According to National Geographic, the coldest place on Earth is the East Antarctic Ice Sheet with temperatures as low as minus 144 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature reading was taken during the polar winter and is the lowest temperature ever recorded on the Earth. Russia’s Vostok Weather Station previously held the record for the lowest recorded temperature. However, that record has […]
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Scientists in the US who have been checking on the health of the Arctic over the last year are worried by what they’ve learned: it’s warmer, has less ice, and some of its animals and fish are facing new stresses. And in a surprise finding , which they cannot yet explain, the scientists discovered that green vegetation over much of […]
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European researchers have once again warned that the thinning of the Antarctic ice shelf means that the flow of glaciers on the frozen continent could accelerate, with a consequent rise in sea levels. They examine, in two separate studies, the increasingly precarious state of some of the ice shelf. When the shelf, consisting of ice floating on the ocean, melts, […]
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The drylands of the world are getting greener, and researchers think it is thanks to higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In a paradoxical discovery, even as landscapes become increasingly at risk of desertification, they may also look more luxuriant. Two scientists from Purdue University in Indiana, US, and a researcher in Saudi Arabia report in the journal […]
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Stanford scientists have found that chronically low levels of oxygen throughout the oceans hampered the recovery of life after the Permian-Triassic extinction, the most catastrophic die-off in our planet’s history. Also known as the “Great Dying,” global ecosystems collapsed as some 90 percent of species perished in this extinction event 250 million years ago. The new findings, published this week […]
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Although growing human numbers, climate change and other crises threaten the world‘s ability to feed itself, researchers believe that if we used water more sensibly that would go a long way towards closing the global food gap. Politicians and experts have simply underestimated what better water use can do to save millions of people from starvation, they say. For the […]
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Before the Flood, directed by Fisher Stevens, is a documentary that captures a three year personal journey of the Academy Award-winning actor and U.N. Messenger of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio. What was Leonardo Dicaprio’s Mission in Before the Flood? His mission was to explore the level of destruction climate change has caused around the world, and to sensitise the world’s nations […]
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Scientists have found telltale evidence that an asteroid twice as large as any previously known smashed into Earth about 300 million years ago. Previously, the largest asteroid impact was believed to have occurred 66 million years ago, when a massive space rock hit what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, causing such havoc that it led to the extinction […]
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The ozone layer over the Arctic Circle developed a giant hole this winter, scientists say. Over the North Pole, 40 percent of the ozone layer has disappeared—a record seasonal loss. Ozone high in the atmosphere shields the Earth from harmful UV rays, and it fluctuates seasonally; usually about 25 percent of the Arctic’s ozone layer fades every winter. In the […]
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The world’s leading economies are heading in the right direction on tackling climate change, but some still have a long way to go to make their undertakings politically credible, according to a UK research center. With the Paris Agreement barely two months old, the world now moves from talk to action − or at least that’s the theory. The Agreement […]
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