least 1,200 years, researchers said Monday.   Human-caused global heating accounts for more than 40 percent of the dry spell’s intensity, they reported in the journal Nature Climate … Read more