Greenland loses 4 trillion pounds of ice in one day

Normally, the landscape in this photo would be a white ice sheet.

Steffen M. Olsen @SteffenMalskaer
  • Climate scientists say that Greenland is experiencing ice losses that are unusually early and heavy.
  • Two main weather factors are fueling the losses: a high-pressure system and the resulting low cloud cover.
  • Greenland is a major contributor to sea-level rise.
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Surprising Science

Are these 100 people killing the planet?

Controversial map names CEOs of 100 companies producing 71 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

Image: Jordan Engel, reused via Decolonial Media License 0.1
  • Just 100 companies produce 71 percent of the world's greenhouse gases.
  • This map lists their names and locations, and their CEOs.
  • The climate crisis may be too complex for these 100 people to solve, but naming and shaming them is a good start.
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Strange Maps

How a wee Scottish village is shining a light — literally — on rising seas

At high tide each night, bright lights predict the underwater future.

(Niittyvirta/Aho)
  • Lochmaddy is a seaside village sitting at the encroaching edge of the North Atlantic.
  • Artists dazzling lights depict the town's submerged future as the oceans continue rising.
  • It's an unsettling visualization of global warming's impact.
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Technology & Innovation

Human encroachment is obliterating chimpanzee culture

We are destroying who they are.

(Brenda Bakker/Shutterstock)
  • A study finds that human impact is decimating the cultures of chimpanzee communities in the wild.
  • Unique localized behaviors are being reduced by 88 percent.
  • Socialized learning in chimps has finally been established, just in time to be destroyed.
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Surprising Science

Human-driven climate change meets 'gold standard' of scientific certainty

New statistical analyses show that human-driven climate change is a virtual certainty.

Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash
  • While it's difficult to find people who deny climate change is happening, some still argue that humans are not climate change's primary cause.
  • By applying peer-reviewed statistical methods to 40 years' worth of satellite data, researchers have determined that the evidence of human-driven climate change has passed the gold standard of scientific certainty: the five-sigma level.
  • This threshold is used in particle physics to determine the existence of new particles; now, it's being used to definitively state that humans are the cause of climate change.
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weather anthropocene environment climate change science
Surprising Science