A new study finds that coastal forest loss in North Carolina's Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula began accelerating after 2010 and may still be speeding up. The study also found that North Carolina lost more than 20% of its coastal forest between 1985 and 2021.
Forest soils store an estimated 40% of the world's terrestrial carbon, but estimates suggest that around 15–30% of that soil carbon is lost when a forest is harvested. Tracking such losses can be tricky: wildfires, insects, disease and past forest management can all affect forest soil carbon stores, and tree type…
When a prairie river carries more water in one year than another, the obvious place to look for an explanation is the sky. A year with more snow and rain should have more water in rivers. That was also how I initially thought about year-to-year changes in river flow. But while studying the Prairie Pothole Region, I…
Water does not flow only through rivers on the ground. Vast quantities of water also move through the atmosphere, carried by winds from oceans and land before eventually falling as precipitation hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away. These persistent pathways of atmospheric moisture are often referred to as…
Across the Caribbean, people have installed roughly twice as many solar panels as official statistics would suggest. That is the finding of a new report, which calls on countries to make it easier for new solar installations to connect to the grid. Read more on E360 →
A region of Antarctica with some of the greatest potential to reshape the natural world and human society is also the least scientifically understood and explored.
As Ted Schuur stepped along the edges of Smith Lake, a bubble surfaced from the muck underfoot. And then another. They're bubbles of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas made from decomposing plants and animals that had once been stuck in Alaska's frigid permafrost. But that frozen ground is thawing because the Arctic…
Working from before dawn until midnight, farmers Nikoletta Pajsan Nagy and Laszlo Pajsan fought Europe's driest summer ever to save their red pepper harvest in Hungary.
A new light-activated material can efficiently produce hydrogen from water without requiring an additional expensive metal catalyst. Researchers say its unusual sulfur-based chemistry could point toward cheaper and more practical ways to turn sunlight into clean fuel.
The picturesque Lac des Brenets between France and Switzerland has dried up after a record-breaking hot summer, leaving locals crying out for help to save the lake.
The Pacific Ocean is warming unusually quickly, and this year's El Niño has already surpassed previous records. Forecasters expect it to strengthen even further before approaching its usual peak around December.