People living in regions with lower scores on the Human Development Index face a substantially higher risk from climate-related disasters, even when these are not unusually severe. This is the key finding of a new study led by researchers at Leipzig University. The study analyzed more than 7,000 climate-related disasters worldwide between 1990 and 2020 and combined these data with subnational indicators of human development. The work is published in the journal Nature Communications.
Half of all Americans live in the suburbs. For decades, planners and policymakers have blamed suburban sprawl's environmental and social costs on one thing: distance. The farther people live from city centers, the more they drive, the more carbon they emit and the more disconnected they become from one another. However, new research by Arianna Salazar-Miranda, assistant professor of urban planning and data science at the Yale School of the Environment, suggests that the design of suburban neighborhoods deserves far more blame than it has received.
According to a Concordia-led study, Canada's national parks may still be struggling to protect landscapes from fragmentation as effectively as intended. The paper is published in the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.
Arsenio Butil Jr. fell to his knees and began to pray when last week's deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake began shaking his home on the coast of the southern Philippines.
In 2011, Japan reeled from the effects of a devastating magnitude 9.0 earthquake. But unnoticed in the chaos resulting from the quake, its major aftershocks and the tsunami it caused, something strange happened. About 16 minutes after the earthquake, but before the aftershocks hit, Japan's GPS stations registered an eastward lurch—across the entire country—but unconnected to any specific quake or aftershock.
Can tiny aerosol particles make tropical convective clouds grow stronger? For decades, scientists have debated this question because aerosols can change how cloud droplets form, grow and release latent heat. One proposed pathway, known as condensational aerosol convective invigoration, requires clouds to contain high water-vapor supersaturation. Under such conditions, adding aerosol particles can create many new droplets, enhance condensation, release additional latent heat and potentially strengthen convective updrafts.
Danish companies emit less CO₂ when they relocate certain tasks abroad. At the same time, emissions rise correspondingly in those countries. However, global emissions increase when companies are under pressure from cheap imports from China. This is shown by new research from the University of Copenhagen.
Much of Western Europe was sweltering in a grueling heat wave on Friday, with the mercury expected to continue rising in the coming days, likely shattering yet more temperature records.
Like humans, wildlife is increasingly vulnerable as climate change fuels longer and more intense heat waves, disrupting feeding and breeding and, in extreme cases, proving fatal.
The Australian government has agreed to invest almost $53 million in a north Tasmanian company that will upgrade its coal-fired kiln to burn wood "waste" and used tires for cement manufacturing.
More than half of France's population was dealing with scorching temperatures on Friday, according to AFP's calculations, with hundreds of schools adapting their timetables to keep students out of broiling classrooms.
One of the most powerful environmental cleaning technologies in recent years is too small to see with the naked eye. Nanobubbles—tiny gaseous bubbles with diameters of around 100 nanometers—can clean up a range of harmful pollutants in water, from oil spills to algae.
Land acknowledgments, or statements in which planners, residents or organizations recognize that the land they exist and operate on originally belonged to Indigenous nations, have become increasingly common in recent years. New research from the University of Kansas has found that the landback movement, in which land is returned to its original occupants, has grown rapidly across the country as well.
Scientists predict that the next three to five decades provide a critical window to anticipate and plan for Antarctic ice loss and its contribution to sea level rise. Research published in Nature, led by Monash University researcher Dr. Felicity McCormack from Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future (SAEF), looks at the predictability of Antarctic ice loss and what this means for sea level rise projections.
On May 8, 2026, satellites detected signs of an unexpected submarine volcanic eruption in the Bismarck Sea near the islands of Papua New Guinea. Over the next several weeks, plumes of steam and ash streamed over the sea, and areas of discolored water surrounded the eruption site. Relatively little is known about the ocean floor in this area or the volcanic feature that is presently erupting. But experts think the new activity, ongoing as of mid-June, might be occurring along the Titan Ridge and has the potential to form an ephemeral new island.
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