hemisphere

For the ninth straight month, Earth has obliterated global heat records — with February, the winter as a whole and the world's oceans setting new high-temperature marks, according to the European Union climate agency Copernicus.The latest record-breaking in this climate change-fuelled global hot streak includes sea surface temperatures that weren't just the hottest for February, but eclipsed any month on record, soaring past August 2023's mark and still rising at the end of the month.And February, as well the previous two…

Astronomers have discovered a new Earth-sized exoplanet, HD 63433 d, in the HD 63433 planetary system, utilizing data from NASA’s TESS. This tidally locked planet is the youngest and closest Earth-sized exoplanet found, being less than 500 million years old. Orbiting very close to a Sun-like star, it experiences extreme temperatures, making it a unique subject for further study. Credit: SciTechDaily.comNew Earth-sized exoplanet HD 63433 d, discovered by astronomers using TESS, is exceptionally young and orbits closely…

A new NASA study has discovered a new exoplanet that is almost the size of Earth and orbits a star that's the same type as the Sun. Unfortunately, this promising candidate is also tidally locked and has one side so hot that it's one giant sea of lava.One of the exciting things about seeking out exoplanets is the possibility that one of these will turn out to be an Earth-like world circling a Sun-like star where life as we know it could exist. However, it turns out finding such a planet is a tad more complicated than it at…

U.S. and Norwegian researchers traversing the East Antarctic ice sheet to collect the ice cores used in the study. Credit: Stein Tronstad/NPI Human activity, from burning fossil fuels and fireplaces to the contaminated dust produced by mining, alters Earth's atmosphere in countless ways. Records of these impacts over time are preserved in everlasting polar ice that serves as a sort of time capsule, allowing scientists and…

Snowpack is shrinking across the Northern Hemisphere thanks to climate change, and many communities could soon face a “snow-loss cliff,” according to the most comprehensive assessment yet.  The effects of climate change can vary dramatically from place to place, which is why it’s been difficult to suss out the bigger picture with snowpack until recently. Now we can see that many of the hardest hit places also happen to be those that depend on snowpack for their water. Other communities that have seen relatively little…

This video was produced by Trevor Kjorlien as part of the CBC Creator Network. Learn more about the Creator Network here.During wintertime in Montreal, it's easy to think that we live in a northern part of the world. It's cold, it's snowy and it's dark at 4:30 p.m. But surprisingly, Montreal is at nearly the exact halfway point between the North Pole and the equator.How we measure the EarthIf you have a globe near you, take a closer look at it.At the equator, this is 0. And going further north of the equator, this number…

The southern hemisphere is facing a summer of extremes, say scientists, as climate change amplifies the effects of natural climate variability. This comes in the wake of a summer in the northern hemisphere that saw extreme heatwaves across Europe, China and North America, setting new records for both daytime and night-time temperatures in some areas.Andrew King, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne, Australia, says that there is “a high chance of seeing record-high temperatures, at least on a global average,…

US Senator Ron Wyden wants the public to know about the details surrounding the long-running Hemisphere phone surveillance program. Wyden has written US Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter (PDF), asking him to release additional information about the project that apparently gives law enforcement agencies access to trillions of domestic phone records. In addition, he said that federal, state, local and Tribal law enforcement agencies have the ability to request "often-warrantless searches" from the project's phone…

Credit: Shutterstock/Troy Wegman The level of microplastic pollution in New Zealand lakes is comparable with those in the US or Europe, despite much lower population densities, according to our global analysis of plastic pollution in freshwater lakes and reservoirs. Globally, our results show two types of lakes are particularly…

Ice floes in the Arctic. Credit: Mike Dunn, NOAA Climate Program Office, NABOS 2006 Expedition In the face of the ongoing climate crisis, scientists from many fields are directing their expertise at understanding how different climate systems have changed and will continue to do so as climate change progresses. Robert Lund, professor and department chair of statistics at the UC Santa Cruz Baskin School of Engineering,…