ScienceDaily

Around 250 million years ago, most life on Earth was wiped out in an extinction known as the "Great Dying." Geologists have learned that the end came slowly from thousands of centuries of volcanic activity.

Around the world coral reefs are facing threats brought by climate change and dramatic shifts in sea temperatures. While warming has been the primary focus for scientists and ocean policy managers, cold can also cause significant damage. Scientists have shown that cool temperatures can inflict more damage in the short term, but heat is more destructive in the long run.

Blooms, or proliferation, of jellyfish have shown a substantial, visible impact on coastal populations -- clogged nets for fishermen, stinging waters for tourists, even choked intake lines for power plants -- and recent media reports have created a perception that the world's oceans are experiencing increases in jellyfish due to human activities such as global warming and overharvesting of fish.

A global study has questioned claims that jellyfish are increasing worldwide.

Tropical cyclones will cause $109 billion in damages by 2100, according to researchers in a new paper. That figure represents an increased vulnerability from population and especially economic growth, as well as the effects of climate change.

Even if the current weather situation may seem to go against it, the probability of cold winters with a lot of snow in Central Europe rises when the Arctic is covered by less sea ice in summer.

New research reveals how the arrival of the first plants 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages. The research reveals the effects that the first land plants had on the climate during the Ordovician Period, which ended 444 million years ago.

Coastal waters of the tropical Western Pacific produce natural halogenated organic molecules involving chlorine, bromine and iodine atoms that may damage the stratospheric ozone layer. This is the conclusion drawn from the initial findings of a field measurement campaign conducted in the South China Sea.

A new NASA study underscores the fact that greenhouse gases generated by human activity -- not changes in solar activity -- are the primary force driving global warming. The study offers an updated calculation of Earth's energy imbalance, the difference between the amount of solar energy absorbed by Earth's surface and the amount returned to space as heat.

Two decades after the United Nations established the Framework Convention on Climate Change in order to "prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system", the Arctic shows the first signs of a dangerous climate change.