Climate News

December 22, 2025

Top Headlines

Global Warming Could Trigger the Next Ice Age

Dec. 21, 2025 Scientists have uncovered a missing feedback in Earth’s carbon cycle that could cause global warming to overshoot into an ice age. As the planet warms, nutrient-rich runoff fuels plankton blooms that bury huge amounts of carbon in the ocean. In ...

Scientists Found Climate Change Hidden in Old Military Air Samples

Dec. 21, 2025 Old military air samples turned out to be a treasure trove of biological DNA, allowing scientists to track moss spores over 35 years. The results show mosses now release spores up to a month earlier than in the 1990s. Even more surprising, the ...

A Stunning New Forecast Shows When Thousands of Glaciers Will Vanish

Dec. 19, 2025 New research reveals when glaciers around the world will vanish and why every fraction of a degree of warming could decide their ...

The Western U.S. Tried to Stop Wildfires and It Backfired

Dec. 18, 2025 Much of the western U.S. is overdue for wildfire, with decades of suppression allowing fuel to build up across millions of hectares. Researchers estimate that 74% of the region is in a fire deficit, meaning far more land needs to burn to restore ...

A Hidden Climate Shift May Have Sparked Epic Pacific Voyages 1,000 Years Ago

Dec. 15, 2025 Around 1,000 years ago, a major climate shift reshaped rainfall across the South Pacific, making western islands like Samoa and Tonga drier while eastern islands such as Tahiti became increasingly ...

Scientists Find Hidden Rainfall Pattern That Could Reshape Farming

Dec. 12, 2025 New research shows that crops are far more vulnerable when too much rainfall originates from land rather than the ocean. Land-sourced moisture leads to weaker, less reliable rainfall, heightening drought risk. The U.S. Midwest and East Africa are ...

A Silent Ocean Pandemic Is Wiping Out Sea Urchins Worldwide

Dec. 12, 2025 A sudden, unexplained mass die-off is decimating sea urchins around the world, including catastrophic losses in the Canary Islands. Key reef-grazing species are reaching historic lows, and their ability to reproduce has nearly halted in some ...

New Fossils in Qatar Reveal a Tiny Sea Cow Hidden for 21 Million Years

Dec. 12, 2025 Fossils from Qatar have revealed a small, newly identified sea cow species that lived in the Arabian Gulf more than 20 million years ago. The site contains the densest known collection of fossil sea cow bones, showing that these animals once thrived ...

Scientists Find a Massive Hidden CO2 Sponge Beneath the Ocean Floor

Dec. 11, 2025 Researchers found that eroded lava rubble beneath the South Atlantic can trap enormous amounts of CO2 for tens of millions of years. These porous breccia deposits store far more carbon than previously sampled ocean crust. The discovery reshapes how ...

The Deep Ocean Is Fixing Carbon in Ways No One Expected

Dec. 10, 2025 Researchers have uncovered surprising evidence that the deep ocean’s carbon-fixing engine works very differently than long assumed. While ammonia-oxidizing archaea were thought to dominate carbon fixation in the sunless depths, experiments show ...

Rising Temperatures Are Slowing Early Childhood Development

Dec. 10, 2025 Researchers discovered that unusually high temperatures can hinder early childhood development. Children living in hotter conditions were less likely to reach key learning milestones, especially in reading and basic math skills. Those facing ...

Scientists Uncover a Volcanic Trigger Behind the Black Death

Dec. 8, 2025 A newly analyzed set of climate data points to a major volcanic eruption that may have played a key role in the Black Death’s arrival. Cooling and crop failures across Europe pushed Italian states to bring in grain from the Black Sea. Those ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:35pm EST

Earth May Have Been Ravaged by “invisible” Explosions from Space

Dec. 19, 2025 Cosmic “touchdown airbursts” — explosions of comets or asteroids above Earth’s surface — may be far more common and destructive than previously thought, according to new research. Unlike ...

This Rare Earthquake Did Everything Scientists Hoped to See

Dec. 16, 2025 A rare, ultra-long earthquake in Myanmar revealed that mature faults can deliver their full force directly to the surface. The discovery could mean stronger shaking near faults like California’s ...

Scientists Discover a New State of Matter at Earth’s Center

Dec. 10, 2025 New research reveals that Earth’s solid inner core is actually in a superionic state, where carbon atoms flow freely through a solid iron lattice. This unusual behavior makes the core soft, ...

Researchers Solve a Century-Old North Atlantic Cold Spot Mystery

Dec. 7, 2025 A century-old North Atlantic cold patch is now linked to a long-term slowdown in the AMOC, the climate-regulating conveyor belt of ocean water. Only weakened-AMOC models match observed temperature ...

3.3 Billion-Year-Old Crystals Reveal a Shockingly Active Early Earth

Dec. 4, 2025 Fresh evidence suggests early Earth wasn’t locked under a rigid stagnant lid but was already experiencing intense subduction. Ancient melt inclusions and advanced simulations point to continents ...

New Data Reveals One of the Smallest Ozone Holes in Decades

Dec. 4, 2025 This year’s ozone hole over Antarctica ranked among the smallest since the early 1990s, reflecting steady progress from decades of global action under the Montreal Protocol. Declining chlorine ...

Early Earth’s Sky May Have Created the First Ingredients for Life

Dec. 3, 2025 Researchers recreated conditions from billions of years ago and found that Earth’s young atmosphere could make key molecules linked to life. These sulfur-rich compounds, including certain amino ...

A Hidden Antarctic Shift Unleashed the Carbon That Warmed the World

Dec. 2, 2025 As the last Ice Age waned and the Holocene dawned, deep-ocean circulation around Antarctica underwent dramatic shifts that helped release long-stored carbon back into the atmosphere. Deep-sea ...

New Research Reveals the Hidden Organism Behind Lake Erie’s Toxic Blooms

Dec. 2, 2025 Dolichospermum, a type of cyanobacteria thriving in Lake Erie’s warming waters, has been identified as the surprising culprit behind the lake’s dangerous saxitoxins—some of the most potent ...

Satellites Spot Rapid “Doomsday Glacier” Collapse

Dec. 1, 2025 Two decades of satellite and GPS data show the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf slowly losing its grip on a crucial stabilizing point as fractures multiply and ice speeds up. Scientists warn this pattern ...

Polluted Air Quietly Erases the Benefits of Exercise

Nov. 28, 2025 Long-term inhalation of toxic air appears to dull the protective power of regular workouts, according to a massive global study spanning more than a decade and over a million adults. While exercise ...

A Global Shipping Detour Just Revealed a Hidden Climate Twist

Nov. 26, 2025 Rerouted shipping during Red Sea conflicts accidentally created a massive real-world experiment, letting scientists study how new low-sulfur marine fuels affect cloud formation. The sudden surge of ...

Scientists May Have Found the Planet That Made the Moon

Nov. 23, 2025 About 4.5 billion years ago, a colossal impact between the young Earth and a mysterious planetary body called Theia changed everything—reshaping Earth, forming the Moon, and scattering clues across ...

Solar Superstorm Gannon Crushed Earth’s Plasmasphere to a Record Low

Nov. 23, 2025 A massive solar storm in May 2024 gave scientists an unprecedented look at how Earth’s protective plasma layer collapses under intense space weather. With the Arase satellite in a perfect observing ...

Massive Hidden Structures Deep Inside Earth May Explain How Life Began

Nov. 20, 2025 Scientists may finally be closing in on the origins of two colossal, mysterious structures buried nearly 1,800 miles inside Earth—hidden formations that have puzzled researchers for decades. New ...

Ancient Bogs Reveal a Hidden 15,000-Year Climate Shift

Nov. 19, 2025 Researchers discovered that ancient peat bogs grew rapidly when the Southern Westerly Winds suddenly shifted thousands of years ago. These wind changes affected both peatland carbon storage and how ...

New Report Reveals Major Risks in Turning Oceans Into Carbon Sinks

Nov. 20, 2025 Experts say the ocean could help absorb carbon dioxide, but today’s technologies are too uncertain to be scaled up safely. New findings released during COP30 highlight the risks of rushing into ...

Secret Chemical Traces Reveal Life on Earth 3. 3 Billion Years Ago

Nov. 18, 2025 Researchers have discovered chemical traces of life in rocks older than 3.3 billion years, offering a rare look at Earth’s earliest biology. By combining advanced chemical methods with artificial ...

Scientists Find Coastal Seas Acidifying Shockingly Fast

Nov. 30, 2025 New findings show that some coastal regions will become far more acidic than scientists once thought, with upwelling systems pulling deep, CO2-rich waters to the surface and greatly intensifying ...

Scientists Uncover a Massive Hidden Crater in China That Rewrites Earth’s Recent History

Nov. 14, 2025 A massive, well-preserved impact crater has been uncovered in Guangdong, revealing the signature of a powerful meteorite strike during the Holocene. Measuring 900 meters across, it dwarfs other known ...

Earth Is Slowly Peeling Its Continents from Below, Fueling Ocean Volcanoes

Nov. 12, 2025 Researchers discovered that continents don’t just split at the surface—they also peel from below, feeding volcanic activity in the oceans. Simulations reveal that slow mantle waves strip ...

Meet the Desert Survivor That Grows Faster the Hotter It Gets

Nov. 9, 2025 In Death Valley’s relentless heat, Tidestromia oblongifolia doesn’t just survive—it thrives. Michigan State University scientists discovered that the plant can quickly adjust its photosynthetic ...

9,000-Year-Old Ice Melt Shows How Fast Antarctica Can Fall Apart

Nov. 9, 2025 Around 9,000 years ago, East Antarctica went through a dramatic meltdown that was anything but isolated. Scientists have discovered that warm deep ocean water surged beneath the region’s floating ...

Space Dust Reveals How Fast the Arctic Is Changing

Nov. 13, 2025 Arctic sea ice is disappearing fast, and scientists have turned to an unexpected cosmic clue—space dust—to uncover how ice has changed over tens of thousands of years. By tracking ...

Deep-Sea Mining Starves Life in the Ocean’s Twilight Zone

Nov. 8, 2025 Scientists have discovered that deep-sea mining plumes can strip vital nutrition from the ocean’s twilight zone, replacing natural food with nutrient-poor sediment. The resulting “junk food” ...

Scientists Finally Discover What’s Fueling Massive Sargassum Blooms

Nov. 19, 2025 Massive Sargassum blooms sweeping across the Caribbean and Atlantic are fueled by a powerful nutrient partnership: phosphorus pulled to the surface by equatorial upwelling and nitrogen supplied by ...

Laser Satellites Expose a Secret Antarctic Carbon Burst

Nov. 8, 2025 A new study shows that the Southern Ocean releases far more carbon dioxide in winter than once thought. By combining laser satellite data with AI analysis, scientists managed to “see” through the ...

Satellite Images Reveal the Fastest Antarctic Glacier Retreat Ever

Nov. 14, 2025 Hektoria Glacier’s sudden eight-kilometer collapse stunned scientists, marking the fastest modern ice retreat ever recorded in Antarctica. Its flat, below-sea-level ice plain allowed huge slabs of ...

Turning CO2 Into Clean Fuel Faster and Cheaper

Nov. 5, 2025 A new copper-magnesium-iron catalyst transforms CO2 into CO at low temperatures with record-breaking efficiency and stability. The discovery paves the way for affordable, scalable production of ...

Even Climate Fixes Might Not Save Coffee, Chocolate, and Wine, Scientists Warn

Nov. 4, 2025 Even with futuristic geoengineering methods like Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, the fate of wine, coffee, and cacao crops remains uncertain. Scientists found that while this intervention could ...