Global Carbon Trading System Has ‘Essentially Collapsed’
The world's only global system of carbon trading, designed to give poor countries access to new green technologies, has "essentially collapsed", jeopardising future flows of finance to the developing world. Billions of dollars have been raised in the past seven years through theUnited Nations' system to set up greenhouse gas-cutting projects, such… Read More
Coral Reefs of the Caribbean Facing Collapse
Caribbean coral reefs — which make up one of the world's most colorful, vivid and productive ecosystems — are on the verge of collapse, with less than 10% of the reef area showing live coral cover. With so little growth left, the reefs are in danger of utter devastation unless urgent action is taken, conservationists warned. They said the drastic … Read More
Snowstorms and Climate Change . . . On Mars
Scientists have known since the mid-1600s that the Red Planet isn’t entirely red. That’s when Giovanni Cassini described two whitish patches, one at each of Mars’ poles; a little more than a century later, William Herschel noted that they grew and shrank with the seasons. They must, Herschel said, be ice caps, just like the ones at Earth’s North … Read More
90 Years Later, Death Valley Sets World Temp Record
The searing heat waves that blanketed the nation earlier this summer sent temperatures soaring well above 110°F in parts of the U.S., but that’s nowhere close to the hottest temperature on record — an almost unimaginable 136.4° F, taken on September 13, 1922, in the Sahara Desert at El Azizia, Libya. That’s what the Guinness Book of World Records s… Read More
2012 Record Temperatures: Which States Led the Nation
The summer of 2012 has been one for the record books in the lower 48 states. On the heels of the country’s warmest-ever spring, several record-breaking June and July heat waves kept the Southwest, Midwest and Atlantic Coast sweltering. July went on to become the all-time warmest month on record for the country. [add statistic from August once we’ve… Read More
Climate Change Stress Killing Forests, and Why it Matters
Forests cover some 30 percent of Earth’s surface, and it’s hard to overestimate how crucial they are to the functioning of the planet. Forests provide shelter for uncountable numbers of species, hold soil in place that would otherwise wash away, pull excess carbon out of the atmosphere, absorb and re-emit water at such a rate that they literally … Read More
Patagonian Glaciers Are Rapidly Melting, Report Finds
Ice fields in southern South America are rapidly losing volume and in most cases thinning at even the highest elevations, contributing to sea-level rise at "substantially higher" rates than observed from the 1970s through the 1990s, according to a study published Wednesday. The rapid melting, based on satellite observations, suggests the ice field… Read More
As Sea Ice Fades, The Arctic Becomes A Nautical Highway
The timing couldn’t have been better: just a week or so after scientists announced the greatest meltback of Arctic sea ice on record, three adventurers declared they’d slipped through the McClure Strait in Canada’s Arctic Archipelago, thus achieving the first-ever sailboat trek through the northernmost part of the fabled Northwest Passage.… Read More
