A Dutch-Texan team found that most Houston-area drowning deaths from Hurricane Harvey occurred outside the zones designated by government as being at higher risk of flooding: the 100- and 500-year floodplains. Harvey, one of the costliest storms in US history, hit southeast Texas on 25 August 2017 causing unprecedented flooding and killing dozens. Researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Rice University in Texas published their results today in the European Geosciences Union journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences.

Shifts in the timing of life cycle events – known as phenology - of interacting species, such as predator versus prey and plant versus pollinator, are often listed as a consequence of climate change.

“We are at the tipping point, so it is a critical time,” said University of Saskatchewan climate change researcher Yanping Li. “What we are going to do now will have great significance.”

Surface air temperature (SAT) anomalies have pronounced impacts on agriculture, socioeconomic development, and people’s daily lives. For example, the record-breaking hot summer over many parts of the Eurasia resulted in broad wildfires and large economic loss. Many studies have demonstrated that atmospheric circulation anomalies play an important role in modulating the SAT variations. Hence, the persistent characteristics of the Eurasian atmospheric circulation anomalies are crucial for the seasonal prediction of the Eurasian SAT. A question is whether the Eurasian atmospheric circulation anomalies can persist from winter to the following spring.

Step aside, charismatic polar bear stranded on a melting iceberg. The springtail may be the new flag bearer of an uncertain Arctic future.

The scientific models that ecologists and conservation biologists rely on to determine which species and habitats to protect lack critical information to help them make effective decisions, according to a new study.

Climate change is a one of the biggest challenges facing humanity. The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015, became the second legally binding climate agreement after the Kyoto Protocol, and coordinates global efforts to combat climate change.

The Tibetan Plateau has experienced more rapid climate warming than the global average, coupled with greater interannual variation in precipitation over the past 50 years. How will such dramatic climate change influence the structure and function of alpine grasslands? Interest in this topic is high because of its importance to the sustainable development of animal husbandry and the livelihood of Tibetan inhabitants.

While the eastern United States and large parts of Europe suffered through a long, cold winter, temperatures were nothing short of balmy over much of the Arctic. The North Pole experienced above-freezing weather in February, temperatures over the Arctic Ocean were as much as 13 degrees Fahrenheit above average from December into early March, and sea ice melted back to its second-lowest annual maximum extent since the satellite record began in 1979.

Antarctica's great ice sheet is losing ground as it is eroded by warm ocean water circulating beneath its floating edge, a new study has found.