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The Coolest Library on Earth
In a narrow aisle of shelves packed with cardboard boxes, Jørgen Peder Steffensen grins like a mischievous child unwrapping a holiday present as he pulls out a plastic-wrapped hunk of ice from a box...
View ArticleThe Atlantification of the Arctic Ocean Is Underway
In the Fram Strait off Greenland’s east coast,* Véronique Merten encountered the foot soldiers of an invasion. Merten was studying the region’s biodiversity using environmental DNA, a method that...
View ArticleForecasted El Niño Could Cost $3-Trillion in Losses Globally
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Forecasters are predicting the formation of an El Niño later this summer, a natural...
View ArticleCoastal Flooding Will Be More Extensive Sooner than Scientists Thought
Around the world, communities are bracing for sea level rise: the Netherlands is stabilizing its dikes, Senegal is relocating neighborhoods, Indonesia is moving its entire capital city. These projects...
View ArticleIt’s Deadline Day for Deep-Sea Mining
Two years ago, the Republic of Nauru, a small island nation in the South Pacific, put the world on course for the beginning of a new industry: deep-sea mining in international waters. Nauru triggered a...
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A River Runs Above Us
In mid-November 2021, a great storm begins brewing in the central Pacific Ocean north of Hawai‘i. Especially warm water, heated by the sun, steams off the sea surface and funnels into the sky. A...
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When Deep-Sea Miners Come A-Courting
The Cook Islands’ main harbor is a small indentation in the island of Rarotonga, which is the most developed of the nation’s 15 islands, yet still the kind of place where you give directions in mango...
View ArticleReturning to a Climate-Changed Home
Life was supposed to get easier. Displaced from their villages by 30 years of war, the people of Bissine and Singhere, in southern Senegal, were finally allowed to go home. The two neighboring villages...
View ArticleSand Dunes vs. Super Storms
Two weeks after Hurricane Fiona made landfall in Atlantic Canada on September 24, 2022, Jeff Ollerhead found himself staring at an upended boardwalk in Prince Edward Island National Park. Damaged by...
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In Graphic Detail: The Harrowing Heat Hump
If you took a walk in Phoenix, Arizona, in late July 2023 and tripped—perhaps over a buckling concrete sidewalk—the tumble could have landed you in the hospital at the local burn unit. Pavement...
View ArticleIron Fertilization Isn’t Going to Save Us
Last year, global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels reached an all-time high. As the world heats up, many influential bodies—such as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate...
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The Secrets of the Sea Hidden High in the Andes
Villa de Leyva is a small scenic town in Colombia’s eastern branch of the Andes Mountains. In this town, home to over 24,000 people, most of the houses are painted white, with green wooden frames and...
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In Graphic Detail: Deep-Sea Mining in the United States
No longer the stuff of science fiction, the deep-sea mining industry is speeding up efforts to mine precious minerals in international waters. But some countries are looking to do so within their...
View ArticleThere’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea? Actually, There Are Thousands
In the North Sea, nearly 100 meters underwater, the seafloor is littered with more than 40,000 shallow pits in the sand. The pockmarks, sometimes spanning more than 10 meters, come in a variety of...
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Scientists Are Sweating Over Freakishly High Marine Heat
This story was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Record temperatures in 2024 on land and at sea have prompted scientists to...
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Saving a Sea Monkey Sanctuary
Someone approaching the shores of Utah’s bleached-out and odiferous Great Salt Lake for the first time might be inclined to call it dead. This is not the case. Only half of it is at death’s door. The...
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The Waning Reign of the Wetland Architect We Barely Know (Hint: Not a Beaver)
When I was a teenager, my parents bought a home near an old farm pond in Bangor, Maine. A family of muskrats lived there and would go about their business as I lazed on the dock; I didn’t pay them...
View ArticleSailing in Alaska? Watch Out for Tsunamis
In 2015, 76 million cubic meters of rock crashed from the rugged cliffs above a southeastern Alaska fjord and into the water below. The landslide sparked a nearly 200-meter-tall wave that roared down...
View ArticleThe Audacious Scheme to Reroute India’s Water
In India, severe water shortages in one part of the country often coincide with acute flooding in another. When these dual tragedies occur, Indians are often left wishing for a way to balance out the...
View ArticleBirthing the Blob
In 2013, a huge marine heatwave known as the Blob hit the northeast Pacific Ocean. Temperatures soared to dangerous new highs, killing millions of marine animals and disrupting the broader ocean...
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