The Green Bridge passes over full water levels at a section of Lake Oroville near the Bidwell Marina on July 20, 2011, in Oroville, California. (Paul Hames/California Department of Water Resources/Getty Images) Book it: This year will go down as the hottest in California’s history. With just two months left in the year, there’s a better than 99 percent chance that 2014 will be the warmest year on record for California, according to National Weather Service meteorologists. The state has...

The Green Bridge passes over full water levels at a section of Lake Oroville near the Bidwell Marina on July 20, 2011, in Oroville, California. (Paul Hames/California Department of Water Resources/Getty Images) With all the images of the drought-plagued, dried-up waterways of California (see above), and a growing population and economy, it's easy to assume that the U.S. would actually use more water now, than say, 40 years ago. But, according to a United States Geological Survey (USGS) report, the...

The phrase “abnormally dry” might conjure up a skin condition or your preferred type of martini. But it might just be the most positive words uttered in months about California’s relentless drought. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday, a tiny sliver of the Golden State is no longer in drought, the first time that’s happened since late April. “Abnormally dry” is what the Drought Monitor uses to describe areas on the fringes of drought. This week’s Drought Monitor...

A new study says that scientists underestimated the effects global warming is having on dead zones in bodies of water across the world. When fertilizer runoff is introduced into a body of water, it brings added nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus into the mix. These nutrients sustain microbes and algal blooms, creating dead zones that choke off oxygen availability to marine wildlife. (MORE: Global Warming Might Push Back Fall Foliage Transformations) Scientists have long known that warmer water increases this...

Keurigusers beware: Your beloved K-Cups may be harming the environment. According to Mother Jones, only 5 percent of the cups produced by Keurig Green Mountain, which is the most popular brand, are made of recyclable plastic. The other 95 percent are made of #7 composite plastic, which isn't recyclable in most of the U.S., the website explains. As for the 5 percent that is recyclable, theNatural Resources Defense Council saysthe cups' size decreases the chanceof the cups even going through...

The United States and China, two of the world's worst greenhouse gas emitters, agreed to a climate deal that calls for drastic improvements to both countries' pollution habits in coming years. Under the deal, the U.S. will cut emissions by 26 to 28 percent, compared to 2005's levels, by 2025. The U.S.'s new goals essentially speed up the pace of current emissions goals -- to cut emissions by 17 percent by 2020 -- starting in 2020. Meanwhile, China's goals were...

A view of the giant hole in Siberia, Russia. (Marya Zulinova, press service of the Governor YaNAO) Remember those huge, mysterious holes that carved out the earth seemingly overnight in Siberia, Russia? A research team was finally able to descend into one of the craters for the first time thanks to Siberia's frigid weather, and now, scientists from the group hope the expedition will finally answer questions about what caused the holes to form. High temperatures in the largely uninhabited...

Birds fly through a cloud of pollution which envelops a residential area near the Anand Vihar District of New Delhi on Jan. 8, 2016. (CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/Getty Images) More than 25 million people live in India's capital city, a place where industrial smokestacks, car exhaust and smoke from animal dung fires regularly foul the air. But recent years have seen a big uptick in the amount of pollution in New Delhi's air, to a level at which it is now often...

Bike riding might already be an environmentally friendly way to travel, but the Netherlands is taking it to the next level: the country recently unveiled two solar powered bike paths, and each has a unique twist. SolaRoad officially opened the first road in the world that converts sunlight into electricity in Krommenie this week. It stretches 70 metres long, but should reach 100 metres by 2016. The bike path produces enough energy to power three households. Across the country, in...

After the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster in Japan in 2011, the waters surrounding the power plant were instantly polluted with radioactive chemicals. Now, more than three years after the disaster, radioactivity has been detected 100 miles off the U.S. West Coast. Matt Sampson has all the details. ...

Lydia Holland fills up at a gas station in Sacramento, Calif. California says it leads the nation, and most of the world, with its efforts to curb climate change. In its bid to lower emissions, California's state government has imposed air quality standards with major teeth. With its cap-and-trade program, launched in 2012, and its regulations on businesses that emit pollutants, California has become a leading example of what it looks like for an entity to combat climate change on...

While severe weather like hurricanes and tornadoes typically only hit particular areas of the globe, lightning can strike anywhere. And it does, a lot. A bolt of lightning flashes through the sky and hits the ground somewhere around the world about100 times every second. That’s 8 million lightning strikes in a single day — yes, you read that right: just one day. Now, a new study finds that lightning strikes will become even more frequent as the planet warms, at...

Members of the public enjoy the warm weather down at Bondi Beach on October 31, 2014 in Sydney, Australia. Australia is expecting much hotter temperatures than usual for the next three months. (Daniel Munoz/Getty Images) The global average temperature for the world's land and ocean surfaces in October 2014 was the highest for any October since modern temperature record-keeping began in 1880, according to the latest global climate report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Last month also was...