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University of Washington researchers have discovered a problem with a climate record that is often cited by climate change skeptics.

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Changes in the speed that ice travels in more than 200 outlet glaciers indicates that Greenland's contribution to rising sea level in the 21st century might be significantly less than the upper limits some scientists thought possible, a new study shows.

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If you’ve noticed that spring seems to be arriving earlier, forcing blooms to burst and leaves to unfurl sooner than expected, scientists may have found one of the reasons. An international research team that includes Steven Travers, assistant professor of biological sciences at North Dakota State University, Fargo, N.D., USA, has shown that experiments underpredict how plants respond to climate change. The research, which included 22 institutions in the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, is being published in an advance online issue of the journal Nature. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11014

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Big trees three or more feet in diameter accounted for nearly half the biomass measured at a Yosemite National Park site, yet represented only one percent of the trees growing there, according to the largest quantitative study yet of the importance of big trees in temperate forests.

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Experiments may dramatically underestimate how plants will respond to climate change in the future. That’s the conclusion of an analysis of 50 plant studies on four continents, published this week in an advance online issue of the journal Nature, which found that shifts in the timing of flowering and leafing in plants due to global warming appear to be much greater than estimated by warming experiments.

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Loss of biodiversity appears to impact ecosystems as much as climate change, pollution and other major forms of environmental stress, according to a new study from an international research team.

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Jessica Rennells, a climatologist and extension support specialist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University, comments on data released today by the center that shows several cities in the region endured a rare weather juxtaposition – an April that was colder than March.

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The world can significantly slow the pace of climate change with practical efforts to control so-called “short-lived climate pollutants” and by bringing successful Western technologies to the developing world, according to three UC San Diego scientists in the journal Foreign Affairs.

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(Journalists-only luncheon) Consider the environment’s connection to human health, when Cornell professors Drew Harvell and Laura Harrington explain how their research has revealed the impact of climate change on our own health and well-being. In fact with the right conditions, New York City could face this summer a new, serious disease – chikungunya – which is carried by mosquitoes.

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A Kansas State University team is researching how climate change is affecting rainfall and weather patterns to help with future adaptation and mitigation strategies. The researchers are updating rainfall distribution data to ensure current stormwater management systems can handle future weather changes.

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Loblolly pines with improved genetics not only grow faster and produce more wood but also scrub more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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A study by the Woods Hole Research Center examined what needs to be done to achieve the IPCCs representative concentration pathways for nitrogen emissions. It found that meat consumption in the developed world would need to be cut by 50 percent per person by 2050, and emissions in all sectors – industrial and agricultural – would need to be reduced by 50 percent if we are to meet the most aggressive strategy set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to reduce the most potent of greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide (N2O).

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University of New Hampshire researchers have found that residents of Louisiana and Florida most acutely and directly affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster -- the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history -- said they have changed their views on other environmental issues as a result of the spill.

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While many enjoyed a mild winter and an early spring with record-breaking temperatures, the warm weather also prompted many bugs to show up earlier than usual. The question is, will bug populations be larger this summer?

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Global warming may initially make the grass greener, but not for long, according to new research conducted at Northern Arizona University. The study, published this week in Nature Climate Change, shows that plants may thrive in the early stages of a warming environment but begin to deteriorate quickly

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In a new study reported in Nature, climate scientist Rob DeConto and colleagues propose a new mechanism, changes in the Earth’s tilt and orbit, to explain the source of carbon that fed extreme warming events about 55 million years ago and a sequence of similar, smaller warming events afterward.

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The U.S. National Research Council has released a synthesis of reports from thousands of scientists in 60 countries who took part in the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-08, the first in over 50 years to offer a benchmark for environmental conditions and new discoveries in the polar regions.

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Compared to seasonal norms, March 2012 was the warmest month on record in the 48 contiguous U.S. states. Temperatures over the U.S. averaged 2.82 C (almost 5.1 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal in March.

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US Navy experience shows changes in climate, and should plan for a range of contingencies.

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Evidence from fossilized raindrop impressions from 2.7 billion years ago indicates that an abundance of greenhouse gases most likely caused the warm temperatures on ancient Earth.

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The Great Rift Valley of East Africa—the birthplace of the human species—may have taken much longer to develop than previously believed, according to a new study published this week in Nature Geoscience that was led by scientists from James Cook University and Ohio University.

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A new method to make better use of vast amounts of data related to global geography, population and climate may help determine the relative importance of population increases vs. climate change.

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UC Merced Professor Lara Kueppers is attempting to learn how tree species acclimated to cold weather will respond to the higher temperatures predicted by climate change experts

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Professor Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science is a co-editor of “Valuing the Ocean” a major new study by an international team of scientists and economists that attempts to measure the ocean’s monetary value and to tally the costs and savings associated with human decisions affecting ocean health.

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Three penguin species that share the Western Antarctic Peninsula for breeding grounds have been affected in different ways by the higher temperatures brought on by global warming, according to Stony Brook University Ecology and Evolution Assistant Professor Heather Lynch and colleagues.

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A rapid increase in shipping in the formerly ice-choked waterways of the Arctic poses a significant increase in risk to the region’s marine mammals and the local communities that rely on them for food security and cultural identity, according to an Alaska Native groups and the Wildlife Conservation Society who convened at a recent workshop.

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People in the US may be at higher risk for Chagas disease than previously understood. A new study finds that 38% of kissing bugs collected in Arizona and California contained human blood and that more than 50% of the bugs also carried the parasite that causes this life-threatening disease. This upends the view that US kissing bug species don’t regularly feed on people and suggests that Chagas could spread, driven north by climate change.

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Researchers from the University of New Hampshire have found that many African farmers inaccurately perceive changes in climate and rainfall when compared with scientific data, highlighting the need for better climate information to assist them to improve farming practices.

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During some winters a significant amount of snow falls on parts of California. During other winters — like this one (so far) — there is much less snow. But more than 130 years of snow data show that over time snowfall in California is neither increasing nor decreasing.

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A large band of cooler than normal air girdled the globe from South America across the Pacific and from South America northeast across North Africa, Europe and central Asia during February.

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Sharks are among the most threatened of marine species worldwide due to unsustainable overfishing. They are primarily killed for their fins to fuel the growing demand for shark fin soup, which is an Asia delicacy. A new study by University of Miami (UM) scientists in the journal Marine Drugs has discovered high concentrations of BMAA in shark fins, a neurotoxin linked to neurodegenerative diseases in humans including Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig Disease (ALS). The study suggests that consumption of shark fin soup and cartilage pills may pose a significant health risk for degenerative brain diseases.

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- As scientists continue developing climate change projection models, paleontologists studying an extreme short-term global warming event have discovered direct evidence about how mammals respond to rising temperatures.

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The mineralization process required to permanently trap excess CO2 underground is extremely slow. Bacteria, say researchers at the 56th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, might help speed things up.

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The findings inside a cave and a key cultural and religious center for the ancient Maya will be presented at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers in New York.

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To better predict the future, Jack Williams is looking to the past. “Environmental change is altering the composition and function of ecological communities,” says the Bryson Professor of Climate, People, and the Environment in the University of Wisconsin–Madison geography department. Williams also directs the Center for Climatic Research in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

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Climate warming caused by greenhouse gases is very likely to increase summer temperature variability around the world by the end of this century, new research shows. The findings have major implications for food production.

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Climate change spells trouble for many tropical birds – especially those living in mountains, coastal forests and relatively small areas – and the damage will be compounded by other threats like habitat loss, disease and competition among species.

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Scientists are working to solve a critical wintertime weather mystery: how to accurately measure the amount of snow on the ground.

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The University of Alabama in Huntsville scientists use data gathered by NOAA and NASA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth. This includes remote desert, ocean and rain forest areas where reliable climate data are not otherwise available.

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In a paper recently published in the journal BioScience, Richard B. Primack, professor of biology at Boston University, and Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, science coordinator at the Acadia National Park and the Schoodic Education and Research Center, National Park Service, show how unconventional sources of data, including historical documents, can be used to extend investigations of environmental change back to the 19th century.

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Americans’ knowledge of facts about the polar regions of the globe has increased since 2006, but this increase in knowledge has not translated into more concern about changing polar environments, according to new research from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.

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More than extreme weather events and the work of scientists, it is national political leaders who influence how much Americans worry about the threat of climate change, new research finds.

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Thirty-thousand-year-old bison bones discovered in permafrost at a Canadian goldmine are helping scientists unravel the mystery about how animals adapt to rapid environmental change.

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A new international study, with NCAR co-authors, suggests that the Little Ice Age was triggered by an unusual, 50-year episode of four massive volcanic eruptions. This led to an expansion of sea ice and a related weakening of Atlantic currents that caused the cool period to persist for centuries.

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The economic pain of a flattening oil supply will trump the environment as a reason to curb the use of fossil fuels, say two scientists, one from the University of Washington and one from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, in the Jan. 26 issue of the journal Nature.

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A new study comparing the carbon-holding power of freshwater wetlands has produced measurements suggesting that wetlands in temperate regions are more valuable as carbon sinks than current policies imply.

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New research demonstrates that one suggested method of geoengineering the atmosphere to deal with climate change, injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere, probably would have limited success.

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A large group of researchers gathered at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science to integrate and refine field measurements and computer models of carbon cycling in the waters along the U.S. East Coast.

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Geoscientists published the first evidence that warm-cold climate oscillations well known in the Northern Hemisphere over the most recent glacial period also appear as tropical rainfall variations in the Amazon Basin. It is the first clear expression of these cycles in the Southern Hemisphere.

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Plants and animals could be affected by unusually high temperatures and less-than-average snowfall.