Increasing coral bleaching will be worst for the most biodiverse reefs along the equator, impacting the livelihoods and nutrition of the people who depend on them.
In California, El Niño helped fuel a wet 2023 and early 2024.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Paul Roundy, University at Albany, State University of New York
The strong El Niño that started in 2023 will still have big impacts at least through March. Here’s what to watch for next.
Aerial view of a waterfall in the valley of Vilcabamba, Ecuador, where an historic lawsuit was won by a river in 2011.
Curioso.Photography/Shutterstock
Some countries have managed to elevate nature and ecosystems to the status of legal entities. Do these innovations really help to protect the environment?
The El Niño pattern stands out in the warm sea surface temperature anomalies in the Pacific in 2023.
NOAA Climate.gov
New research shows densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa could harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm tropical seas near the equator.
The idea that the Coriolis force influences how water drains frequently appears in popular culture and urban legends.
frantic00 / Shutterstock
Climate change has already made tropical oceans too hot for some marine species to survive. As they flee towards the poles, the implications for ecosystems and human livelihoods will be profound.
Up-close encounter in the Central African Republic with a black bee-eater, Merops gularis.
Claire Loiseau
An ecologist describes her field research and work on the impact of human activity on birds and their pathogens, which has taken her from Alaska to the Gulf of Guinea.
The Monkeypox virus was isolated most recently in 2012 from a dead infant mangabey (species of monkey) in Ivory Coast.
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A disease suspected to be monkeypox is on the rampage in Nigeria. In less than one month, it has spread to seven of the country’s 36 states and infected 31 people.
The mass of the Earth is big enough that the gravitational force it creates can pull the hard shape of ice, rock and metal into a sphere.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data from Miguel Román, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Imagine the Earth pulling everything it is made up of, all of its mass, towards its centre. This happens evenly all over the Earth, causing it to take on a round shape.
Tropical forests in the Congo for example have exceptionally high animal and plant species.
Shutterstock
Forests and savannas are expected to be strongly affected in the coming decades by changing rainfall patterns. But land use will also have a major impact.
‘Tropics’ may conjure images of sun-kissed islands, but the expanding tropical zone could bring drought and cyclones further south.
Pedro Fernandes/Flickr