Planting wheat earlier in the spring to avoid crop damage from ever-hotter summers may not keep harvests on pace with current levels.

New research at Washington State University challenges assumptions that earlier planting could offset the effects of a warming climate. Researchers used computer modeling to show that moving crop plantings earlier in the season brings about other plant growth issues that could hinder productivity.

The findings were published in Communications, Earth, and Environment.

Tiny ocean organisms living in oxygen-poor waters turn nutrients into nitrous oxide—a greenhouse gas far more powerful than carbon dioxide—via complex chemical pathways.

Penn’s Xin Sun and collaborators identified the how and why behind these chemical reactions, showing that microbial competition, not just chemistry, determines how much N₂O is produced.

Their findings pave the way for more reliable climate models, making global greenhouse gas estimates more effective, predictable, and easier to understand in response to natural and man-made climate change.

A University of Sydney student has developed a completely new way to peer inside coral fossils to recover lost records of past climate change. The method opens the door to recovering climate information from coral samples once written off as too altered to be useful