By Damien Gayle , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The UK government vastly underestimated the climate impact of artificial intelligence, it has emerged, after officials raised their estimate of carbon emissions from AI by a factor of more than 100. According to new data quietly published this week, energy use by AI datacentres in the UK could cause the emission of up to 123m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) ...over the next 10 years. That latest figure replaces a previous estimate ...that claimed emissions would reach a maximum of 0.142m tonnes of CO₂ in a single year. There is  increasing alarm  at the carbon impact of AI and with calls to reduce global emissions to mitigate the climate emergency becoming increasingly urgent. ... The latest estimates were revealed in a  revision  to the UK “compute roadmap”, which sets out the government’s plan “to build a world-class compute ecosystem” for delivering artificial intelligence in the UK.... However, AI datacentres require ...

By Eric Niiler , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The Earth is out of balance. That’s the message from a United Nations report released late Sunday that looked at how much energy from the sun is absorbed by the Earth or reflected back into space. Researchers found the gap between the two is the biggest since measurements began in 1960, meaning more of the sun’s heat energy is now staying on Earth. And that energy imbalance is heating up the oceans, atmosphere, and frozen regions of the world, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s  State of the Global Climate report . ...said Dr. Deoras, who was not associated with the report... “...all these greenhouse gases, they are just trapping more and more heat. The planet is just not getting a chance to cool down.”...  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/climate/energy-imbalance-un-report.html .  See also Inside Climate News article Report Shows Earth’s Climate is Out of Balance, as Indicators Hit Ne...

By Bakar institute of Digital Materials for the Planet. Excerpt: A new material developed by BIDMaP researchers captures CO₂ from outdoor air with unprecedented speed, marking a critical leap toward practical direct air capture technology. As atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to climb, the scientific consensus is clear: reducing emissions alone is no longer enough. To avert the worst effects of climate change, scientists must also figure out a way to actively remove vast quantities of CO₂ that are already lingering in the sky. One of the most promising technologies for this task is Direct Air Capture (DAC), machines that filter carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. ...a team of researchers from Omar M. Yaghi’s Lab —whose pioneering work on reticular chemistry was recognized with the  Nobel Prize in 2025 —has reported a major breakthrough. In a study published today in  Nature Sustainability , the team unveils COF-1000, a new material that captures carbon dioxid...

By Associated Press/The Guardian.  Excerpt: In a reversal from previous years’ pollution reductions, the United States spewed 2.4% more heat-trapping gases from the burning of fossil fuels in 2025 than in the year before, researchers calculated in a study released on Tuesday. The increase in greenhouse gas emissions is attributable to a combination of a cool winter, the explosive growth of datacenters and cryptocurrency mining, and higher natural gas prices, according to the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm. Environmental policy rollbacks by Donald Trump’s administration were not significant factors in the increase because they were only put in place this year, the study authors said. Heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas are the major cause of worsening global warming, scientists say. US emissions of carbon dioxide and methane had dropped 20% from 2005 to 2024, with a few one- or two-year increases in the overall downward trend. Traditionally...

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 Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Global fossil fuel emissions are on track to soar to record highs in 2025 and show no signs of declining overall, although there are indications of a recent slowdown in China’s emissions, researchers said on Wednesday. This year, nations are projected to emit roughly 38.1 billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide by burning oil, gas and coal for energy and by manufacturing cement, according to  data from the Global Carbon Project . Those sources are the largest contributors to human-caused climate change. The total is roughly 1.1 percent more than the world emitted in 2024. Not everywhere saw a large increase. Emissions appear to have stayed nearly flat in China and Europe, but rose significantly in the United States and much of the rest of the world. ...A relatively small number of countries account for most of the world’s emissions, with China responsible for 32 percent, the United States at 13 percent, India at 8 percent an...

By Raymond Zhong  and  Sachi Kitajima Mulkey , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The average level of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere climbed by the largest amount on record between 2023 and 2024, the World Meteorological Organization said on Thursday. ...Last year was  Earth’s hottest year  in recorded history. ...In 2024, the atmosphere’s average concentration of the gas reached 423.9 parts per million, an increase of 3.5 parts per million from the year before. That edged out a 3.3 parts per million increase in 2016 that was previously the largest ever measured. Year-to-year rises in carbon dioxide concentrations have accelerated since the 1960s, when the average pace of increase was 0.8 parts per million....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/climate/carbon-dioxide-emissions-record-jump.html . 

By Madeleine Cuff , New Scientist.  Excerpt: Rivers around the world are leaking ancient carbon back into the atmosphere. The finding has taken scientists by surprise and suggests human activities are damaging the natural landscape far more than first thought. Researchers already knew rivers released carbon dioxide and methane as part of the global carbon cycle – the short-term movement of gases that happens as living things grow and decompose. They are thought to emit around 2 gigatonnes of this carbon each year. But when  Josh Dean  at the University of Bristol, UK, and his colleagues set out to determine how old this carbon really is, they found that around 60 per cent of global river emissions are from thousands-of-years-old stores. Ancient carbon is trapped in rocks, peat bogs and wetlands. The findings suggest that as much as 1 gigatonne of it is being released back into the atmosphere each year through rivers. ...The pressing question now is why rivers are releasin...

By Muhammed Fatih Sert et al, JGR Biogeosciences.  [Great example of the complexity of global systems!] Plain language summary: Cold seeps are geological features that release methane from the seabed to the water column. In oxygenated sea water column, seeping methane is consumed by specialized microbes that convert it into carbon dioxide. Although the increase in carbon dioxide can lead to ocean acidification, cold seeps are often found in the Hola trough of Northern Norway near cold-water corals (CWCs), which are vulnerable to changes in ocean acidity. This raises questions about how these features coexist in the same marine ecosystem and how they impact each other. We investigated the carbon exchange between cold seeps and CWCs by analyzing seawater samples. Our data on nutrients, organic matter, and microbial compositions implied cooccurring carbon processes such as methane oxidation and organic matter synthesis. Notably, cold seeps might support CWCs by producing dissolved or...

By Rambo Talabong , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Coastal wetlands have long been seen as one of the casualties of climate change, doomed by the rising seas that are steadily swallowing their ecosystems. ...New research by Virginia Institute of Marine Science coastal geomorphologist  Matthew Kirwan  has revealed that some marshes, migrating as they adapt to changing conditions, may release carbon (primarily as carbon dioxide) but gain an enhanced capacity to store methane.  Methane  is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and sequestering it may have an atmospheric cooling effect. As sea level rises, freshwater marshes get saltier and turn into salt marshes. Conventional wisdom has long held that as freshwater marshes shrink, they release carbon stored in their soil and biomass. But Kirwan pointed out that as freshwater marshes degrade and salinize, their microbial populations are affected in a way that causes the marshes to  emit less methane . “Even deg...

By Skyler Ware , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Massive volcanic eruptions have reshaped Earth and its climate at several points in history. New research suggests that long after these surface eruptions ceased, carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) dissolved in underground magmas could have slowly escaped to the surface. This “cryptic carbon” may have contributed to prolonged periods of warming, slow climate recovery, and mass extinctions. ...extensive volcanism has occurred in conjunction with periods of climate disruption throughout Earth’s history: Large igneous provinces emitted large volumes of greenhouse gases such as CO 2  into the atmosphere, raising temperatures. These events were also sometimes accompanied by major biological changes. The eruptions of the Siberian Traps 252 million years ago coincided with massive biodiversity loss, known as the end-Permian mass extinction, or the Great Dying. But during that event, temperatures and CO 2  levels remained high for about 5 million years aft...

By Robert Sanders , UC Berkeley News.  Excerpt: Industrial plants, such as those that make cement or steel, emit copious amounts of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas, but the exhaust is too hot for state-of-the-art carbon removal technology. Lots of energy and water are needed to cool the exhaust streams, a requirement that has limited adoption of CO 2  capture in some of the most polluting industries. Now, chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered that a porous material can act like a sponge to capture CO 2  at temperatures close to those of many industrial exhaust streams. The material — a type of metal-organic framework, or MOF — will be described in a paper to be published in the Nov. 15 print edition of the journal  Science . ...“We need to start thinking about the CO 2  emissions from industries, like making steel and making cement, that are hard to decarbonize, because it’s likely that they’re still going to be emitting CO ...

By Katherine Kornei , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Human activity is pumping carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere at an unprecedented rate. But centennial-scale increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide—albeit significantly smaller—also persisted in the past. These so-called carbon dioxide jumps are tied to the tilt of Earth’s axis, new research suggests. ...The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, [at a] level of 315 parts per million was measured in 1958, when modern records began. Today the value is 420 parts per million. On average, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been  increasing by roughly 1–3 parts per million per year since the late 1950s . ...  Etienne Legrain , a paleoclimatologist at the Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement in Grenoble, France, and his colleagues... analyzed 203 measurements of carbon dioxide concentration ranging in age from 260,000 to 190,000 years before present. ...they spotted seven unusual events in which the carb...

By Saima May Sidik , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: From time to time, when Earth’s tectonic plates shift, the planet emits a long, slow belch of carbon dioxide. In a new modeling study,  Müller et al.   show how this gas released from deep Earth may have  affected climate  over the past billion years. ...Scientists have often estimated the volume of such carbon emissions solely on the basis of the gas released by plate tectonics. But plate tectonics can also  capture  carbon by incorporating it into new crust formed at mid-ocean ridges. In the new work, researchers   drew on  two  recent  studies  about the past billion years of plate movement to more precisely model how much carbon dioxide this process has generated. ...Tectonic activity is a major determinant of Earth’s atmospheric composition over geologic time, the researchers conclude.  https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GC011713 , ....  Full article at https://eos.org/research-sp...

By Li Cohen , CBS News.  Excerpt: Carbon dioxide , the gas that  accounts for the majority of global warming  caused by human activities, is accumulating "faster than ever," scientists from NOAA, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of California San Diego found. ...The researchers measured carbon dioxide, or CO 2 , levels at the Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory. They found that atmospheric levels of the gas hit a seasonal peak of just under 427 parts per million in May ...50% higher than it was before the Industrial Revolution. ..."Not only is CO 2 now at the highest level in millions of years, it is also rising faster than ever," Ralph Keeling, director of Scripps' CO 2 program, said in the release. "Each year achieves a higher maximum due to fossil-fuel burning, which releases pollution in the form of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Fossil fuel pollution just keeps building up, much like trash in a landfill." .....

By ELISE CUTTS , Science.  Excerpt: Samples of eerie blue glacial ice from Antarctica are a staggering 6 million years old, scientists announced last week,  doubling the previous record  for Earth’s oldest ice. The ice opens a new window on Earth’s ancient climate—one that isn’t exactly what scientists expected. The ice opens a new window on Earth’s ancient climate—one that isn’t exactly what scientists expected. The results are preliminary, stresses Ed Brook, a geochemist at Oregon State University (OSU) and leader of the U.S. Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX), which  presented   the   discovery  last week here in multiple talks at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly. But if even a tiny drop in CO 2  can kick off a major climate change, Brook adds, “you know, we probably care about that.”....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/oldest-ever-ice-offers-glimpse-earth-ice-ages . 

https://www.science.org/content/article/dramatic-shift-ice-age-rhythm-pinned-carbon-dioxide By PAUL VOOSEN , Science.  Excerpt: Roughly 1.5 million years ago, Earth went through a radical climatic shift. The planet had already been slipping in and out of ice ages every 40,000 years, provoked by wobbles in its orbit. But then, something flipped. The ice ages began to grow stronger and longer, with durations of 100,000 years, and overall, the planet grew cooler. And nothing about Earth’s orbit could explain it. The cause of this Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), as it’s known, has been a major mystery for decades. A new compilation of global temperatures covering the past 4.5 million years, published this week in Science,  points a finger at a familiar molecule : carbon dioxide. It suggests that a strengthening of an ocean pump in the waters around Antarctica sucked carbon dioxide out of the air and sent it plunging to the abyss, cooling the planet and intensifying the ice ...

https://eos.org/articles/diverse-forests-store-more-carbon-than-monocultures By Saima May Sidik , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: It pays to mix it up—planted forests containing more than one tree species can store several times as much carbon as monocultures, as shown in a  meta-analysis  published in  Frontiers in Forests and Global Change . Researchers have long known that biodiversity increases forest productivity, ....Forestry companies often plant monocultures, so the study has the potential to affect industry practices. ...Researchers sifted through more than 11,300 studies, including some from a worldwide network of tree diversity experiments called  TreeDivNet , to find 18 that included the information necessary to compare carbon storage in monocultures with that in stands containing two or more species of trees. ...Stands with two or more species contained at least 25% more aboveground carbon than the best-performing monocultures, .... When the researchers focused ...

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/gently-down-the-stream-carbons-journey-from-land-to-sea-and-beyond By Nathaniel Scharping , Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Movement of carbon from land to ocean and atmosphere plays an important, but understudied, role in the global carbon cycle. Rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs occupy just 1% of Earth’s surface, but they provide a route for large amounts of terrestrial carbon to reach the ocean. Along the journey, carbon dioxide is also released into the atmosphere in a process known as evasion. But much about the land-to-ocean carbon cycle is not yet understood. ... Tian et al.  present a global quantification of carbon export and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) evasion from before the industrial era to the present. Their research indicates that inland waters move nearly half of the carbon absorbed by the land to the atmosphere and oceans. It also reveals significant anthropogenic perturbations to this land-to-ocean carbon cycle. Their work is the first globa...

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231106857589/en/ By BusinessWire.  Excerpt: LOS ANGELES ...Avnos, Inc. (Avnos), the Los Angeles-based company developing the novel Hybrid Direct Air Capture (HDAC™) technology for carbon dioxide removal, today began its first operational commercial pilot project in Bakersfield, California. ...the HDAC pilot delivers the world’s first water-positive Direct Air Capture (DAC) solution. In launching this system, Avnos has inverted the water paradigm in DAC – producing 5 tons of liquid distilled water per ton of CO 2 captured, as compared to 5-10 tons of water consumption per ton of CO 2 captured in other DAC approaches. As a result, Avnos opens the geographic and climatic operating range for DAC to many more regions around the globe. The Bakersfield pilot will capture approximately 30 tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide and produce 150 tons of water per year. ...Capturing water from the atmosphere allows Avnos to leverage a first-of-a-kind mois...