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Since 1953, the dates when Japan’s plants bloom in the spring have been arriving progressively earlier in the calendar year, and the dates when the trees change color and lose their leaves in the fall have been arriving progressively later. The average date when the country’s famous Cherry trees bloom is now arriving an average [...]

One of the most important sources of animal protein in East Africa is being threatened by rising temperatures. Over the past few decades, the average air temperature in the region around Africa’s Lake Tanganyika (which sits on the borders of Congo, Zambia, Tanzania and Burundi) has warmed by about one degree Fahrenheit. This has corresponded [...]

The Earth’s largest and oldest lake, Russia’s Lake Baikal, provides habitat for over 2,500 species, most of which are found nowhere else on Earth. Baikal has changed rapidly over the last 60 years. These changes include a two degree Fahrenheit rise in the temperature of the water, a corresponding 300 percent increase in chlorophyll concentration [...]

In Southeast Arizona, there has been a marked increase in wintertime rainfall since 1977, which has resulted in a three-fold increase in shrub cover. Prior to this period, grasses had dominated the region’s vegetation system. As the shrubs have moved in, so have species of small pocket-mice, which are replacing large kangaroo rats. One species [...]

During the warm seasons (spring through fall), the water in the Baltic Sea is stable and stratified. This means that the warmest and least dense water is on the surface, and as you dive deeper and deeper, layers of progressively colder, saltier, and denser water are encountered. During the decades of the 1970’s and 1980’s, [...]

Polar bears, Earth’s largest land predator, are most common on annual sea ice that sits over shallow seas. This ice provides the bears with a platform from which they can hunt for food. In Canada’s Western Hudson Bay region, which is at the southernmost extent of the polar bear’s range, winter and spring are the [...]

While forests fires may be the most visible and dramatic events that reshape North America’s forests, outbreaks of insect “pests” actually affect an area 45 times larger than that affected by fire. Generally, insects attack trees weakened by things like drought, wind storms, and fire, as healthy trees are usually able to fend-off attacks from [...]

In northern Québec, patches of Black Spruce forests exist alongside the arctic shrub tundra, forming an ecological zone known as forest-tundra. Heavy winter snows, short frost-free growing seasons, and high winds limit the possible area in which Black Spruce trees can grow. These harsh conditions also limit how tall these trees can grow, and in [...]

In the mid-latitude climates, insect species have a dormant period during the cold winter months, meaning that there is a limited period of time throughout the year when they can reproduce. In regions where there is little seasonal difference in rainfall and temperature, such as in the equatorial rainforests, insects do not have a dormant [...]

Climate variability in the mid- to high-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, or the area from about 35 degrees North to the poles, is largely controlled by two naturally occurring climate oscillations, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). In 1977, both oscillations shifted from negative to positive phases, which resulted in [...]

Did you know that 75 percent of the water resources in the West originate from snowmelt? Mountain snowpack accumulates over the winter and as it melts during the spring, summer, and fall, it feeds the region’s rivers and streams. Over the last half of the 20th Century, November to March temperatures in the Pacific Northwest [...]

Since at least the late 1970’s, trees in the Amazon have been growing faster despite the fact that climbing vines (lianas), which grow on trees as parasites and sap their energy, have also increased in number and spatial extent. This growth means that the rate at which each hectare (2.47 acres) in the Amazon takes [...]

The June 15, 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which sits on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, injected between 31 and 44 billion pounds of sulfur dioxide (SO2) into Earth’s stratosphere (the second layer of the Earth’s atmosphere). This layer of SO2 circled the globe in about three weeks, and by the end of [...]

The summer of 2003 was one of Europe’s warmest on record and maximum sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Mediterranean were well above average (by about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit). These temperatures were the highest recorded between 1972 and 2004.  Also during this period, years when the maximum water temperature was above average were years when [...]

While cold temperatures limit growth for many plant species inhabiting the boreal forest and tundra regions of the northern hemisphere (from about 50 to 80 degrees North), increases in temperature can cause more evaporation from the soil and lead to drought stress. This appears to be the case with White Spruce forests in Alaska. A [...]

The Labrador Sea Water (LWS) is a stream of cold, fresh, and oxygen rich water that travels down the western Atlantic coast from the Labrador Sea, which is located between Greenland and Newfoundland, towards the Equator. This stream forms in the late fall/early winter after the seasonal accumulation of glacial melt water, which is less [...]

Southern California’s Santa Rosa Mountains, located about two hours southeast of Los Angeles, stand out as forest islands amongst the lowland desert to the east, and the chaparral scrubland to the west. Plants not capable of tolerating the hot and dry conditions of the lowlands find refuge at the cooler and wetter high elevations. Over [...]

While land and sea surface temperature trends are the most common measures of climate change, changes in bottom temperatures, especially in shallow seas, can have major implications for marine species. Ocean species can generally adjust their ranges more easily than land species, as there are fewer geographic barriers in the ocean and many fish species [...]

Over the 20th century in the polar region of Russia’s Ural Mountains, there was a 1.6 degree Fahrenheit rise in average summertime temperature. Cold temperatures are usually the limiting factor for tree growth at the poles and high elevations.  Warming tends to allow trees to grow at higher elevations than they previously could, and also [...]

A common cotton disease in the southeast, hardlock, is caused by fungus and affected by temperature and humidity. The disease does better during years when humidity and rainfall levels are above average, especially during the months of July to September, when cotton plant flowers and bolls (pods containing 32 seeds from which the cotton fibers [...]