The effects of climate change encompass the biophysical and socio-environmental consequences arising from long-term shifts in climate variables driven primarily by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Key effects include increased global mean surface and ocean temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, sea-level rise via thermal expansion and cryosphere melt, and increased frequency and intensity of heatwaves, droughts, extreme precipitation events, and some categories of tropical cyclones. These changes cascade into impacts on hydrological regimes, ecosystem structure and function, species distributions, biogeochemical cycles, agricultural productivity, human health, and infrastructure, often interacting nonlinearly and amplifying existing environmental and socioeconomic vulnerabilities.
Windstorms are among the most important natural disturbances in Northern Europe, where they cause extensive tree mortality, timber losses and long-lasting changes in forest structure. Large-scale windstorm damage has increased ...
Ecology
Sep 2, 2026
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6
For three years before the Black Summer megafires of 2019–20, cool-season rainfall in southeastern Australia was only half the normal amount. When fires broke out, intensely dry conditions helped them spread through areas ...
Environment
Sep 2, 2026
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6
In a strategic retreat in the fight against climate change, the United Nations has acknowledged that Earth has lost its chance to prevent some of the worst of global warming's harms. So now the world must figure out how to ...
Environment
Sep 2, 2026
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23
Can we count on forests to continue absorbing the carbon dioxide that's warming our world? A new study from researchers at NAU and the University of New Hampshire says ... maybe not.
Environment
Sep 1, 2026
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6
The first thing that struck us wasn't the missing trees, but the missing water. In May 2026, we visited the Sundarbans, a mangrove forest in the delta where the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers meet in the Bay of Bengal.
Ecology
Sep 1, 2026
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123
On the morning of Aug. 26, a section of mountain near Langtang Lirung peak in Nepal suddenly collapsed.
Environment
Sep 1, 2026
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12
As one moves north, Maine's kelp forests are being overtaken by dense mats of carpet-like turf algae. The steady decline of kelp and transition into this new state are altering the ecosystem all the way down to the microbial ...
Ecology
Aug 31, 2026
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12
Tina Nyfors, who recently defended her doctoral thesis at the University of Helsinki, studied sufficiency, a way of living and a principle for organizing society to stay within environmental limits while ensuring that people ...
Environment
Aug 28, 2026
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29
Does the devastating flooding unleashed by the collapse of a section of a glacier in the Nepali Himalayas signal a new kind of risk in a world warmed by climate change? Here's what scientists told AFP.
Environment
Aug 28, 2026
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29
Reduced oxygen levels and air pressure at higher elevations may limit insects' ability to move upslope to escape a warming climate, with potential consequences for the essential services they provide, like pollination, according ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 28, 2026
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24
