warming

Arizona has warmed the fastest of any U.S. state since 1970 at about 0.64 degrees F per decade, and is the fourth fastest warming state since 1912, warming about 0.27 degrees F per decade.

Stream temperatures in the western U.S. are not warming as quickly as scientists expected, according to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters.

Global warming may initially increase plant growth in Arizona grasslands, but then will stunt growth as more time passes, according to a recent Nature Climate Change publication.

Three new analyses on climate extremes together explain how extremes may change in the future, what’s driving them, their impacts on people and ecosystems, and how we can adapt. The most extensive report is from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and it details the current state of knowledge on climate extremes.

Average global temperatures may rise by 5.4 degrees F by 2050, roughly twice the increase projected by the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience.

New research published in Ecology Letters shows that a single climate parameter, the timing of spring snowmelt, has many different effects on the population growth of the Mormon Fritillar

What had previously been thought—that mountain pine beetles are able to fit two reproductive cycles into a single season due to warming temperatures—has finally been documented by the authors of a new study set to be published in The American Naturalist in May.

Posted by Jeremy Weiss Jonathan Overpeck Julia Cole | on March 22, 2012
When prolonged high temperatures combine with scant precipitation, droughts intensify. This potent combination struck the southern U.S. in spring and summer of 2011-and may again in coming months-causing crops to wither and turning trees and shrubs into tinder. Record-setting wildland fires raced across parts of the Southwest and southern Plains. By the end of September, exceptional drought covered about half of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma combined. When all was said and done, damages exceeded $1 billion, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Scientists have produced additional evidence confirming that greenhouse gas emissions by humans are the primary force driving global warming.

Previously rare extreme summer temperatures are occurring more frequently in some regions of the U.S.—especially in the Southwest, the upper tier of the Midwest, and the Atlantic coast—due to climate change, according to a new study in Climatic Change.