Like people vacationing in the mountains to escape summer heat, plants are “climbing” to higher elevations to cope with global warming, a new study shows.
Previous research has suggested that many plant and animal species have been shifting their ranges toward the Poles as the planet warms.
Now scientists have found evidence that plants have also been […]

Scientists tracking a dramatic shrinkage in Arctic sea ice over the past few years have come to a worrisome conclusion: If the trend continues, it could speed up the melting of Arctic permafrost as well. The environmental consequences of such a development are uncertain, but they could spell trouble for plants, animals, and humans in […]

Rapid Arctic sea ice loss could triple the rate of warming over northern Alaska, Canada and Russia and trigger permafrost thawing that unleashes extremely potent greenhouse gases, according to a new study.
“Our study suggests that, if sea ice continues to contract rapidly over the next several years, Arctic land warming and permafrost thaw are likely […]

Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a global warming bill that would have required major reductions in greenhouse gases, after a bitter debate over its economic costs and whether it would substantially raise gasoline and other energy prices.
Democratic leaders fell a dozen votes short of getting the 60 needed to end a Republican filibuster on the […]

Speedier family baths could help Japanese cut their burgeoning energy consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions tied to global warming, the government said Tuesday.
Japanese households consume less energy than their U.S. and European counterparts, but consumption has been sharply increasing — jumping 44 percent between 1990 and 2005.
That pace easily outstripped increases in other top […]

An abrupt release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from ice sheets that extended to Earth’s low latitudes some 635 million years ago caused a dramatic shift in climate, scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) report in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.
The shift triggered events that resulted in global warming and […]

Harrison Ford pulled a Steve Carell for a public service announcement: He gets his chest waxed.
The 65-year-old star winces in apparent pain as a strip of hair is yanked from between his pecs for a PSA for Conservation International to raise awareness about the effect of deforestation on global warming.
The actor, who doesn’t typically appear […]

Global warming may reduce the number of hurricanes forming in the Atlantic Basin by 2060, a new study says. But it adds that the storms that do form may be slightly stronger and wetter.
The study, conducted by scientists at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is the latest development in a contentious debate […]

Arctic ice is melting fast and the area covered by ice sheets in ocean could shrink this summer to the smallest since 1978 when satellite observation first started, Japanese scientists warned in a report.
Ice sheets in the Arctic Ocean shrank to the smallest area on record in late summer in 2007, researchers at the Japan […]

Without getting too deeply scientific, this article will try to explain exactly what global warming is…

Turn greenhouse gases to stone? Transform them into a treacle-like liquid deep under the seabed?
The ideas may sound like far-fetched schemes from an alchemist’s notebook but scientists are pursuing them as many countries prepare to bury captured greenhouse gases in coming years as part of the fight against global warming.
Analysts say the search for a […]

The world food crisis is hurting a lot of people, but global agribusiness firms, traders and speculators are raking in huge profits.
Much of the news coverage of the world food crisis has focussed on riots in low-income countries, where workers and others cannot cope with skyrocketing costs of staple foods. But there is another side […]

As many as one billion people could lose their homes by 2050 because of the devastating impact of global warming, scientists and political leaders will be warned today.
They will hear that the steady rise in temperatures across the planet could trigger mass migration on unprecedented levels.
Hundreds of millions could be forced to go on the […]

Earth’s jet streams—high-altitude winds that influence storm direction—may be changing due to global warming, possibly making it easier for hurricanes to form, a new study says.
Jet streams in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres have moved toward the poles and are slightly higher now than they were in 1979, according to analyses of data collected […]

Greece has been suspended from U.N. carbon trading in an unprecedented punishment for violating greenhouse gas reporting rules that underpin a fight against global warming, officials said on Tuesday.
A group of legal experts enforcing compliance with the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol also said it was opening proceedings against Canada for alleged violations of rules on accounting […]