Every year, millions of tonnes of plastic debris ends up in the sea – a global environmental problem with unforeseeable ecological consequences. The path taken by plastic to reach the sea must be elucidated before it will be possible to reduce the volume of plastic input. To date, there was only little information available on…

Carbon dioxide measured by a NASA satellite pinpoints sources of the gas from human and volcanic activities, which may help monitor greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.Late last month, a stratovolcano in Bali named Mount Agung began to smoke. Little earthquakes trembled beneath the mountain. Officials have since evacuated thousands of people to prevent what…

The strong El Niño event of 2015-2016 provided NASA and NOAA an unprecedented opportunity to test the effectiveness of the newest observation tool to measure global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations — NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite or OCO-2.Observations of carbon dioxide concentrations over the tropical Pacific from the satellite were validated by data from NOAA’s…

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have created a continuous thermo-chemical process that produces useful biocrude from algae. The process takes just minutes and PNNL is working with a company which has licensed the technology to build a pilot plant using the technology.

As devastating wildfires continue to rage in the western U.S. and Canada, a team of environmental engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered that light-absorbing organic particulate matter, also known as brown carbon aerosol, in wildfire smoke loses its ability to absorb sunlight the longer it remains in the atmosphere.

A Zika virus outbreak in coastal Ecuador in 2016 was likely worsened by a strong El Niño and a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck the region in April, according to a new study.

The economically important big bluestem grass — a dominant prairie grass and a major forage grass for cattle — is predicted to reduce its growth and stature by up to 60 percent percent in the next 75 years because of climate change, according to a study involving Kansas State University researchers.

NASA scientists are once again on the hunt for greenhouse gases in the sky.

Infrared imagery from NASA’s Aqua satellite showed powerful thunderstorms around the center of Tropical Storm Ophelia with a band of thunderstorms stretching to the southwest, giving the storm the appearance of a comma.

Aside from inflicting devastating natural disasters on often vulnerable communities, climate change can also spur outbreaks of infectious diseases like Zika , malaria and dengue fever, according to a new study by researchers at the University of  Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.