Large-scale melting of snow and ice on Antarctica’s massive Ross Ice Shelf, brought about by an unusually warm stretch of weather in the summer of 2016, is one of the first documented cases of widespread surface melting of the Ross Ice Shelf and other regions of West Antarctica, according to a new study.

The Canadian research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen, an Arctic expedition vessel, will not be venturing north for its planned trip this year. The highly anticipated voyage aimed to monitor and understand the effects of climate change on Arctic marine and coastal ecosystems. But due to warming temperatures, Arctic sea ice is unexpectedly in motion, making the trip far too dangerous for the Amundsen and the scientists it would be carrying. In other words, the climate change study has been rendered unsafe by climate change.

Researchers at Tulane University have developed a subsidence map of coastal Louisiana, putting the rate at which this region is sinking at just over one third of an inch per year.

An area of West Antarctica more than twice the size of California partially melted in 2016 when warm winds forced by an especially strong El Niño blew over the continent, an international group of researchers has determined.

In the June 15 issue of the journal Nature Communications, they report that the warm spell persisted for more than two weeks in January 2016. Satellite data revealed a mix of melted snow and ice over most of the Ross Ice Shelf—a thick platform of floating ice that channels about a third of the ice flowing from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet into the ocean.

Global climate change and the energy crisis mean that alternatives to fossil fuels are urgently needed. Among the cleanest low-carbon fuels is hydrogen, which can react with oxygen to release energy, emitting nothing more harmful than water (H2O) as the product. However, most hydrogen on earth is already locked into H2O (or other molecules), and cannot be used for power.

Summer wildfires boost air pollution considerably more than previously believed.

Naturally burning timber and brush launch what are called fine particles into the air at a rate three times as high as levels noted in emissions inventories at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a new study. The microscopic specks that form aerosols are a hazard to human health, particularly to the lungs and heart.

There are many ways to make a living in a suitable climate but far fewer in a less suitable one. That may seem obvious for people living under various socio-economic stresses, but new research shows it also applies to the world’s plants – many of which are resorting to dramatic ‘last-stand’ strategies to survive in deteriorating environmental conditions.

The Atlantic hurricane season has officially begun and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting “above normal” storm activity this year. That could mean significant damage to coastal communities — some of which are still recovering from last year’s hurricane season.

As officials in hurricane-prone communities are calling on residents to be prepared for upcoming storms, researchers with the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) are encouraging officials to make preparation a priority from the very earliest stages of building design, starting with data-driven changes to building codes.

Tropical Storm Merbok formed in the South China Sea west of the Philippines on June 11 and made landfall east of Hong Kong, China on June 12. NASA measured the rainfall rates within the tropical storm early in its short two day lifetime.

A long-standing mystery is that, despite the persistently increased greenhouse gases emissions throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the globally-averaged surface temperature has shown distinct multi-decadal fluctuations since 1900, including two weak global warming slowdowns in the mid-twentieth century and early twenty-first century and two strong global warming accelerations in the early and late twentieth century. The multi-decadal global warming rate changes are primarily attributed to multiple ocean surface temperature changes, according to research by CAS Institute of Atmospheric Physics and Australian Bureau of Meteorology and it is the net impact of multiple ocean surface temperature changes, rather than a single ocean basin change, that plays a main driver for the multi-decadal global warming accelerations and slowdowns.