Climate Change, features and articles | Educational Science

Feb 5, 2024

Controversial climate change study claims we'll breach 2 C before 2030

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...

Feb 8, 2024

Greenland is losing so much ice it's getting taller

The flow of glaciers off the edges of Greenland is causing the landmass to rise like a decompressing mattress. The uplift of Greenland is a long-term and well-known process. Since the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago, the retreat of the ice sheet has taken a...

Feb 13, 2024

California-size Antarctic ice sheet once thought stable may actually be at tipping point for collapse

A gigantic ice sheet that was thought to be stable may be much closer to runaway melt than anyone realized, a new study has revealed. The Wilkes Subglacial Basin — a California-size ice sheet in East Antarctica that holds enough ice to lift global sea levels by 10 feet (3...

Feb 15, 2024

Giant, synchronized swarms of locusts may become more common with climate change

Heavy wind and rain may be triggering widespread, synchronized desert locust outbreaks in key breadbasket regions of the world, new research shows. And the range of these ravenous, crop-stripping locusts could expand up to 25% due to climate change. The study, published Wednesday (Feb. 14) in the journal Science Advances,...

Feb 23, 2024

Atlantic's hurricane alley is so hot from El Niño it could send 2024's storm season into overdrive

The Atlantic's hurricane alley is already experiencing summer temperatures, despite it only being February. And the unprecedented temperatures could be bad news for the upcoming storm season, researchers say. Since March 2023, average sea surface temperatures around the world have hit record-shattering highs and are still climbing. This ominous ocean...

Feb 26, 2024

Mexico City could be just months away from running out of drinking water

Mexico City is facing severe water shortages that could see large parts of the city run dry in months. The megacity and its environs, home to approximately 22 million people, has been suffering from moderate to exceptional drought since the beginning of 2024. In an effort to conserve this water,...

Feb 27, 2024

El Niño kickstarted the melting of Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier' 80 years ago, new study reveals

Antarctica's Doomsday glacier began its path of rapid melt 80 years ago — 30 years earlier than first thought — following an extreme El Niño, a new study has revealed. The Thwaites Glacier, nicknamed the doomsday glacier because of its potential to increase sea levels by two feet (60 centimeters),...

Feb 28, 2024

Historic Texas wildfires rage toward U.S. nuclear weapon facility

Sixty counties in the Texas panhandle have been issued with a disaster declaration as rapidly-spreading wildfires forced the evacuation of several towns and America's main nuclear weapons storage facility. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued the declaration on Tuesday (Feb 28.), activating emergency response teams to fight the fires. One...

Feb 28, 2024

Scientists say dehydrating the stratosphere could be plausible option to combat climate change

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)...

Mar 1, 2024

Fracturing Antarctic glacier breaks 80 mph speed record

Scientists have observed the fastest glacier fracture ever recorded — a crack in Antarctica's ice that opened at roughly 80 mph (129 km/h). The finding reveals that giant ice masses can shatter like glass, which could help researchers better understand how climate change will impact ice sheets. This is to...

Mar 6, 2024

32 U.S. cities, including New York and San Francisco, are sinking into the ocean and face major flood risks by 2050, new study reveals

Sinking ground and rising sea levels will put more than half a million people at risk of repeated flooding across 32 U.S. coastal cities — including New York, Boston, San Francisco and Miami — new research shows. If nothing is done to mitigate this risk, the deluges could cause $107...

Mar 16, 2024

'Worrisome and even frightening': Ancient ecosystem of Lake Baikal at risk of regime change from warming

Lake Baikal, in southern Siberia, is the world's oldest and deepest freshwater lake and, due to its age and isolation, is exceptionally biodiverse — but this remarkable ecosystem is under threat from global warming. In this excerpt from Our Ancient Lakes: A Natural History (MIT Press, 2023), Jeffrey McKinnon examines...