This story is part of a Guardian series on climate refugees. Read parts 1 , 2 , and 3 . DCRA / Alaska Department of Commerce Once the snow melts, people make their way around Newtok on wooden boardwalks set down on the mud. But the... 

There is a concern with the carbon stored in the form of frozen partially decomposed vegetation in the vast tundra of the north. When the permafrost melts, it may releases carbon in the form of carbon dioxide and methane, both of which... 

Short, sharp fluctuations in the Earth’s climate throughout the last ice age may have stopped trees from getting a foothold in Europe and northern Asia, scientists say. According to a new study, warm spells were so brief that... 

Shutterstock Glaciers, such as this one in Argentina, are melting and releasing their reserves of water. Farewell, great lakes of ice and frozen rivers. Scientists used satellite images and gravity measurements to peer more closely... 

Shutterstock / spirit of america You were saying? For everyone who was hoping the Obama administration’s proposed new rules for natural gas drilling on public lands would make a difference, the just-released new draft amounts... 

MIT Here’s Ernest. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) stopped throwing a temper tantrum and took a deep breath for long enough Thursday to allow the Senate to unanimously confirm Ernest Moniz as secretary of energy. The Massachusetts... 

Don’t freak out, but there’s a problem with green roofs: They’re not necessarily greener than ordinary roofs. Soooooo kind of a major problem. With a little extra effort, though, green roofs can be efficient AND... 

The bleached bones of seabirds are telling us a new story about the far-reaching impacts of industrial fisheries on today’s oceans. Looking at the isotopes of 250 bones from Hawaiian petrels (Pterodroma sandwichensis), scientists... 

Billions of dollars of fruits, vegetables, and flowers are thrown away each year as produce ripens too quickly and starts to rot in different markets before public buyers even buy them. Even though you might expect these products to... 

A comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed articles on the topic of global warming and climate change has revealed an overwhelming consensus among scientists that recent warming is human-caused. The study is the most comprehensive yet... 

The world is a big place with a lot of cavities and hidden places. Scientists have now discovered water that has been trapped in rock for more than a billion years. The water might contain microbes that evolved independently from the... 

What do you do when the federal government won’t let you plant a sustainable, super-useful crop on your own land? Well, if you’re Ryan Loflin, you do it anyway. As of this week, Loflin has planted America’s first... 

Alaska Zoo Back in March we told you about a polar bear who had been orphaned in Alaska when its mother was shot by a hunter. We invited (well, ordered) you to watch it play which, even two months later, remains an experience of acute... 

Act Romegialli Italian architecture firm Act Romegialli designed this building to start as a little garden house, and then be gradually eaten by the garden. Here’s what it started as, an unused garage structure: Act Romegialli... 

protographer This is how powerfully good the fast food industry is at making people crave their food: A delivery service in Gaza will smuggle KFC across the Egyptian-Gaza border in order to satisfy cravings for fried chicken. So far,... 

United States Antarctic Program Photo Library It’s not blood. It’s just ketchup. No, it’s run-off from a hidden lake of microbes. We knew we’d been doing some damage to the planet, but we didn’t realize... 

Shutterstock The Earth revolves around the sun. Also, it’s overheating because we’re burning fossil fuels. Can you guess which of those two long-established facts just received an additional jolt of publicized near unanimity... 

Shutterstock Let it burn, says the Tea Party. Tea Partiers who watched gleefully as the sequester slashed government spending are welcome to douse forest fires near their homes with teapots full of Earl Grey this summer. Across-the-board... 

Shutterstock Go crazy, dude. Salt’s membership in junk food’s holy trinity (along with sugar and fat) means it’s one of the food industry’s essential tools for making its products addictively good. (Journalist Michael Moss... 

Various species of whale are showing all sorts of places they shouldn’t be, like the Mediterranean, Cape Cod, and now, Namibia. Yesterday, scientists reported that they saw a gray whale off the African coast, which is really,...