New England is warming faster than any other part of the United States due to climate change. Part of the havoc a warming world wreaks is on the “water budget”—the frequency, timing and amount of precipitation, where that moisture goes once it lands, how it interacts with trees and plants, how much evaporates and how it eventually seeps into the ground and flows as subsurface water. Thanks to a $498,999 grant from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), David Boutt, professor in the Department of Earth, Geographic and Climate Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will spend the next three years building advanced integrated hydrologic models that will allow New England to predict with spatial precision how the region’s water budget will change in the coming years.

The analyses of the largest study on ochre extraction in Africa also show the spread of ochre to nearby areas / publication in ‘Nature Communications’

Last year, Longyearbyen recorded an average July temperature over 10°C, challenging the traditional polar climate definition that typically inhibits tree growth. This trend continued with record-high temperatures in Svalbard and East Finnmark in 2024, where COAT weather stations on the Varanger Peninsula recorded temperatures 3-4 degrees above the tree growth threshold.

These temperature records are not random. Statistical analysis shows that such high temperatures in Vardø and Longyearbyen are extremely rare events, suggesting that recent temperature spikes are linked to ongoing Arctic climate changes rather than yearly weather variability.

Recent studies have refined the criteria for tree growth in Arctic regions, indicating that a combination of the length of the growing season and average temperature is more accurate than the classical 10-degree rule. For instance, the growing season should last at least 94 days with temperatures above 0.9°C, and the average temperature should be at least 6.4°C. These conditions were met in both 2023 and 2024 at various COAT stations, suggesting potential for tree growth.

However, transitioning from tundra to forest can take centuries, even under suitable climate conditions, due to ecological and biological barriers. Rapid Arctic climate changes necessitate comprehensive ecosystem monitoring, as demonstrated by COAT, to manage and adapt to these transformations effectively.

A series of rocks hiding around Colorado's Rocky Mountains may hold clues to a frigid  period in Earth's past when glaciers several miles thick covered the entire planet. 

You've probably seen bryozoans at the beach without even knowing it—some look like floating balls of mucus, while others resemble a bit of crust growing over docks and other hard surfaces. According to a new study, these strange organisms may reveal how colony-forming animals evolved a system for divvying up jobs millions of years ago.