A team of Russian and Norwegian scientists just made a grim, timely discovery. Just one week after a nuclear-powered Russian submarine caught fire, killing 14 sailors, researchers sent a remote submarine to collect samples around the sunken wreckage of another nuclear sub, which caught fire in 1989 leading to the deaths of 42 crew members.

Congratulations Mauna Loa, on the island of Hawaii: you are once more the biggest shield volcano on the planet, without even having done anything. New research suggests the previous record holder, Tamu Massif in the northwest Pacific Ocean, should be disqualified on a technicality. It all comes down to what you count as a single shield

The world is about to undergo a drastic transformation that will see cities around the globe inherit the disparate climates of places hundreds of miles away, new research shows. By 2050, scientists say over three-quarters of the world’s cities will have had their climate systems rearranged as part of this rapid metamorphosis. Most concerning of

In western Antarctica, a glacier the size of Florida is losing ice faster than ever before. Sections of the Thwaites Glacier are retreating by up to 2,625 feet (800 metres) per year, contributing to 4 percent of sea-level rise worldwide. That ice loss is part of a broader trend: The entire Antarctic ice sheet is melting

Nothing lasts forever. While we may think of the ground beneath our feet as part of an enduring landscape, the short-lived existence of a temporary island off the coast of Pakistan tells a much different story. Zalzala Koh, aka ‘Earthquake Mountain’, was birthed in 2013 during a powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake that killed over 800

Cloud watchers have recently been given record-breaking glimpses of the rarest clouds in the skies. Stunning rippled blue clouds have been forming in the highest reaches of the atmosphere over Europe and the USA. These clouds are normally only seen around the poles, but this summer is set to be the best observing season in

Scientists have measured what they say is the largest seaweed bloom on record, stretching 8,850 kilometres (nearly 5,500 miles) across the Atlantic Ocean and made up of some 20 million metric tons of Sargassum algae – more than the weight of 200 fully loaded aircraft carriers. The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, as it’s being called,

Before fireworks streaked across the skies of southern California on July 4, nature unleashed its own thunderous blast of energy: an earthquake. The magnitude 6.4 temblor struck near Ridgecrest around 10:34 a.m. PT, cracking roads, bursting water mains, and toppling electrical power lines with its might. A larger, 7.1 magnitude has since struck Southern California. Before that,

As human influence extends into the world’s ecosystems, some species are hit increasingly hard – and the latest symbol for this problem is an unsuspecting black skimmer parent, mistakenly trying to feed its baby trash. “These birds feed by skimming along the water with their beaks open,” the photographer, Karen Mason, explained on Facebook where she

If we all get planting, roughly 4.4 billion hectares of our planet’s surface could be shaded by trees – enough to pull decades of carbon we’ve pumped into the atmosphere. As we reported earlier this year, ETH Zurich researcher Thomas Crowther and his colleagues have made it their mission to determine how we might press

All-time heat records are at risk in Alaska in coming days as a massive and abnormally intense area of high pressure locks in and strengthens over the region. This heat dome is expected to produce temperatures near and above the highest values ever recorded for multiple days, particularly in southern parts of the state. It’s

Europe’s record-breaking heat wave last week, it turns out, was the emphatic conclusion to the hottest June ever recorded. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), a satellite agency that keeps tabs on Europe’s weather for the European Union, reported that the global average temperature for June was the highest on record for that month. Average

In the extreme cold and dark of an Antarctic winter, a remote research base seemingly cut off from the world is still running as normal – even though scientists were forced to evacuate it months ago. The Halley VI Research Station, located on Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf, is designed for year-round habitation by scientists, but

The world’s existing power plants, industrial plants, buildings and cars are already numerous enough – and young enough – to commit the Earth to an unacceptable level of warming, according to new research published Monday. This fossil fuel infrastructure merely needs to continue operating over the course of its expected lifetime, and the world will emit over

A freak hailstorm blanketed large parts of Guadalajara on Sunday, coating the southwestern Mexican city’s roads with up to 5 feet (1.5 metres) of ice. The city had been experiencing temperatures of about 31 degrees Celsius (88 degrees Fahrenheit) in the days before the unexpected storm. Dozens of vehicles were swept away, and cars and

Etched across the sky, long white lines reveal the high-altitude paths airplanes take to their destinations. But that’s not all these vapour trails signify. Most of the concern about air travel’s environmental impact focuses on aviation’s gigantic carbon footprint, but new research serves as an alarming reminder of how harmful airplane contrails themselves are. Not

Subglacial lakes are some of the least explored and most important natural features on Earth. We have also vastly underestimated their prevalence and impact. Now, more than 400 of these lakes have been found beneath the Antarctic continent. Yet as recently as the 1950s, scientists thought this ice sheet contained no liquid water whatsoever. Now,

In the salt water marshes of southern California, a splashing killifish is easy prey for a hungry shorebird. Like a jerking marionette, the helpless creature shimmies and flashes on the surface of the water. And all the while, hiding deep in its brain, an invisible other quietly pulls the strings. The puppeteer in question is

Northern Spain is facing its largest forest fires in two decades as the heat wave scorching much of Europe continues to intensify. The fires have swept across Spanish province of Tarragona, near Barcelona, with officials warning that it could eventually engulf as much as 20,000 hectares (200 square kilometers) of land. “We’re facing a serious

This April, renewables were put to the test like never before. For the first time in United States history, clean energy sources shouldered more of the nation’s electricity needs than coal. A monthly report from the Energy Information Administration shows that renewables such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric dams provided 23 percent of the month’s