Across the world, people have felt the impacts of climate change firsthand. The Northern Hemisphere has had another record-breaking summer season of heat and extreme weather events. The Southern Hemisphere now faces a summer of heat waves, flooding, wildfires and droughts. This is driven by decades of climate change, now supercharged by an unprecedented El Niño—the warm phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, which is a cyclical warming and cooling of the Pacific Ocean driven by changing trade winds, with global impacts on the climate.
For years, residents of a flood-prone Philippine island north of Manila have elevated their homes atop layer upon layer of concrete, only to see floodwaters threaten them again.
Ocean fish stocks have been increasingly exploited over time, and remote sensing shows they have declined in the open ocean over the last three decades, particularly in the tropics. But it's uncertain how fish populations will fare in the future, as climate models show both increases and decreases in global trends by the end of this century.
Climate change is posing an increasing threat to the health and well-being of children and young people in Australia and New Zealand, with rising exposure to heat waves and widespread climate-related distress among young Australians, according to the annual MJA–Lancet Countdown Oceania report.
Viewed under a microscope, the air above the Amazon rainforest teems with activity. It is full of pollen, fungal spores, tiny plant particles and bacteria. Normally, the composition of this bioaerosol community is quite stable. A team that included researchers from the University of Graz, the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz and Brazilian partner institutions has now shown that microorganisms are transported across the Atlantic along with desert dust from the Sahara.
In a study published in Eco-Environment and Health, a team of 35 international experts led by Surrey's Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) reviewed several studies from across the world on the performance of indoor greenery.
A new study from the Institute for Food and Resource Economics at the University of Bonn shows that the success of nature conservation measures depends partly on the credible enforcement of environmental laws.
Experts in climate, nature, health, national security, and financial risk have joined forces to call for a more integrated approach to government climate and nature risk assessments. In a commentary published in Nature Climate Change, they warn that conflicting advice can give policymakers very different pictures of the severity of the risks ahead, making it harder to judge how seriously to act and how much to spend.
"Taking Action for Nature" was the theme of CoP 17, the UN Biodiversity Conference 2026, which is drawing to a close in Yerevan, Armenia. A new analysis of African national biodiversity strategies and action plans shows how academic and research institutions can respond to this theme and help translate scientific evidence into taking action for nature.
Researchers at University of Tsukuba have found that river responses to rainfall can reach rivers and appear as runoff much more rapidly than previously assumed in mountainous regions. Through continuous monitoring of precipitation and river water levels, they documented rapid rainfall-related responses not only in moderate-relief catchments but also in high-relief catchments with mountain slopes exceeding 500 m in length. The findings provide new insights into runoff generation and flood development in mountainous regions. The paper is published in the Journal of Hydrology.
Water demand in Africa grew by around 26% between 2010 and 2020, yet around 717 million people lacked a piped water supply in 2020, according to research published in Nature. The findings indicate that water scarcity in some parts of Africa may be due to a lack of infrastructure, rather than a lack of available water. The work provides a comprehensive map for water demand in different sectors, highlighting issues that need to be addressed to increase the availability of water in Africa, which forms part of Sustainable Development Goal 6.
Residents and firefighters in an Indonesian city long shrouded in a toxic haze brought on by months of wildfires rushed outside dancing and chanting as rain this week brought a welcome respite.
The orange tree emerges as one of the most heat-vulnerable trees, according to a University of Córdoba (UCO) study that analyzed 17 tree species found in Córdoba's urban environment.
Icelandic government officials recently met to discuss a dramatic scenario: what if the current that circulates Atlantic waters weakened significantly, or collapsed altogether?
For the first time, UC Riverside scientists have measured how much microplastic pollution falls on the Sierra Nevada during snowstorms and were surprised to find significant amounts even in the most remote locations.
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