TaraPatta / Shutterstock
New research shows carbon in soil minerals is much more important than anybody realised.
Nicolas Rakotopare
Our tallest trees are world champions when it comes to capturing and storing carbon, but they don’t like the heat. Climate change will trigger mass tree deaths in Tasmania. Here’s what can be done.
Julian Uribe-Palomino/IMOS-CSIRO
Marine life known as zooplankton might be the biggest problem with getting carbon cycling right in climate models. The potential variations in carbon uptake are greater than global transport emissions.
Mycorrhizal fungi growing with a plant root
Dr Yoshihiro Kobae
New research about underground fungal filaments suggests these networks store a vast amount of carbon. All the more reason to preserve them.
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Labor must resist the false promise of carbon offsets in its safeguard mechanism. The only thing that matters is actually cutting emissions
Wood feeding termites (Microcerotermes spp ) inside their nest.
Johan Larson
Termites are about to experience a significant global expansion in their prime habitat, thanks to climate change. Here’s what that means for deadwood.
Salvatore Allegra / AP
May 25, 2022
Dietmar Müller , University of Sydney ; Adriana Dutkiewicz , University of Sydney ; Andrew Merdith , University of Leeds ; Ben Mather , University of Sydney ; Christopher Gonzalez , The University of Western Australia ; Sabin Zahirovic , University of Sydney ; Tobias Keller , Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich , and Weronika Gorczyk , The University of Western Australia
New modelling shows how tectonic plate movements, carbon-rich deep-sea sediment, and mountain weathering have regulated Earth’s climate.
Toa55/Shutterstock
Scientists are studying fires in Africa at different times of year to see how the smoke from these fires changes over the year.
gpointstudio / shutterstock
Here’s what to look out for.
These insects are basically little machines that convert carbon-rich leaves into nitrogen-rich poo.
(John Gunn)
As environmental engineers, invasive caterpillars can have remarkable effects on water quality and soil conditions. But from a climate perspective they’re pretty much a nuisance.
Many of our planet’s ecosystems depend on the health of soil.
Katya_Ershova/Pixabay
If we want to reduce carbon emissions and preserve planetary ecosystems, we need to protect our soils.
pio3/shutterstock
Even this radical scenario wouldn’t be as effective as it may first seem.
The plastic problem isn’t separate from climate change.
(Shutterstock)
Plastic has become a major part of the carbon cycle, a discovery that has implications for how we tackle climate change.
Helen Hotson/Shutterstock
The UK’s marshes, bogs and fens provided the bare necessities of daily life for many centuries.
Paolo Paradiso / shutterstock
It depends on where and how it’s grown, and how it is disposed of or recycled.
Chris Lawton/Unsplash
Warmer temperatures cannot increase the amount of carbon deciduous trees absorb in each growing season, a new study suggests.
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The updated methods are providing a clearer picture of how Earth and its inhabitants evolved over the past 60,000 years - and thus, providing new insight into its future.
Jeremy Kieran/Unsplash
The age of a forest can influence how effectively it offsets our emissions.
Weathering of rocks like these basalt formations in Idaho triggers chemical processes that remove carbon dioxide from the air.
Matthew Dillon/Flickr
To avoid global warming on a catastrophic scale, nations need to reduce emissions and find ways to pull carbon from the air. One promising solution: spreading rock dust on farm fields.
native forest.
Tree planting projects that use non-native trees risk releasing more carbon back into the atmosphere, undermining efforts to fight climate change.