By Mariana Mastache-Maldonado , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Fragments of blue ice up to 6 million years old—the oldest ever found—offer key insights into Earth’s warming cycles. Researchers are using these ancient data to refine models of our future climate. ...In Antarctica...rare formations known as blue ice areas may offer a distinct look into that deep past. These areas, which make up barely 1% of the continent, form where strong winds strip away surface snow. ...The Allan Hills region, situated on the edge of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.... Here researchers have discovered ice up to 6 million years old—the oldest yet found. Their  study  of the ice, published in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , revealed that parts of it formed during periods far warmer than today—times when sea levels were higher and open forests and grasslands covered much of the planet. ...studying the atmospheric remnants trapped in blue ice, the rese...

By Paul Voosen , Science.  Excerpt: It seems an easy climate solution, almost too good to be true. Greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes are stubbornly difficult to reduce—batteries cannot power a jumbo jet. But in the past few years, scientists and industry have seized on a way to trim airplanes’ climate footprint by limiting the clouds they leave behind. Jet contrails, when they turn into long-lived clouds, trap significant amounts of heat that would otherwise escape Earth—three times more than the carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emitted by the engines, some studies have suggested. In theory, tweaking flight routes to avoid creating these clouds could slash aviation’s toll on the climate....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/airplane-contrails-may-not-be-climate-villain-once-feared .

By Paul Voosen , Science.  Excerpt: Global greenhouse emissions will soon flatten or decline—a historic moment driven by China’s surge in renewable energy. In July, a team of scientists assembled...to study an anomalous wobble in a data curve. ...it was a surprising decline in a quantity that has grown relentlessly throughout the Industrial Age: the amount of planet-warming greenhouse gases dumped by humanity into the atmosphere each year. The researchers were members of Climate TRACE, a collaboration of academics, environmental think tanks, and companies that tracks how much coal, oil, and natural gas the world is burning—and where—using a mix of energy statistics, satellite observations, and artificial intelligence (AI). As the group began to push out monthly estimates for January, February, and March, it was unmistakable that levels were lower than at the same time last year. ...overall emissions have crept up by some 1% each year. Although Europe and the United States reached p...

By Claire Brown and Mira Rojanasakul, The New York Times.  Excerpt: New research shared with The New York Times estimates the extent to which rising home insurance premiums, driven higher by climate change, are cascading into the broader real estate market and eating into home values in the most disaster-prone areas....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/19/climate/home-insurance-costs-real-estate-market.html . 

By J. Besl , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: CalHeatScore creates heat wave warnings for every zip code in California, using temperature data, socioeconomic indicators, and the history of emergency room visits, to predict heat-related health risk....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/new-tool-maps-the-overlap-of-heat-and-health-in-california . 

By Cara Buckley , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Iowa City eliminated bus fares in August 2023 with a goal of lowering emissions from cars and encouraging people to take public transit. The two-year pilot program proved so popular that the City Council voted this summer to extend it another year, paying for it with a 1 percent increase in utility taxes and by doubling most public parking rates to $2 from $1. Ridership has surpassed prepandemic levels by 18 percent. Bus drivers say they’re navigating less congested streets. People drove 1.8 million fewer miles on city streets, according to government calculations, and emissions dropped by 24,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. That’s the equivalent of taking 5,200 vehicles off the roads....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/climate/iowa-city-free-buses.html .