global warming

A privately funded satellite is set to push methane tracking into a new era, once it launches into space on Monday.A collaborative mission between Environmental Defense Fund, Google, the Government of New Zealand and several other partners, MethaneSAT will track methane emissions around the globe in attempts to identify and quantify sources spewing the climate-heating greenhouse gas. For 20 years after its release into the atmosphere, methane gas is 80 times more harmful than carbon dioxide in its ability to increase…

Subarctic grassland undergoing natural geothermal warming in Iceland. Credit: Christina KaiserNew findings enable more accurate prediction of the carbon cycle.Warmer soils harbor a greater diversity of active microbes, according to a new study from researchers at the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CeMESS) at the University of Vienna. The study, published in Science Advances, represents a significant shift in our understanding of how microbial activity in the soil influences the global carbon…

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Water vapour — water in its gas form — is a natural greenhouse gas that traps heat, just like carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and gas. So, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA figure if they can just inject ice high up in the air, water vapour in the upper atmosphere would get a bit drier and that could counteract a small amount of the human-caused warmth. It's just the spark of an initial idea, said the lead author of a study in…

Oxygen is crucial for life on Earth, but the ocean’s ability to absorb it is diminishing due to global warming, affecting marine ecosystems and human activities. Research involving chemical and morphological analyses of microscopic fossils found in marine sediments has shown that during past climate change events, like the PETM, the tropical ocean’s oxygen levels increased, which may have mitigated mass extinctions in upper ocean layers, contrary to expectations of widespread oxygen depletion. Credit:…

A study by the University of Lausanne and partners predicts a 34% loss in the European Alps’ ice volume by 2050 if global warming stops now, and up to 65% loss if current trends continue, using advanced AI models for more immediate projections. The Aletsch glacier in 2009, in Switzerland. Credit: UNIL – Guillaume JouvetEven if global warming were to stop entirely, the ice volume in the European Alps is projected to decrease by 34% by 2050. Should the pattern observed in the past two decades persist, the ice loss could…

NASA’s forthcoming PREFIRE mission will deploy two CubeSats to study heat loss from Earth’s polar regions, utilizing Mars-tested technology to enhance climate model accuracy. Credit: NASALaunching in spring 2024, the two small satellites of the agency’s PREFIRE mission will fill in missing data from Earth’s polar regions.Two new miniature NASA satellites will start crisscrossing Earth’s atmosphere in a few months, detecting heat lost to space. Their observations from the planet’s most bone-chilling regions will help…

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This weekly newsletter is part of a CBC News initiative entitled "Our Changing Planet" to show and explain the effects of climate change. Keep up with the latest news on our Climate and Environment page.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox every Thursday.This week: From fashion to burials: How fungi can help fight climate change 2024 has barely started and is already threatening to set temperature records World's globetrotting animals at risk due to habitat…

While carbon dioxide gets the lion's share of attention when it comes to , there are other factors at play. Methane is responsible for about 30 percent of the rise in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, according to the International Energy Agency. About 40 percent of from human activity stem from the energy sector. Identifying and mitigating these emissions is said to be one of the most critical actions we can take in the short term to combat climate change.To that end, and the Environmental Defense…

From above Sydgletscher looking to Bowdoin Fjord, at Qaanaaq, north-west Greenland. Credit: Mark Smith Greenland’s ice and glacier cover has diminished by 11,000 square miles in three decades due to warming temperatures, leading to significant environmental changes. This transformation has increased vegetation, altered landscapes, and exacerbated climate change effects, highlighting the critical need for climate action.An estimated 11,000 sq miles or 28,707 sq kilometers of Greenland’s ice sheet and glaciers have melted…