When examining ice shelves, glaciologists employ a method that, at least in theory, is similar to a structural engineer checking a bridge for stress fractures before it collapses. You examine the fissures. You measure them, monitor their growth, try to figure out what’s causing them, and, if your models are accurate enough, attempt to forecast when and where the next one will form. The issue with doing this on a glacier the size of a small nation in one of the world’s most hostile and remote environments is that there has never been enough data, the models have always been…
Author: errica
In long-term research, there is a moment that occasionally occurs when a scientist who has spent years observing something change very slowly realizes the change has reached a point from which it won’t return. For the majority of his career, Dr. Jason Box of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland has measured, flown over, and thought about the Greenland Ice Sheet. Since 2004, he has witnessed the Sermilik glacier at Greenland’s southernmost point lose about 100 meters of thickness—not in a dramatic collapse, but in a grinding, steady recession that has left the remaining ice appearing, in his words,…
Watching ski resorts in California close because it is too hot to operate in March is truly disorienting. The Sierra Nevada resorts closed because it was too hot to ski or, for that matter, to stand in the sun for any length of time, not because there wasn’t enough snow. The National Park Service put up trail closure signs at Phoenix’s Camelback Mountain to alert hikers to the dangerously high temperatures. The well-known wildflower superbloom in Death Valley, which attracts tourists each spring, came to an early end as temperatures rose above what the desert’s native plants could withstand. These…
At the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Andrew Leising spends his working days monitoring ocean temperatures on screens. He tracks what NOAA refers to as the California Current Marine Heatwave Tracker, a system that has been recording marine heat events off the West Coast since 2019 by gathering data from satellites, ships, and buoys. He is not someone who uses frightening language out of instinct or professional training. This is why it’s important to take note of his recent remarks. He stated earlier this year, “We are in uncharted conditions,” referring to a marine heatwave that has defied almost all of…
Many people probably thought it was clever when Donald Trump asked on social media in January 2026, “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???” as a massive winter storm cut off power to over 600,000 homes and businesses throughout the eastern half of the United States. Power lines in Mississippi are coated with ice. Chicago’s temperatures are in the single digits. From Texas to the Carolinas, trees are breaking under the weight of the freezing rain. From the outside, it appeared to be a world that was not warming at all. Naturally, there was global warming, which increases rather than decreases the…
Even though this finding has been present in climate literature for years, it still manages to surprise people when put simply: the land is warming more quickly than the ocean, and in the tropics, the difference is becoming concerning. Not even slightly quicker. Not a little more concerning. In some areas, where billions of people cultivate food, gather water, and live near the ground, land surfaces are warming at a rate that is about twice that of the ocean under the same sky.Even though it took decades to fully develop the explanation, physics is not difficult once it is explained.…
When viewing old hurricane footage from the 1970s and 1980s, there is a moment when something seems a little strange, and it takes a moment to recognize what it is. The storms shift. They weaken, disperse, churn inland, and make landfall. They act in a manner that is largely consistent with expectations. What is currently taking place in the Atlantic is not the same. slower. heavier. more difficult to forecast and more difficult to survive.Hurricane patterns are changing due to global warming in ways that scientists have predicted for decades, and many of these predictions are coming to pass more…
When scientists stop hedging, a certain kind of dread sets in. For many years, scientists studying climate change have been meticulous, methodical, and appropriately cautious, qualifying each discovery with terms like “models suggest” and “data indicates.” Something has changed, but that caution hasn’t exactly vanished. On March 23, 2026, World Meteorological Day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stood in front of cameras without using diplomatic language. “Planet Earth is being pushed beyond its limits,” he stated bluntly. “Every key climate indicator is flashing red.” When a man who has spent decades navigating the world’s most meticulous bureaucratic language just stops bothering…
The water near One Tree Island, on the southern edge of the Great Barrier Reef, continues to appear flawless. Shimmering in the bright Australian sun, it was clear, almost like glass. Beneath that surface, however, the reef reveals a different story: patches of bone-white coral stretch across the seabed, resembling an overnight-emptied city. Here, coral bleaching has previously occurred. For decades, scientists have been recording it. However, the events of 2024 and 2025 have a different, almost heavier tone. It’s possible that the frequency of the damage is changing as well as its magnitude. Things that used to seem uncommon…
The ocean can appear nearly uncaring at dusk when one is standing on a peaceful shoreline; it is endless, flat, and absorbs the last of the day’s orange light. A timeless rhythm is repeated as the waves gently fold onto the sand. However, beneath that exterior, something less consoling is taking place, subtly building up heat without making any noise. Few people realize how much the ocean has been helping humanity for decades. Over 90% of the excess heat generated by greenhouse gases has been absorbed by it, thereby protecting the atmosphere from a more rapid and severe increase in…