The most comprehensive picture of the rapidly thinning glaciers along the coastline of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has been created using satellite lasers. (British Antarctic Survey press release)

El Niño, the periodic eastern Pacific phenomenon credited with shielding the US and Caribbean from severe hurricane seasons, may be overshadowed by its brother in the central Pacific due to global warming, according to a new study. (University of Miami press release)

Researchers have concluded that the number of hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic Basin is increasing, but there is no evidence that their individual strengths are any greater than storms of the past or that the chances of a U.S. strike are up. (Clemson University press release)

A fossil supervolcano has been revealed in a rare uplift of the Earth's crust in the Sesia Valley of the Italian Alps. (Southern Methodist University press release)

A new study indicates most of the world's low-lying river deltas are sinking from human activity, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms and putting tens of millions of people at risk. (University of Colorado at Boulder press release)

An international study has demonstrated the impact of global warming and its effect on plant life. (Monash University press release)

Challenging conventional wisdom, new research finds that the number of sunspots provides an incomplete measure of changes in the Sun's impact on Earth over the course of the 11-year solar cycle. (NCAR/UCAR press release)

The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past, according to the research of a large, international team. (Penn State University press release)

Scientists have found a rare species of algae that is tolerant of stressful environmental conditions and that proliferated in Caribbean corals when the corals' more-sensitive algae were being expelled during the sea-temperature warming of 2005. (Penn State press release)

Using a completely new method, researchers have shown that high atmospheric and oceanic oxygen content makes the climate colder. (University of Copenhagen press release)

Like the robotic rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which wheeled tirelessly across the dusty surface of Mars, a new robot spent most of July traveling across the muddy ocean bottom, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) off the California coast. (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute press release)

Atmospheric scientists have discovered a basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth's magnetosphere, which was previously unknown. (University of California - Los Angeles press release)

Tornadoes that occur from hurricanes moving inland from the Gulf Coast are increasing in frequency, according to researchers. (Georgia Institute of Technology press release)

Arctic temperatures in the 1990s reached their warmest level of any decade in at least 2,000 years. New research in the journal Science provides new evidence that the Arctic would be cooling if not for greenhouse gas emissions that are overpowering natural climate patterns. (NCAR/UCAR press release)

A clearer picture of climate change is emerging from the sediment drawn from the bottom of Arctic lakes. (Northern Arizona University press release)

Scientists identify 'tipping points' at which sudden shifts to new conditions occur. (National Science Foundation press release)

A new study finds that large-scale farming projects can erode the Earth's surface at rates comparable to those of the world's largest rivers and glaciers. (University of British Columbia press release)

Persistent winds and a weakened current in the Mid-Atlantic contributed to higher than normal sea levels along the Eastern Seaboard in June and July, according to a new NOAA technical report. (NOAA Headquarters press release)

A new paper elucidates how underground methane in frozen regions would escape and concludes that methane trapped under the ocean may already be escaping through vents in the sea floor a million times faster than previously believed. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology press release)

Scientists have developed a new technique to monitor movements beneath the Earth's surface, helping them better understand how earthquakes behave. (University of Edinburgh press release)