A new surveying technique is giving geologists their first detailed picture of how ground movement associated with historical mining is changing the face of our landscape.

Climate models predict a slowdown of the Walker circulation with global warming. Atmospheric models, however, have failed to reproduce the slowdown already observed over the last 60 years, casting doubt on their ability to simulate slow climate change. Now a study has succeeded in simulating the slowdown and shows that changes in the sea surface temperature pattern across the Indo-Pacific are the cause.

A new study has revealed a rapid response between global temperature and ice volume/sea-level, which could lead to sea-levels rising by over one meter. During the last few million years, global ice-volume variability has been one of the main feedback mechanisms in climate change, because of the strong reflective properties of large ice sheets. Ice volume changes in ancient times can be reconstructed from sea-level records. However, detailed assessment of the role of ice volume in climate change is hindered by inadequacies in sea-level records and/or their timescales. Now, for the first time, scientists are able to accurately date continuous sea-level records, to allow detailed comparisons of the ice-volume variability with independently dated ice-core records from Antarctica and Greenland.

Analysis of 90 years of observational data has revealed that summer climates in regions across the globe are changing — mostly, but not always, warming — according to a new study.

Scientists have demonstrated that plants and soils could release large amounts of carbon dioxide as global climate warms. That additional carbon release from land surface could be a potent positive feedback that exacerbates climate warming.