Climate Change

It's real. It's happening. It's accelerating. And it's our fault. Human activity — particularly the production of greenhouse gasses from fossil fuel emissions — is reshaping our planet, effecting rapid environmental change at a rate never seen before. Global temperature averages are creeping upward, seas are warming, rising and becoming more acidic, and extreme weather events such as droughts, wildfires, floods and powerful storms are more commonplace. Here's where you'll find the latest on the effects of climate change, and the measures that scientists, world leaders and innovators are taking to reduce our harmful impact on the planet and mitigate the damage already done.

Related Topics: Extinction, Global Warming, Deforestation, Heat Wave, Hurricanes

Latest Updates

Klinaklini Glacier is the largest glacier of Western Canada

Study of nearly every glacier on Earth shows ice loss is speeding up

By Nicoletta Lanese

A new study assessed more than 200,000 glaciers around the world.

Earth's wobble

Climate change has been altering Earth's axis for at least 30 years

By Stephanie Pappas

Glacial melt caused by climate change is redistributing weight on the planet, leading to a shift in Earth's poles as far back as the 1990s.

A 'pizzly' bear in captivity.

'Pizzly' bear hybrids are spreading across the Arctic thanks to climate change

By Ben Turner

The hybrids may have an advantage over polar bears because their jaws enable them to eat a more diverse range of foods.

Cracked surface of Larsen b ice shelf

A third of Antarctic ice shelves could collapse at current pace of warming

By Rafi Letzter

A third of Antarctica's vast offshore ice shelves would risk collapse into the ocean if the world warms by 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

a loggerhead sea turtle swimming forward toward front-of-frame through bright blue water

Turtles complete seemingly impossible journey thanks to a hidden 'corridor' through the Pacific

By Nicoletta Lanese

Loggerhead turtles survive the journey using temporary "thermal corridors."

Ghost forests (gray patches of dead trees) are becoming so prevalent in North Carolina they are visible from space.

'Ghost forests' are invading the North Carolina coast

By Brandon Specktor

Thousands of acres of greenery in North Carolina were converted to 'ghost forests' in the last three decades, and the trend is expected to continue with climate change.

Greenland's ice sheet may have disappeared far more recently than once thought, enabling plants and trees to thrive.

Top-secret Cold War military project found perfectly preserved fossil plants under Greenland ice

By Mindy Weisberger

Plant fossils that may be a million years old hint that Greenland's icy shell melted away more recently than expected — and could melt again.

A man watches California wildfire smoke blot the sky in September 2020.

6 months of summer could be the norm by 2100, study finds

By Brandon Specktor

If humans don't curb climate change, the average summer could last 6 months long by the year 2100, a new study finds.

Image on the left shows nighttime light emissions data from Houston on Feb. 7, image on right shows blackout on Feb. 16

Disastrous Houston blackouts captured from space

By Nicoletta Lanese

More than one million people lost power in the Houston area.

An abandoned boat sits in the water amid dead cypress trees in coastal waters and marsh August 26, 2019 in Venice, Louisiana, in a region already impacted by sea level rise.

Seas will likely rise even faster than worst-case scenarios predicted by climate models

By Rafi Letzter

Sea levels will probably rise faster than the most mainstream climate models predict, according to a new study.

The Greenland ice sheet is a vast body of ice covering 660,000 square miles (1,710,000 square kilometres), roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland.

Greenland is careening toward a critical tipping point for ice loss

By Mindy Weisberger

The Greenland Ice Sheet is one of the largest ice sheets in the world. But it might not be for much longer, if Earth continues to warm.

This color-coded map displays a progression of changing global surface temperature anomalies. Higher than normal temperatures are shown in red and lower than normal temperatures are shown in blue. Scale is in degrees Celsius.

Broiling 2020 was the hottest year ever, NASA climate scientists say

By Mindy Weisberger

Researchers with NASA and NOAA released their annual assessments of global temperatures and climate trends, finding 2020 to be one of the hottest years in 140 years of record-keeping.

Charred trees are seen along Pallet Creek Road during the Bobcat Fire in Valyermo, California, September 18, 2020.

The planet is dying faster than we thought

By Brandon Specktor

A triple-threat of climate change, biodiversity loss and overpopulation is bearing down on Earth, a new paper from 17 scientists warns.

Factory emitting gas

We've already blown past the warming targets set by the Paris climate agreement, study finds

By Rafi Letzter

A new study shows that due to pollution already released, Earth will eventually blow past Paris goals. But that doesn't mean all is lost.

A field of solar panels next to a wind turbine at sunset.

What is renewable energy?

By Sarah Wild

Sustainable sources of energy are renewable and are generally less harmful to the environment than fossil fuels.

Striking images show multiple wildfires burning along the US WestCoast

10 steamy signs in 2020 that climate change is speeding up

By Tia Ghose

From record wildfires to a bumper crop of hurricanes to melting poles, here are some of the biggest signs in 2020 that climate change is speeding up.

The coastline of the Bykovsky Peninsula in the central Laptev Sea, Siberia

'Zombie' greenhouse gas lurks in permafrost beneath the Arctic Ocean

By Nicoletta Lanese

Experts say we need to improve our patchy knowledge of subsea permafrost.

a view of the Otzal Alps glaciers.

Ötzi the Iceman may have scaled ice-free Alps

By Stephanie Pappas

Many Alpine summits may have been ice-free before about 5,900 years ago.

In this digital reconstruction, methane can be seen rising as flares from the sea floor.

Huge methane cache beneath Arctic could be unlocked by the moon

By Patrick Pester

The moon's tides affect how much methane is released from seafloor sediments and the implications are huge.

snow falling in midtown, New York City, in 2014

Nor'easter could drop a foot of snow on New England

By Nicoletta Lanese

The storm follows last year's mild winter with below-average snowfall.