By Nina Lakhani , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The  Trump administration  has withdrawn the US from a global agreement under which the developed nations most responsible for the climate crisis pledged to partly compensate developing countries for irreversible harms caused by global heating. The loss and damage fund was agreed at the  Cop28  UN climate summit in late 2023 – a hard-won victory after years of diplomatic and grassroots advocacy by developing nations that bear the brunt of the climate crisis despite having contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions. The fund signalled a commitment by developed, polluting countries to provide financial support for some of the irreversible economic and noneconomic losses from sea level rise, desertification, drought and floods already happening. The US ...had so far pledged only $17.5m (£13.5m) to the loss and damage fund, which became operational on 1 January this year. Now the US, the biggest historical emitter of ...

By Kapil Kajal , Interesting Engineering.  Excerpt: In a significant development for the U.S. solar industry, three manufacturers, Suniva, Heliene, and Corning, have unveiled plans to produce solar modules that will be exclusively available within the domestic market. This initiative marks a notable advancement in enhancing local manufacturing capabilities of renewable energy components. Corning is set to supply the necessary wafers and polysilicon for the modules, while Suniva will provide monocrystalline silicon solar cells. Heliene will handle the assembly of these components into finished modules. ...The wafers and polysilicon will be produced in Michigan, with the solar cells fabricated in Georgia. ...This development is particularly relevant in light of the Investment Tax Credit (ITC), a crucial element of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which aims to encourage increased domestic production of renewable energy components and materials. The ITC offers financial in...

By Ben Cooke | Yennah Smart , The Times.  Excerpt: The milestone highlights the rapid growth of renewable energy despite political headwinds since President Trump’s re-election. ...The two renewable energy sources accounted for 17 per cent of the country’s electricity mix while coal fell to an all-time low of 15 per cent. Solar was the fastest-growing energy source, increasing 27 per cent from the year before, while wind increased 7 per cent. Gas generation continued to grow, at three times the rate of coal’s decline. The use of coal has been declining since 2007 but as recently as 2017 it was generating more than twice as much electricity as wind and solar....  Full article at https://www.thetimes.com/article/fbd63edb-9573-425f-a5b5-535ed8096b22 .

By Anupama Chandrasekaran , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: When an intense marine heat wave sent ocean temperatures soaring in 2023 and 2024, coral reefs around the world bleached. New research on the Great Barrier Reef’s One Tree Island shows that more than 50% of surveyed coral colonies that bleached died of heat stress and starvation. And even heat-resistant corals weren’t immune. When corals are stressed by warm water, they can lose the algae that live in their tissues. This process turns the coral white, earning it the name “ coral bleaching .” Sometimes corals can recover, but if the stress is too intense, they die and eventually crumble into rubble and sand. “What we noticed in more recent times, when it gets really hot, they often die before they even fully bleach,” said marine biologist  Maria Byrne  at the University of Sydney....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/great-barrier-reef-corals-hit-hard-by-marine-heat-wave .

By Larissa G. Capella , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Jasmine Saros , a lake ecologist at the University of Maine, has been studying Arctic lakes in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, since 2013, ...in 2023, they returned to find many once-clear lakes had turned brown. ...Lake browning often results from high concentrations of dissolved organic carbon, primarily from decaying vegetation. It can also be caused by an increase in iron, typically resulting from natural processes such as weathering of iron-rich soils and rocks into the water, as well as anthropogenic influences such as agricultural runoff and industrial discharges. Data from the fifth-generation European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts atmospheric reanalysis ( ERA5 )...showed that nine atmospheric rivers had dumped precipitation over the area between September and October of 2022. Atmospheric rivers are known for transporting moisture, but they can also carry warm air. The ERA data also highlighted that September 2022 was the hot...

By Eric Beinhocker and J. Doyne Farmer , The Wallstreet Journal.  Excerpt: Since Donald Trump’s election, clean energy stocks have plummeted, major banks have pulled out of a U.N.-sponsored “net zero” climate alliance, and BP announced it is spinning off its offshore wind business to refocus on oil and gas. Markets and companies seem to be betting that Trump’s promises to stop or reverse the clean energy transition and “drill, baby, drill” will be successful. ...But this bet is wrong. The clean energy revolution is being driven by fundamental technological and economic forces that are too strong to stop. ...Our research shows that once new technologies become established their patterns in terms of cost are surprisingly predictable. ... Since 1990, the cost of wind power has dropped by about 4% a year, solar energy by 12% a year and lithium-ion batteries by about 12% a year....  Full article at https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/thecleanenergyrevolution-is-unst...

By Climate Central.  Excerpt: Climate Central analyzed 55 years of temperature data and found that meteorological spring (March - May) has warmed across the U.S. from 1970 to 2024.  The spring season has warmed in 234 (97%) of the 241 U.S. cities analyzed — by 2.4°F on average.  Unusually warm spring days now happen more often. Four out of every five cities now experience at least one more week of warmer-than-normal spring days than in the 1970s.  Spring has warmed the most across the southern tier of the country, particularly in the Southwest. Spring warming can prolong seasonal allergies, worsen wildfire risk, and limit snow-fed water supplies....  Full article at https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/2025-spring-package .

By Mohana Ravindranath, The New York Times.  Excerpt: Extreme heat  can be particularly dangerous  for older people, putting them at increased risk for heat stroke and death. But could it also affect how their DNA functions, and accelerate the aging process itself? A  new study,  published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, suggests it could. The analysis of over 3,600 older adults in the United States found that those living in neighborhoods prone to  extreme heat  — classified as 90 degrees or above — showed more accelerated aging at a molecular level compared with those in areas less prone to extreme heat. The findings suggest that heat waves and  rising temperatures  from climate change could be chemically modifying people’s DNA and speeding up their biological aging. The study authors estimated that a person living in an area that reached 90 degrees or above for 140 days or more in a year could age up to 14 months faster than som...

By Rebecca Owen , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: In classic literature, wetlands—ecosystems characterized by permanently or periodically water-saturated land—have too often been depicted as dangerous, gloomy, desolate places. “Look at Tolkien...Dickens or Austen,” said  Christian Dunn , an environmental scientist at Bangor University in Wales. “The wetlands are where the ne’er-do-wells and villains hang out.” In reality, though, wetlands are ...vibrant ecosystems, especially important in a changing climate. Wetlands are biodiversity hot spots and provide carbon sequestration. They also manage water—storing it quickly during heavy rain events and releasing it slowly during dry spells. “Wetlands are the superheroes of natural ecosystems when it comes to the power they have to help us combat the two biggest crises that we’re facing: climate breakdown and biodiversity loss,” said Dunn. In the past 100 years, Europe has  lost  80% of its wetlands, a diverse array of inland and coasta...

By Paul Voosen , Science.  Excerpt: The world’s nations convened this week in Hangzhou, China, to plan the next major international assessment of climate science—but without the United States. Late last week, President Donald Trump’s administration denied officials permission to travel to the meeting and cut off a technical support contract for the report, the seventh assessment of the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The decision,  first reported by Axios , is the first time the administration has targeted international climate science. The news caught climate scientists off guard. During the first Trump administration there was no interference with IPCC .... The U.S. has long been a leader of IPCC, which for decades has brought volunteer scientists together, unpaid, to produce influential reports every seven or so years. Katherine Calvin, NASA’s chief scientist, was set to co-lead IPCC’s third working group, focused on climate mitigatio...

By Andrew J. Hawkins .The Verge.  Excerpt: The General Services Administration  (GSA), which manages buildings owned by the federal government, is planning to shut down all of its electric vehicle chargers nationwide, describing them as “not mission critical.” The agency, which manages contracts for the government’s vehicle fleets, is also looking to offload newly purchased EVs. The GSA currently operates several hundred EV chargers across the country, with approximately 8,000 plugs that are available for government-owned EVs as well as federal employees’ personally owned vehicles. ...Under the Biden administration, the GSA was in charge of implementing the president’s plan to  phase out the federal government’s use of gas-powered vehicles in favor of EVs . The federal government owns approximately 650,000 vehicles, more than half of which were to be replaced with EVs. ...the GSA had ordered over 58,000 EVs and begun installing more than 25,000 charging ports, adding to t...

By Oliver Milman , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The  Trump administration  is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: “climate.” The US government is withdrawing grants and other support for research that even references the climate crisis, academics have said, amid Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg upon  environmental regulations  and  clean-energy development . Trump, who has said that the climate crisis is a “giant hoax”, has already stripped  mentions of climate change and global heating from government websites  and ordered a halt to programs that reference diversity, equity and inclusion. A widespread funding freeze for federally backed scientific work also has been imposed, throwing the US scientific community into chaos. ...Kaarle Hämeri, chancellor of the University of Helsinki in Finland, said the descriptions for Fulbright grants had been changed to remove or alte...

By UC Berkeley Public Health.  Excerpt: A new study led by a UC Berkeley School of Public Health Environmental Health Sciences postdoctoral scholar shows that mosquitoes may be more able to adapt to climate change and rising temperatures than previously thought. “The most common prediction of how global change will affect mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease is that populations will shift to higher altitudes and higher latitudes,” said lead author  Lisa Couper . “That is assuming mosquitoes won’t adapt to heat. But mosquitoes have all sorts of adaptive capabilities.” Mosquito-borne diseases collectively cause nearly one million deaths each year world-wide, including dengue, malaria, and West Nile virus, among others. ...The study raised mosquito larva in both normal and high temperatures, then sequenced the genome of more than 200 individual insects. The genetic analysis showed that mosquitoes raised in the high temperature setting had ...structural changes to their DNA–that ...

By Robert F. Service , Science.  Excerpt: Lithium-ion batteries are ubiquitous, not just in earbuds, phones, and cars, but also in massive facilities that store renewable energy for when the Sun doesn’t shine or the wind dies down. But lithium itself is relatively scarce and available from just a few countries. A world that runs on renewable energy would need 200 times more battery capacity than exists today—and that probably means a different kind of battery. ...A decades-old technology may be rising to the challenge: batteries that use sodium rather than lithium ions to carry and store charge. Sodium is everywhere, in seawater and salt mines, so supply and cost aren’t a problem. But the metal isn’t as good at storing charge as lithium because its ions are three times bigger, hampering their ability to slip in and out of existing battery electrodes. Labs worldwide are developing new electrode materials to address that shortcoming, ....  Full article at https://www.science.org...

By Sarah Crespi, Sandeep Ravindran, Martin Enserink, Science.  Excerpt: TinyML (the ML stands for machine learning) is a low-cost, low-power implementation of AI that is being increasingly adopted in resource-poor regions, especially in the Global South. In contrast to the large language models (LLMs) that have dominated the news with their versatility and uncanny knack for humanlike expression, tinyML devices currently have modest, specialized capabilities. Yet they can be transformative. Murugan’s tinyML-equipped drones, for example, have  been able to identify cashew leaves with the fungal disease  Anthracnose with 95% to 99% accuracy. They should save farmers time they would otherwise spend looking for signs of disease themselves. And their ability to target treatments to diseased plants removes the need to indiscriminately spray pesticides on all the plants, which is both expensive and damaging to health and the environment. ...once the AI model is trained ...

By Robert F. Service , Science.  Excerpt: If humanity wants to avoid a climate catastrophe, sucking up the carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) it has already spewed into the atmosphere may be its last hope. One approach is to use naturally abundant minerals as CO 2  sponges, but the process is slow. Now, a study  reported in Nature  suggests a way to accelerate it: by converting those minerals to compounds that bind CO 2  faster and are similar to others already widely used in farming. ...direct air capture (DAC)...requires building expensive CO 2  capture plants and consumes some 2 megawatt hours of energy for every ton of CO 2  wrung from the air. ...Another approach is  carbon mineralization : spreading vast amounts of crushed alkaline rocks—usually abundant magnesium silicates, such as olivine and serpentine—on soils worldwide. The pulverized rock binds CO 2 , permanently locking it away in mineral form. Nature already performs carbon mineralization o...

By Matt Simon , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: ...cows are really gassy, and that’s really bad for the planet: Microbes in their guts produce methane—a greenhouse gas up to  80 times more powerful  than carbon dioxide—which comes out as burps. Consequently, livestock is responsible for  30 percent  of humanity’s methane emissions. ...Rice cultivation, surprisingly enough, accounts for another 12 percent of humanity’s global methane emissions. ...Growing rice requires flooding fields, called paddies, with staggering quantities of water. Microbes known as archaea multiply in the wet, oxygen-poor conditions, releasing methane. One way to reduce those emissions is to inundate the fields less often, but that’s not always feasible given local irrigation infrastructure, and less water can lead to reduced yields. ...Now, though, scientists have gone to the source, announcing a breakthrough in breeding a variety of rice they say reduces methane emissions by 70 percent—while deliveri...

By Michelle Lewis , Elektrek.  Excerpt: Renewable energy – solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, biomass – accounted for more than 90% of total US electrical generating capacity added in 2024, according to data released yesterday by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and reviewed by the SUN DAY campaign. Solar alone accounted for over 81% of the new capacity. Moreover, December was the 16th month in a row in which solar was the largest source of new capacity. ...In its latest monthly  “Energy Infrastructure Update” report  (with data through December 31, 2024), FERC says 105 “units” of solar totaling 4,369 megawatts (MW) came online in December, along with two units of wind (324 MW) and two units of biomass (45 MW). Combined, they accounted for 86.9% of all new generating capacity added during the month. Natural gas provided the balance: 717 MW....  Full article at https://electrek.co/2025/02/07/renewables-90-percent-new-us-capacity-2024-ferc/ ....

By Maya Yang , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The  Trump administration  has ordered US states to suspend a $5bn  electric vehicle  charging station program in a further blow to the environmental movement since the president’s return to the White House. In a memo  issued  on Thursday to state transportation directors, the transportation department’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) ordered states not to spend any funds allocated to them under the  Biden administration  as part of the national electric vehicle  infrastructure  (NEVI) program....  Full article at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/07/trump-electric-vehicle-charging-station-program . 

By Julienne C. Stroeve et al, Science.  Abstract: Under current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, global warming is projected to reach 2.7°C above preindustrial levels. In this review, we show that at such a level of warming, the Arctic would be transformed beyond contemporary recognition: Virtually every day of the year would have air temperatures higher than preindustrial extremes, the Arctic Ocean would be essentially ice free for several months in summer, the area of Greenland that reaches melting temperatures for at least a month would roughly quadruple, and the area of permafrost would be roughly half of what it was in preindustrial times. These geophysical changes go along with widespread ecosystem disruptions and infrastructure damage, which, as we show here, could be substantially reduced by increased efforts to limit global warming....  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads1549 .  See...

By Reuters.  Excerpt: The cost of clean energy technologies worldwide, such as wind, solar and battery storage, are expected to fall further this year, a report by BloombergNEF showed on Thursday, despite rising protectionism in the form of tariffs on green energy imports. ...On average, the China can produce a megawatt-hour of electricity from major power-generating technologies 11-64% cheaper than other markets, the report said. ...The cost of clean power technologies is expected to fall further by 2-11% in 2025. While trade barriers could stall declines temporarily, BNEF expects the levellized cost of electricity for clean technologies to fall by 22-49% by 2035....  Full article at https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/clean-energy-costs-continue-fall-150909361.html . 

By Thomas R. Chudley et al, Nature Geoscience.  Summary: The Greenland Ice Sheet, which measures more than 3 kilometers at its thickest point and covers an area three times the size of Texas, is the world’s second largest body of ice. If all of it were to melt, the world’s oceans would rise a whopping seven meters. And while such a complete meltdown would likely take thousands of years, Greenland—already one of the largest contributors to sea level rise—is poised to add up to 30 centimeters by 2100. Now, new research published in  Nature Geoscience  has revealed that  this enormous mass of ice is breaking apart faster than expected ....  Full article at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01636-6 . 

By Elizabeth Pennisi , Science.  Excerpt: Climate change  emerged as a driving factor behind urban rat swarms , the researchers report today in  Science Advances . As temperatures rise, they conclude, and people flock to urban areas and convert formerly “green” spaces into neighborhoods and shopping centers, they created a perfect storm for rat populations to explode. And the city that’s fared the worst over the past decade? Washington, D.C.....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/warmer-more-crowded-cities-bring-out-rats . 

By Louise C. Archer et al, Science.  Summary: ...polar bear populations have declined over the past 50 years as the extent of sea ice has decreased. Archer  et al . used data collected from polar bears in the western Hudson Bay Area over nearly all of that time.... Energetic patterns at the individual level successfully predicted larger-scale population dynamics. A single driver, energy limitation, emerged as being responsible for the population decline, confirming that polar bears face food shortages due to the loss of ice. —Sacha Vignieri....  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp3752 . 

By https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ads8163 et al, Science.  Abstract: Coastal vertical land motion (VLM), including uplift and subsidence, can greatly alter relative sea level projections and flood mitigations plans. Yet, current projection frameworks, such as the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, often underestimate VLM by relying on regional linear estimates. Using high-resolution (90-meter) satellite data from 2015 to 2023, we provide local VLM estimates for California and assess their contribution to sea level rise both now and in future. Our findings reveal that regional estimates substantially understate sea level rise in parts of San Francisco and Los Angeles, projecting more than double the expected rise by 2050. Additionally, temporally variable (nonlinear) VLM, driven by factors such as hydrocarbon and groundwater extraction, can increase uncertainties in 2050 projections by up to 0.4 meters in certain areas of Los Angeles and San Diego. This study highlights the ...

By Rebecca F. Elliott , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The artificial intelligence boom has turbocharged demand for electricity, and everyone who is anyone in the U.S. energy industry wants a piece of the action. The latest entrant is Chevron, the country’s second-largest oil and gas company, which sees opportunity in building natural gas-fueled power plants that will feed energy directly to data centers....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/business/energy-environment/chevron-power-plant-ai.html . 

By Meg Bernhard , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...the expansion of renewable-energy infrastructure is fundamentally reshaping the landscape of the West, often at the expense of ecosystems. Lithium mining in particular alarms conservationists. Depending on the type of process used, mining can pollute groundwater, emit carbon dioxide, create toxic waste and destroy habitats. As companies scramble to acquire mineral rights, in many cases under an antiquated mining law, some conservationists are criticizing the fact that there isn’t a federal plan to protect the landscape, without which they fear a ruinous mining free-for-all. This rush to mine has put them in tension with proponents of the federal government’s green-energy projects, who warn against slowing an urgent process. Conservationists, in turn, worry that those supporters are being shortsighted in their disregard for the value of biodiversity....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/magazine/nevada-lithium...

By A. J. R. Smith et al, Science.  Editor's summary: Shrimp-like krill constitute the greatest biomass of any living animal: up to 379 million tonnes in the Southern Ocean. Dead krill and their feces sink and are assumed to export tens of millions of tons of carbon annually; however, these data are gleaned from patchy observations. Smith  et al . deployed a seafloor lander carrying an echosounder, camera, lights, and other equipment offshore of East Antarctica to provide consistent direct observational data, including difficult-to-obtain winter data, to feed into a carbon flux model. The year-long observations showed heterogeneous migratory behaviors by krill, including strong seasonal shifts. Migration means that recirculation of carbon can occur, so krill may make a smaller contribution to net carbon storage than what is found in current estimates. —Caroline Ash.  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adq5564 . 

By   Zack Budryk , The Hill.  Excerpt: Businessman and former New York Mayor  Michael Bloomberg  said this week his philanthropic foundation will contribute the U.S.’s financial obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) after President Trump announced he would withdraw the U.S. from the agreement. In a statement Wednesday through Bloomberg Philanthropies, Bloomberg said the organization will both cover the U.S.’s funding gap and its reporting requirements for planet-warming emissions. The announcement does not specify a dollar amount the organization will contribute, but it committed about $15 million to the UNFCCC between 2017 and 2020 after Trump announced the withdrawal of the U.S. from the agreement in his first term. The U.S. ordinarily pays about a fifth of the UNFCCC budget, which amounted to about $7.5 million in 2024. “Bloomberg Philanthropies has made significant investments in empowe...

By Zhenye Wang et al, Science.  Editor's summary: Stretchable organic solar cells for powering wearable devices have been achieved by blending a ductile donor semiconductor polymer with a plasticizing small-molecule acceptor to overcome the inherent brittleness of the photoactive components. Wang  et al . have shown that the acceptor actually enhances ductility in the blend and maintains electron mobility despite its lack of crystallinity. Devices achieved a power conversion efficiency of greater than 16% and could maintain 80% of that efficiency at 80% strain. —Phil Szuromi Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp9709 .

By Robert F. Service, Science.  Excerpt: Hydrogen is often touted as the future of green energy, and the allure is clear. When burned or run through a fuel cell, the fuel produces water as exhaust, not carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). It is energy-rich enough to drive semitrailer trucks, cargo ships, and other heavy-duty vehicles that are tough to power with batteries. And for many industrial processes requiring high-temperature reactions, such as fertilizer production and steel manufacturing, hydrogen is basically the only alternative to fossil fuels, says Kathy Ayers, a water electrolysis expert at Nel Hydrogen, a Norwegian electrolyzer producer. “Low-carbon hydrogen is absolutely essential if we are going to address the climate crisis.” ...According to the International Energy Agency, the world needs to churn out more than 300 million tons of green hydrogen annually if it is to have a shot at limiting global warming to 1.5°C by 2050. Yet today, operating green hydrogen plants, mostly in ...

By Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: President Trump launched a broad attack on the wind power industry in the United States, with  a sweeping executive order  that could block not just new offshore wind farms in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans but potentially many smaller wind farms on federal land and even on private property across the country. The order...would halt all leasing of federal lands and waters for new wind farms pending a fresh government review of the industry. It also directs federal agencies to stop issuing permits for all wind farms anywhere in the country for the time being, a move that could disrupt projects on private land, which sometimes need federal wildlife or other environmental permits. While the order does not call for a freeze on wind projects that are already under construction, Mr. Trump directed the U.S. Attorney General and secretary of the interior to explore the possibility of “terminating or amending” any leases that have al...

By Caroline Hasler , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: With global  sea levels  projected to rise 44 centimeters (17 inches) by the end of the century, atolls such as Aldabra—a  United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site  in Seychelles and home to the world’s largest population of giant tortoises—may be at risk of sinking into the ocean. A new  study , however, shows that despite consistently rising sea levels, most of Aldabra’s shoreline hasn’t changed since 1960. ...An atoll forms when corals attach to the margins of a volcanic island or platform in the ocean. Over time, the volcano is eroded and subsides into the sea, leaving a ring-shaped reef. Winds and waves deposit crushed coral from surrounding reefs on top of the ring, ultimately forming islands that rise above sea level. ...“Our research shows that Aldabra’s resilience to sea level rise is likely linked to its high protection status. This serves as a crucial les...

By Yifan Gao et al, Joule.  Paper summary: Although ammonia production is crucial for global agriculture, it comes with substantial carbon footprints. [ammonia production is the chemical industry’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter] Here, for the first time, we propose and demonstrate a different method for stimulated (proactive) and  in situ  geological ammonia (Geo-NH 3 ) production directly from rocks. Our approach demonstrated that NH 3  can be efficiently generated by reacting natural (Fe,Mg) 2 SiO 4  (olivine) minerals with nitrate-source water at 130°C–300°C and 0.25–8.5 MPa, and even at ambient temperature and pressure. Using both actual rocks and synthetic mineral Fe(OH) 2 , we investigated mechanisms and optimized conditions through experiments and theoretical calculations. We revealed the basic chemistry enabling Geo-NH 3  production: Fe 2+  contained in rocks reduces the nitrate source to NH 3 . Our approach, involving only the injection...

By EnergyNow Media.  Excerpt: Global energy storage capacity has tripled in recent years, thanks to an industry that barely existed a decade ago. ...The rapid growth of large-scale energy storage is driven by  plunging battery prices , rising  electricity demand  and a recognition among operators, utilities and public officials that  grids are less reliable  than they once were. “Energy storage has become a linchpin” for avoiding disruptions, says Joseph Williamson, vice president for projects at esVolta LP, the company that developed and owns the Hummingbird facility, which will store electricity delivered by a nearby PG&E substation. EsVolta will sell the energy back to grid customers as needed....  Full article at https://energynow.com/2025/01/giant-batteries-are-transforming-the-worlds-electrical-grids/ .  See also U.S. Power Grids are Vulnerable to Extreme Weather . 

By David L. Hoover  and  William K. Smith , Science.  Excerpt: Droughts have major societal and ecological impacts, including drinking water shortages, crop failures, tree mortality, wildfires, and reduced ecosystem productivity ( 1 ). Shifts in the hydrological cycle and continued warming with climate change are leading to rapidly evolving droughts that are more intense and longer lasting ( 2 ). Extreme but short-term droughts (<1 year) can have a wide range of consequences, depending on the severity and timing of the drought as well as an ecosystem’s resistance ( 3 ,  4 ). However, as a drought extends to a multiyear event, these ecological effects can amplify because short-lived buffering from physiological adaptations or water storage may weaken, leading to longer-lasting results ( 4 ). On page 278 of this issue, Chen  et al . ( 5 ) report that increasing precipitation anomalies and atmospheric moisture demands are leading to multiyear droughts ...

By Jesse Radolinski   et al, Science.  Summary: With climate change, droughts are expected to become more frequent and severe in many regions, but temperature and elevated CO 2  may modify its effects on soil, water, and vegetation: temperature by increasing plants’ water needs and CO 2  by decreasing them. Radolinski  et al . conducted a field experiment in an Austrian montane grassland to determine the effects of these changes on soil water. Under drought, elevated CO 2 , and warming, plants reduced transpiration, conserving water. Plants treated in this way (but not those with only one manipulated factor) used a larger proportion of recently precipitated water from large pores and with little mixing, showing that future drought will likely fundamentally change how water moves in soil. —Bianca Lopez.  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado0734 . 

By Meredith Wadman , Science.  Excerpt: ...The disease [ Coccidioides fungus] causes ...Valley fever is familiar in the Southwest, where it has infected wildland firefighters; carrot, beet, and radish pickers; solar power farm builders; and cast and crew members on a Ventura County film set. ...the fungal spores, nourished in the warm, wet confines of the lung, morph into structures called spherules that burst to release boatloads of tiny endospores that become new spherules, continuing the cycle. Most of these people have a flulike illness lasting weeks or months. But 5% to 10% of cases result in lifelong lung infections, sometimes forcing people to be on powerful antifungal medications permanently. ...cases are escalating fast. Diagnoses ...have ballooned from  about 2800 annually  at the turn of the century to  about 20,000 in 2023 , with at least 200 people dying each year. Arizona and California, where roughly 97% of U.S. cases are reported, have seen dram...

By Connor Letourneau , San Francisco Chronicle.  Excerpt: “When people fight the ocean,” [Pacifica, City Council member Christine] Boles said, “the ocean always wins.” ...Pacifica, a picturesque surf town of roughly 35,000 just south of San Francisco, has become an important case study for the increasingly urgent questions  climate change  raises for many coastal communities. Should residents stay to defend their homes from rising tides that grow fiercer by the year? Or, should they admit defeat and cede the land back to nature? ...“Managed retreat” — a term coined by geologists to describe the process of removing people, homes and businesses from at-risk areas — is at the root of the debate. ...“We can’t build seawalls high enough to protect us forever,” said Gary Griggs, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz. “So, in the long run, it’s either going to be managed retreat or unmanaged retreat. It’s up to each community to decide.”...  Full...

By Kimberly M. S. Cartier , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: More than 3 billion people experienced their hottest year ever in 2024 because of anthropogenic climate change. The world is speeding toward its 1.5°C warming target. ...“Even if we likely exceeded [1.5°C] this year, that doesn’t mean that we’ve exceeded it in the context of the Paris accord, which is over a longer time period,” Schmidt said. “But I will say that we anticipate future global warming as long as we are emitting greenhouse gases, and until we get to net zero, we will not get a leveling off of global mean temperature.”....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/exceptional-global-warming-spike-continued-in-2024 . 

By Laura Paddison , CNN.  Excerpt: It’s official: 2024 was the hottest year on record, breaking the  previous record  set in 2023 and pushing the world over a critical climate threshold, according to new data from Europe’s climate monitoring agency Copernicus [ https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2024-first-year-exceed-15degc-above-pre-industrial-level ]. Last year was 1.6 degrees hotter than the period before humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels, Copernicus found. It makes 2024 the first calendar year to breach  the 1.5-degree limit  countries agreed to avoid under the Paris climate agreement in 2015. Scientists are much more concerned about breaches over decades, rather than single years — as above that threshold humans and ecosystems may struggle to adapt — but 2024’s   record   “does mean we’re getting dangerously close,” said Joeri Rogelj, a climate professor at Imperial College London....  Full article at https://www.cnn.c...

By Valério D. Pillar  and  Gerhard E. Overbeck , Science.  Excerpt: Over half of Earth’s land surface is covered with  fire-prone vegetation , with grassy ecosystems—such as grasslands, savannas, woodlands, and shrublands—being the most  extensive . In the context of the climate crisis, scientists worldwide are exploring  adaptation  measures to address the heightened fire risk driven by more frequent extreme climatic conditions such as droughts and heatwaves, as well as by  non-native plant invasions  that increased fuel loads and altered fire regimes. Although fire is intrinsic to  grassy ecosystems , rising exposure to wildfire smoke harms human health and the environment. Here, we argue that grazing management in grassy ecosystems could help reduce wildfire risk and its consequences....  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu7471 . 

By Christopher Bataille , Science.  Excerpt: According to current climate science, global temperatures will continue to rise until net carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions reach zero ( 1 )—that is, when the amount of CO 2  added to the atmosphere is balanced by the amount removed. Given current projected emissions, 2 billion to 15 billion tonnes (Gt) of CO 2  may need to be removed from the atmosphere annually to meet the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming below 2°C and preferably to 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures ( 2 ,  3 ). ...Van Roijen  et al.  ( 4 ) report that replacing traditional building materials with CO 2 -storing alternatives could sequester carbon at the billion-tonne level. ...Building materials such as asphalt, wood, stone, steel, and concrete are foundational to human civilization and have large global demands, ...~30 Gt of concrete are used each year in the world ( 5 ). Some of these materials are also major c...

By Sarah Stanley , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: The vast  Antarctic Ice Sheet  holds  more than half  of Earth’s freshwater. In several places around the continent, the ice extends over the ocean, where it forms large floating shelves. Observations suggest many of these  ice shelves are thinning  as they melt from below, with implications for ocean dynamics, global sea level, and Earth’s climate. For now, the  Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf —one of Antarctica’s biggest, extending over the Weddell Sea—appears to be relatively stable, thanks to near-freezing currents circulating over the continental shelf beneath it. However, climate models predict that shifting ocean currents may bring warmer water to the continental shelf in the future. To gain a clearer picture of the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf’s future,  Steiger et al.  analyzed water temperature and velocity data from 2017 to 2021. ...In this study, researchers found that the summertime flow of warm wa...

By Nathaniel Scharping , Eos/AGU. Excerpt: In a string of ever-hotter years, 2023 stood out: It was the  warmest on record  (though  2024 will likely surpass it ), with temperatures 1.4°C (2.5°F) above the preindustrial average and 0.17°C (0.3°F) above the previous record set in 2016. One cause for the spike may have been that Earth was just a little darker than it’s been in recent history.  Earth’s albedo , a measure of how reflective the surface is, hit a record low in 2023, according to the authors of a  study in  Science . That record was due mainly to a dearth of bright, low-level clouds, which reflect more solar radiation than land or ocean. The answers to why these clouds were absent and, crucially, whether the trend will continue are still unclear....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/darker-less-cloudy-earth-contributed-to-record-heat .

By   Caroline Van Hemert , bioGraphic.  Excerpt: ...Peregrine falcons hold near-mythical appeal in our collective imagination, and for good reason. Topping out at speeds of more than 320 kilometers (200 miles) per hour, they’re the fastest species on Earth, plummeting from the sky like amber-eyed missiles. ...Perhaps more cosmopolitan than any other wild bird species, peregrine falcons live on every continent except Antarctica, in habitats ranging from polar deserts to subtropical rainforests. They’re flexible in what they eat—from songbirds to seabirds, carrion to chickens—and in where they nest—on cliffs, in trees, on the ground, or on buildings. Some individuals barely budge throughout their lifetimes, whereas others, like the Greenlandic variety, embody the roots of their scientific name— Falco peregrinus , or “wandering falcon”—making migrations upwards of 25,000 kilometers per year. ...Since birds like peregrines feed high on the food chain, contaminants accumulate ...

By DW.  Excerpt: Europe's largest economy saw a rise in renewable energy generation in 2024. Germany  made a notable shift toward  renewable energy  sources last year, according to a  report from the Federal Network Agency  released on Friday. Renewable energy accounted for 59% of the country's total electricity generation, up from 56% in 2023. Wind energy was the leading source, contributing 31.9% to the nation's energy mix, while solar energy contributed 14.7%. ...Last year also marked Germany's first full year  without nuclear power , following the final shutdown of its nuclear plants in April 2023. The country aims to be climate-neutral by 2045....  Full article at https://www.dw.com/en/wind-and-solar-power-drive-germanys-renewable-energy-surge/a-71213890 . 

By Madeline Reinsel , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: A slow climate feedback loop may be bubbling beneath Antarctica’s vast ice sheet. The continent...includes volcanic giants such as  Mount Erebus and its iconic lava lake . But at least 100 less conspicuous volcanoes dot Antarctica, with many clustered along its western coast. Some of those volcanoes peak above the surface, but others sit several kilometers beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Climate change is causing the ice sheet to melt, raising global sea levels. The melting is also removing the weight over the rocks below, with more local consequences. Ice sheet melt has been shown to  increase volcanic activity in subglacial volcanoes  elsewhere on the globe.  Coonin et al.  ran 4,000 computer simulations to study how ice sheet loss affects Antarctica’s buried volcanoes, and they found that gradual melt could increase the number and size of subglacial eruptions. The reason is that this unloading of ice sheets reduc...

By Andrew J. Wight , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: In the past 70 years, more than 75,000 tornadoes have been recorded in the United States. Recordkeeping of these phenomena outside this region has been largely fragmented, sitting isolated in books, government databases, and research archives. But a new effort to scour as many publicly accessible records as possible is highlighting the scale of this hazard around the world. In a  new study ,  Malcolm Maas , an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a team of tornado researchers compiled a tornado database that they hope will boost tornado research globally. ...The United States accounts for 21,548 of the recorded fatalities in the database published by Maas and his collaborators. But tornadoes in other countries wreak havoc as well: Bangladesh accounts for 8,325 fatalities in the database, India has seen 1,473, and the rest of the world combined accounts for 3,824....  Full article at https://eos...

By Neal E. Boudette , The New York Times.  Excerpt: General Motors was the biggest winner in U.S. sales in the final quarter, with a gain of 21 percent. It more than doubled its electric vehicle sales. ... Ford Motor sold more than 530,000 vehicles  in the quarter, a gain of nearly 9 percent. Ford’s E.V. sales climbed 16 percent, to more than 30,000 vehicles. ...Analysts said the year-end jump in E.V. sales might also have been spurred somewhat by President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has suggested he will eliminate the $7,500 federal tax credit on electric vehicles priced under $80,000. The tax credit has helped manufacturers offer the attractive lease deals....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/business/ford-gm-vehicle-sales.html . 

By Jeffrey Mervis , Science.  Excerpt: John Deutch ...joined President Jimmy Carter’s energy team shortly after the Georgia Democrat took office in January 1977. And for the next 3 years Deutch had a front-row seat to history as Carter, who died on 29 December 2024 at age 100, worked to make the country less dependent on imported oil and in the process reshaped the direction of federal energy research. ...Within 6 months Deutch would become the founding director of the Office of Energy Research at the newly created Department of Energy (DOE), the successor to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the short-lived Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA). ...Meeting DOE’s mandate also meant launching programs outside the legacy energy sources, notably fossil fuels and nuclear power, that had been the mainstay of DOE research under its predecessor agencies. ...Although the Carter administration tried hard to get people in the U.S. to conserve energy and to find alte...

By Jianbang Gan , Science.  Excerpt: Wildfire occurrence and scale worldwide have risen over recent decades, with the most destructive wildfires in North America taking place in the past decade ( 1 ,  2 ). ...On page 91 of this issue, Wang  et al . ( 3 ) report the key drivers of burn severity.... ...These studies led to the development of predictive models that are used to project wildfire effects under different scenarios over time in locations where no historical fires have been recorded. However, the drivers of wildfire effects are complex and involve multiple interlinked factors, such as climate, vegetation, topography, and human activity. ...Among all the factors, fuel aridity, which reflects the abundance and moisture content of flammable vegetative fuels, was determined to be the primary driver for most Canadian forest fires between 1981 and 2020. ...Wang  et al . found a large increase in burn severity in northern Canada compared with other regions in C...

By  Dan Charles , Science.  Excerpt: ...“This is a worldwide phenomenon,” says Peter Verburg, a land use researcher at the Free University Amsterdam. Global trade in food has fueled the clearing of forests in Brazil and Bolivia for agriculture, but elsewhere it has sidelined small farms with rocky soil, steep hills, or scarce water. “People give up because they cannot compete,” Verburg says. ...Farmers, or their children, are walking away from land in Eastern Europe, southern France, South Korea, Japan, and mountainous parts of India. It’s difficult to measure the exact extent of the trend. Land is often abandoned, then reclaimed and farmed again. But an estimated  120 million hectares  have been left fallow in Europe alone since 1990. Globally,  the figure since 1950  could be as high as 400 million hectares—half the area of Australia. “Abandonment will continue, I think there’s no doubt,” Verburg says. In fact, climate change is likely to accelerate it as...

By Chase DiFeliciantonio , San Francisco Chronicle.  Excerpt: When the California Public Utilities Commission slashed the price PG&E had to pay to buy electricity from solar customers, the industry nearly collapsed. But experts say the goal was equity — and a sustainable model that encouraged installing batteries to store power locally. ...In late 2022, [California] state regulators voted to  slash the level of that payment  by around 75% to bring it closer to market prices. ...“We were on a completely unsustainable path,” said  UC Berkeley  energy economist Severin Borenstein. “Households producing solar were compensated at the full retail price — at least double the market value of the electricity — for the quantities they sold back to the grid.” That money had to come from somewhere, and the result was that customers in PG&E’s service area who did not have solar panels were effectively subsidizing those that did, according to Borenstein...

By Dennis M. Hogan, Guest Essay for The New York Times.  Excerpt: In 2023, ...July, the middle of Panama’s rainy season. But the rains had been sparse, and water levels in the canal had sunk to troubling lows. Without freshwater from rain, our guide explained, the locks on the canal could not operate. ...the true threat to U.S. commerce through Panama. If the goal is securing affordable access to the transit point over the long term, it is climate change, not Chinese influence, that U.S. policymakers should worry about. ...Sending a single ship through the canal’s locks can use around 50 million gallons of water, mainly freshwater collected from Lake Gatún. Though the canal is, for the moment, operating at full capacity, a drier climate and greater demand for drinking water have in recent years reduced the volume of available water. That has  forced the state-run Panama Canal Authority  at times to limit the number of daily passages through the canal, at one point by as m...