A new study of North American songbirds reveals that birds that live with fluctuating weather are more flexible singers.
An international team of scientists involving researchers from the University of Adelaide has used ancient DNA from bones of giant extinct New Zealand birds to show that significant climate and environmental changes did not have a large impact on their populations.
A team of international scientists, including a researcher from The University of Western Australia, has found that soil erosion, land degradation and climate change pose a mounting threat to coastal reefs and their ecosystems in the western Indian Ocean.
Many simple models of plant response to warming climates predict vegetation to find cooler and/or wetter locations, generally moving upslope from their current positions. However, the mechanisms explaining species-specific responses to changes in temperature and water availability are most likely much more complex, according to researchers at Texas Tech University and the United States Geological Survey.
In the years after Columbus' voyage, burning of New World forests and fields diminished significantly -- a phenomenon some have attributed to decimation of native populations by European diseases. But a new University of Utah-led study suggests global cooling resulted in fewer fires because both preceded Columbus in many regions worldwide.
The temperature in the inner urban areas of Hong Kong is predicted to rise by 2 to 3 Celsius degree in 30 years' time, according to the latest scientific study by researchers at the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
In the years after Columbus' voyage, burning of New World forests and fields diminished significantly – a phenomenon some have attributed to decimation of native populations by European diseases. But a new University of Utah-led study suggests global cooling resulted in fewer fires because both preceded Columbus in many regions worldwide.
The chronic drought that hit western North America from 2000 to 2004 left dying forests and depleted river basins in its wake and was the strongest in 800 years, scientists have concluded, but they say those conditions will become the "new normal" for most of the coming century.
While experts debate whether extreme weather conditions such as this summer’s record rainfall can be explained by climate change, University of Leicester geographers are investigating whether the opposite is true – does extreme weather impact on climate change?
For decades, scientists have known that the effects of global climate change could have a potentially devastating impact across the globe, but Harvard researchers say there is now evidence that it may also have a dramatic impact on public health.
For the first time, scientists have identified tropical and subtropical species of marine protozoa living in the Arctic Ocean.
The greatest climate change the world has seen in the last 100,000 years was the transition from the ice age to the warm interglacial period.
A whole-genome analysis suggests that polar bear numbers waxed and waned with climate change, and that the animals may have interbred with brown bears since becoming a distinct species millions of years ago.
Researchers have found a way to use GPS to measure short-term changes in the rate of ice loss on Greenland – and reveal a surprising link between the ice and the atmosphere above it.
According to NOAA scientists, the globally averaged temperature for June 2012 marked the fourth warmest June since record keeping began in 1880.
Scientists from the University of Toronto and the University of California Santa Cruz are shedding light on one potential cause of the cooling trend of the past 45 million years that has everything to do with the chemistry of the world's oceans.
Global warming also affects lakes. Based on the example of Lake Zurich, researchers from the University of Zurich demonstrate that there is insufficient water turnover in the lake during the winter and harmful Burgundy blood algae are increasingly thriving.
For the first time scientists at ETH Zurich have examined globally the connection between soil moisture and extreme heat with measured data. Their study shows that precipitation deficits increase the probability of hot days in many regions of the world. The results will help to better assess heat risks.
Citing recent wildfires in Colorado, Texas, Russia, Greece, and Chile and a report from climate scientists at the University of California, Berkeley and Texas Tech University, a top official at Lloyd’s said insurers face new challenges from wildfires in many parts of the world.
Worldwide, 2011 was the coolest year on record since 2008, yet temperatures remained above the 30 year average, according to the 2011 State of the Climate report released online today (July 10, 2012) by NOAA.