Cities Aren’t Prepared for a Crucial Part of Sea-Level Rise: They’re Also Sinking

Fighting off rising seas without reducing humanity’s carbon emissions is like trying to drain a bathtub without turning off the tap. But increasingly, scientists are sounding the alarm on yet another problem compounding the crisis for coastal cities: Their land is also sinking, a phenomenon known as subsidence. The metaphorical tap is still on—as rapid … Read more

Less Sea Ice Means More Arctic Trees—Which Means Trouble

Like a nice wool blanket can help a human baby stay warm and healthy, so too does a baby white spruce get protection from a blanket of snow. At the same time, by preventing the chill of winter from reaching the ground, the snow blanket helps thaw permafrost, or frozen soil packed with ancient plant … Read more

A Discarded Plan to Build Underwater Cities Will Give Coral Reefs New Life

A combination of AI, a wild 1970s plan to build underwater cities, and a designer creating furniture on the seabed around the Bahamas might be the solution to the widespread destruction of coral reefs. It could even save the world from coastal erosion. Industrial designer Tom Dixon and technologist Suhair Khan, founder of AI incubator … Read more

Ocean Temperatures Keep Shattering Records—and Stunning Scientists

So what’s going on here? For one, the oceans have been steadily warming over the decades, absorbing something like 90 percent of the extra heat that humans have added to the atmosphere. “The oceans are our saviors, in a way,” says biological oceanographer Francisco Chavez of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. “Things … Read more

Countries Are Building Giant ‘Sand Motors’ to Protect Their Coasts From Erosion

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When governments find themselves fighting the threat of coastal erosion, their default response tends to be pretty simple: If sand is disappearing from a beach, they pump in more sand to replace it. This strategy, known as “beach nourishment,” has become … Read more

NASA’s New PACE Observatory Searches for Clues to Humanity’s Future

Way up in the sky and sprinkled across the seas, two of the littlest yet most influential things in the world have stubbornly guarded their secrets: aerosols and phytoplankton. Today, NASA launched its Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem mission, or PACE, to unravel their mysteries. The mission’s findings could be a key to understanding how … Read more

Trawling Boats Are Hauling Up Ancient Carbon From the Ocean Depths

The fillet of flounder sitting on your plate comes with a severe environmental cost. To catch it, a ship running on fossil fuels spewed greenhouse gases as it dragged a trawl net across the seafloor, devastating the ecosystems in its path. Obvious enough. But new research shows that the consequences extend even further: Trawl nets … Read more

Margot Robbie Previews Possible Ryan Gosling Reunion in ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ Prequel Film (Exclusive)

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are one dynamic duo who have been lighting up red carpets throughout the awards season for their work together on Barbie. Naturally, fans who love their on-screen chemistry want to see more — and there’s early rumors that the pair could share the screen again in a possible prequel to … Read more

Norway’s Deep-Sea Mining Decision Is a Warning

In a memo published in November 2023, Norwegian law firm Wilkborg Rein said that passing the bill with an inadequate environmental assessment could violate not only the country’s own laws on environmental protection, but also European and international laws. Local communities or NGOs could therefore sue, says Elise Johansen, a partner at the firm who … Read more

These Mining Companies Are Ready to Raid the Seabed

But deep-sea mining is considered a risky business not just because of environmental concerns. Norway’s startups are betting on an industry that doesn’t yet exist. “It could end up not becoming an industry at all because the resources are not there or the technology’s not good enough,” says Håkon Knudsen Toven, spokesperson for the industry … Read more