More trees will cool the climate and suppress fires, but mainly if planted in the tropics, according to a new UC Riverside study. 

Farmers in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, pay four to six times more for crop insurance than their counterparts in the upper Midwest, and Hunter Biram wanted to know why. The result of his research with colleagues in Kansas was published in late July in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

According to the 35th annual State of the Climate report, greenhouse gas concentrations, the global temperature across land and oceans, global sea level, and ocean heat content all reached record highs in 2024, and glaciers lost the most ice of any year on record. The authoritative international yearly review of the world’s climate, published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), is based this year on contributions from 589 scientists in 58 countries.

Harvard SEAS and University of Chicago researchers have tested and validated lightweight nanofabricated structures that can passively float in the mesophere, which is about 45 miles above Earth’s surface. The devices levitate via photophoresis, or sunlight-driven propulsion, which occurs in the low-pressure conditions of the upper atmosphere.