By Eric Niiler , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The U.S. National Science Foundation said on Thursday that the management and operations of a supercomputer used by more than 4,000 climate and weather scientists across the country would be transferred from a leading research lab to an undisclosed third party. ...Science foundation officials said stewardship of the supercomputer, located at a National Center for Atmospheric Research [NCAR] facility in Cheyenne, Wyo., would “transition to a third-party operator” but declined to give details about the new operator or the timeline. The national center...at its headquarters in Boulder, Colo., and has managed the Cheyenne facility since it opened in 2012. The announcement took many scientists by surprise. ...The center, founded in 1960, is responsible for many of the biggest scientific advances in humanity’s understanding of weather and climate. Its research aircraft and sophisticated computer models of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans ar...

By Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: President Trump on Wednesday directed the Pentagon to start buying more electricity from coal-burning power plants as part of his efforts to revive the declining coal industry....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/climate/trump-coal-pentagon-electricity.html . 

By Grace van Deelen , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Earth systems may be on the brink of long-term, irreversible destabilization, sending our planet on a “hothouse Earth” trajectory, a scenario in which long-term temperatures remain about 5°C (9°F) higher than preindustrial temperatures, according to a new paper...published in  One Earth ,  ...Earth system components could be at a higher risk than we think of reaching crucial tipping points such as the melting of the  Greenland Ice Sheet  and the thawing of the world’s permafrost—points of destabilization that, once breached, are irreversible. “As we move to higher temperatures, we go into higher risk zones,” said  Nico Wunderling , a coauthor of the new paper and a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Goethe University Frankfurt, both in Germany. Scientists know higher temperatures will activate interactions between tipping elements, he said. The new paper “strongly builds” on...

By Karen Zraick , The New York Times.  Excerpt: In a new attack on the science of climate change, a federal agency has stripped a chapter on global warming from a manual written to help judges understand important scientific questions they may face in their courtrooms....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/climate/judge-manual-climate-change-chapter.html . 

By Valerie Volcovici  and  David Shepardson , Reuters.  Excerpt: The administration of President Donald Trump is set this week to overturn an Obama-era scientific finding that carbon dioxide endangers human health, removing the legal basis for federal greenhouse gas emissions regulations. The move, which the administration formally proposed in July, would mark the Republican administration's most sweeping climate change policy rollback to date, and follows a string of regulatory cuts and other moves intended to unfetter fossil fuel development and stymie the rollout of clean energy....  Full article at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-repeal-landmark-climate-finding-huge-regulatory-rollback-wsj-reports-2026-02-10/ .  See also New York Times articles, Trump Administration Erases the Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change and What to Know About the E.P.A.’s Big Attack on Climate Regulation . Also from the American Geophysical Union, AGU Denounces Trump ...

By Phil McKenna , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.—The discussions started roughly a decade ago, when an account manager at Xcel Energy, the electricity and gas utility provider, expressed confusion, officials at Colorado Mesa University recalled. A public school on the state’s remote western slope, Colorado Mesa had recently doubled in size, but its energy usage had hardly budged as it began installing an advanced geothermal heating and cooling system. Since its geothermal buildout began in 2008, the university has saved more than $15 million in energy costs, money it has passed on to students through lower tuition and more scholarship funding.  Hundreds of boreholes drilled approximately 500 feet beneath athletic fields and parking lots tap low-temperature thermal energy to help heat and cool campus buildings in what is now one of the largest such networks in the nation. ...A boiler that provides backup heat is rarely used. A bigger challenge is...

By Brad Plumer  and  Rebecca F. Elliott , The New York Times.  Excerpt: A week before the 2024 election, Idaho’s largest electric utility struck a 35-year deal to buy power from a wind farm under development in Wyoming. The Jackalope Wind project would span an area the size of Chicago, with hundreds of wind turbines generating clean electricity by 2027. But the wind farm soon became a casualty of President Trump’s efforts to slow — and sometimes revoke — federal approvals for wind and solar projects. A key  environmental review  of Jackalope by the Interior Department was stalled for months, and the project is now effectively dead. Similar stories are unfolding nationwide. While Mr. Trump’s  attacks on offshore wind  have been highly visible, his administration has also been hobbling solar and wind energy projects on land by halting or delaying federal approvals that were once routine....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/climate...