Milan’s marble facades and narrow, stone-paved streets look elegant and timeless. But all of that stone emits heat and does nothing to absorb rain, and temperatures and flooding in the posh Italian city are only predicted to increase in the coming decades. In Jakarta, black floodwaters already rush into homes every winter along the Indonesian … Read more
he world’s oceans are home to microscopic organisms invisible to the human eye. The tiny creatures, known as “prokaryotes”, comprise 30% of life in the world’s oceans. These organisms play an important role in keeping the oceans in balance. But new research by myself and colleagues shows this balance is at risk. We found prokaryotes … Read more
Researchers have synthesized highly durable solar cells made from perovskite — a common crystal structure (in its natural form a calcium titanium oxide mineral) — in a breakthrough that could revolutionize the solar industry. Solar power is the fastest-growing energy technology and plays a key role in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Solar power converts sunlight … Read more
Scientists believe Earth may have briefly lost protection from the sun around two million years ago, left to endure the extreme environment of interstellar space as the solar system passed through a dense cloud of gas and dust between stars. At that time, early human ancestors shared our planet with prehistoric animals like mastodons and … Read more
So-called “zombie fires” in the peatlands of Alaska, Canada and Siberia disappear from the Earth’s surface and smoulder underground during the winter before coming back to life the following spring. These fires puzzle scientists because they appear in early May, way ahead of the usual fire season in the far north, and can reignite for … Read more
The “gateway to the underworld,” a huge crater in Siberia’s permafrost, is growing by 35 million cubic feet (1 million cubic meters) every year as the frozen ground melts, according to a new study. The crater, officially known as the Batagay (also spelled Batagaika) crater or megaslump, features a rounded cliff face that was first … Read more
Genre: Sci-Fi, Cli-Fi, Near Future Reviewer: Scott Get It On Amazon About The Book The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon … Read more
Sea levels are rising as climate change rapidly melts glaciers and ice sheets and the water within the oceans expands in a warming world. But have sea levels ever been higher than they are today? And when were they the highest? In short, sea levels have easily been higher than they are today. But it’s … Read more
Water vapor in the stratosphere forms a sponge-like barrier that prevents heat radiating from Earth from escaping out into space. Now, scientists are exploring the plausibility of dehydrating this layer of the atmosphere to cool our warming planet. The stratosphere extends between 7.5 and 31 miles (12 and 50 kilometers) above Earth’s surface and sits … Read more
A new study has claimed that we may breach the 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) climate change increase threshold by the late 2020s — almost two decades earlier than current projections. The study, published Feb. 5 in the journal Nature Climate Change, claims global surface temperatures had increased by 1.7 C (3 F) above … Read more
