The growing frequency of climate extremes affected human health and caused wide-scale damages to the ecosystems that people depend upon, including agriculture, fisheries and freshwater.
The Supreme Court recently dealt defeat to Florida in its 20-year legal battle with Georgia over river water. Other interstate water contests loom, but there are no sure winners in these lawsuits.
Hundreds of thousands of lakes, rivers and streams in the Arctic exist only because of the permafrost that lies beneath them. The warming Arctic threatens to change that.
Why did Earth’s climate rapidly cool 12,800 years ago? Evidence is mounting that a comet or asteroid collision is to blame, with new support coming from the bottom of a South Carolina lake.
Freshwater fish are suffering as drought becomes more common and severe. Whether they survive will depend on how governments manage rivers and lakes, and on taking action against climate change.
It’s cheaper to prevent biological invasions than to react after they happen. But it’s hard to detect invaders while there are still just a few of them. Knowing when and where to look can help.
Roughly 10,000 tons of plastic enter the Great Lakes every year, and scientists want to know where it ends up. There are some parallels to ocean plastics, but also important differences.
A recent study shows plankton that have adapted to road salt have disrupted circadian rhythms. This finding suggests that environmental pollutants could also affect human circadian clocks.