Failure to curb global warming now could cost future generations of Canadians trillions of dollars in wildfire impacts alone, according to a new Simon Fraser University study.

A SFU researcher says the cost of climate change-driven wildfires in Canada could exceed $2 trillion cumulatively over the 21st century. The study is among the first to put a price tag on projected Canadian wildfire activity driven by climate change.

Forest expansion and thickening after British colonisation has created landscapes more prone to burning, amplifying the influence of climate change and propelling Australia’s wildfire crisis, a new study finds.  

A new study of multiple large language models (LLMs) found that when users asked chatbots for advice, they were more likely to make suggestions that favour the status quo over alternatives. The tendency of artificial intelligence to default to more common advice could be bad news for the climate.

The 2023-24 El Niño brought simultaneous extreme heat and drought to 75% of tropical forests for months on end. Now, a new study in Earth's Future indicates that those conditions may have been a preview of annual norms for future tropical forests just a couple of decades away, even under moderate-emissions scenarios, and even outside of El Niño years.

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) leads an international multidisciplinary consortium, called ZENITIA, which will develop scientific tools and models to safely and efficiently integrate next-generation aircraft and sustainable fuels into European air transport.

Scientists calculated the total gross ecosystem product that the world’s oyster reefs could deliver to planetary health and human wellbeing, given adequate interventions for habitat restoration and protection. They estimated that the combined potential ecosystem services of oyster reefs, including food production, carbon sequestration, water filtration, and coastline protection, could be worth up to $12 trillion per year. For this potential to be realized, 90% of sites suitable for oyster reefs would require restoration, while 80% would need protection through conservation efforts.

Research by INRAE and AgroParisTech suggests that global warming could have an overall positive effect on sorghum yields in Europe. Sorghum is a promising alternative to maize in livestock feed. Additionally, the crop requires less water and can tolerate higher temperatures. The researchers carried out simulations that used past climate data and future climate scenarios with the broader goal of developing new strategies for European agriculture. Their results were published in Earth’s Future.

A new study finds that coastal forest loss in North Carolina’s Albermarle-Pamlico Peninsula began accelerating after 2010 and may still be speeding up.  The study also found that N.C. lost more than 20% of its coastal forest between 1985 and 2021.