An independent organization of leading scientists and journalists researching and reporting the facts about our changing climate and its impact on the American public.
Climate Central surveys and conducts scientific research on climate change and informs the public of key findings. Our scientists publish and our journalists report on climate science, energy, sea level rise . . . . Read More
Members of the Climate Central staff and board are among the most respected leaders in climate science. Staff members are authorities in communicating climate and weather links, sea level rise, climate . . . . Read More
The conifer forests of the North American west have been under a massive assault over the past decade by bark beetles: one species alone, the mountain pine beetle, has killed more than 70,000 square miles’ worth of trees, equivalent to the area of Washington State, and two recent studies have shed some light on how climate change is helping fuel… Read More
The natural climate cycle known as the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) would wreak havoc even if humans weren’t warming the planet. During its El Niño phase, the Americas get floods and torrential rains while Asia suffers drought. When it swings over to the La Niña phase, it’s the opposite. But humans are warming the planet, and a report … Read More
Widespread drought, super-storm Sandy, and a melting ice cap failed to revive the media's interest in climate change in 2012, with worldwide coverage continuing its three-year slide, according to a media database maintained by the nonprofit journalism site The Daily Climate. The decline in the number of stories published on the topic – 2.4 percent… Read More
It’s relatively easy for scientists to see the signature of droughts and other climate events in the prehistoric past by looking digging into underground or seafloor sediments, or drilling into ancient ice. In order to say exactly when these events happened, though, you need a reliable natural dating method, and even the best of these is flawed. On… Read More
Legacy contaminants are decreasing more quickly than previously reported in three of the Great Lakes, but have stayed virtually the same in two other lakes, according to new research. “These are very positive results. The lakes are improving and slowly cleaning themselves up,” said Thomas Holsen, co-director of Clarkson University’s Center for the … Read More
From unprecedented heat waves that shattered "Dust Bowl" era records from the 1930s, to Hurricane Sandy, which devastated coastal New Jersey and New York, 2012 was the year Mother Nature had it out for the U.S. No country on Earth rivaled the U.S. in 2012 in terms of extreme weather and climate events, as one rare episode after another rocked the c… Read More
Coal is likely to rival oil as the world's biggest source of energy in the next five years, with potentially disastrous consequences for the climate, according to the world's leading authority on energy economics. One of the biggest factors behind the rise in coal use has been the massive increase in the use of shale gas in the U.S. … Read More
Even after causing more than a dozen spills in 2011 from its newest tar sands pipeline — including a six story “geyser” of crude — Canadian energy developer TransCanada claimed its planned Keystone XL pipeline would “exceed” safety standards.… Read More
