As the drought in California continues to put a strain on the water supply, another long-standing issue comes into play: the ground is sinking. According to a report by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the State Department of Water Resources (DWR), an occurrence known as subsidence has been causing . Subsidence is the gradual caving in or sinking of an area of land. In California, the ground is collapsing because . When this water is pumped out of the aquifer...

The potential for a catastrophic "blowout" of poisonous wastewater from an inactive gold mine in Colorado was known to U.S. officials, the Associated Press reported after reviewing documents released by the Environmental Protection Agency. The revelation came Friday after the AP and other media organizations had prodded the EPA for weeks after 3 million gallons of toxic water spilled into Colorado's Animas River on Aug. 5, following an excavation of the idled Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado. The spill...

A massive chunk of ice that scientists say is roughly the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland's Jakobshavn Isbrae Glacier and begun floating into the sea, in what is likely one of the biggest ice calving events in recorded human history. The iceberg that cleaved from Jakobshavn –Greenland's fastest-moving glacier, according to NASA– is so large that , and was captured by both NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) satellites before and after it broke off earlier this month....

This image illustrates where the troposphere ends abruptly at the tropopause, which appears in the image as the sharp boundary between the orange- and blue- colored atmosphere. The silvery-blue noctilucent clouds extend far above the Earth's troposphere. (NASA/Getty Images) Noctilucent clouds are a mysterious marvel of the night sky. The beautiful blue ice clouds are a rare sight to behold, but are they pointing to something sinister in the atmosphere? According to NASA,sent tons of volcanic ash high into the...

Fish, wildlife and ultimately people could be exposed to harmful levels of toxic chemicals in the waters of the Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon, according to a new study led by the U.S. Geological Survey. The study, published last week in the scientific journal , found that concentrations of and in the Grand Canyon's food webs – the interconnected food chains that exist within an ecosystem – regularly exceeded levels considered risky for consumption by fish and...

As the populations in West African cities continue to climb, the issue of air pollution poses a large threat that has yet to receive proper attention from authorities. Almost nothing is known about the pollutants that emerge from new urban centers or about their impact on weather systems, crops and public health at large, reports Quartz Africa. There are . Anthropogenic emissions, which are those caused by human activity, have been in West Africa, particularly in cities along the Guinea...

California isn’t the only place feeling the wrath of drought of this summer. Central Europe is also feeling the heat as the region suffers its worst drought since 2003, and climate change experts worry that it may be a sign of what’s to come. According to The Guardian, The bone dry conditions stretch as far as northern Italy and Spain where farmers have taken a serious hit as agricultural production has slowed and harvests reaped far smaller yields than past...

President Barack Obama opened his historic visit to Alaska this week with a warning to global leaders: take action now or forever face the consequences of climate change. That message marked the theme of the president's three-day tour of the nation’s 49th state. "On this issue — of all issues —there is such a thing as being too late," Obama said in a speech that opened the “GLACIER” conference in Anchorage, Alaska. A home destroyed by beach erosion lies on...

A chinook salmon near Umatilla, Oregon. Changes to Pacific ecosystems may be due to sea temperature fluctuation, a new paper says. (Photo by Jeff T. Green/Getty Images) Two “rapid and widespread” changes in the ecosystem of the North Pacific have puzzled scientists for decades. But now, a new paper holds that climate fluctuations — longer and less frequent than perhaps once believed — are behind this scientific mystery. In both 1977 and 1989, salmon and plankton populations in some North...

An emaciated polar bear is seen on a small sheet of ice in this image taken in August in Svalbard, north of mainland Norway. (Kerstin Langenberger) While it's difficult to appreciate the dangers of Earth's changing climate for many of us in the U.S., global warming is having dramatic impacts around the world. The proof is in the photos above. From walruses crowding the shores in Alaska to a drinking water shortage in California in February, the impacts of climate...

This photo taken on June 13, 2011 shows a Chinese boy running along the rubbish-strewn beach along the sea coast in Anquan village, south China's Hainan province. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) The Pacific Ocean has long been the ultimate symbol of paradise and marine diversity, but now, it has become a heartbreaking picture of devastating pollution. Throughout the world’s largest ocean, there are or areas with swirling vortices of marine litter, says National Geographic. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the most...

This image, taken Aug. 7, 2015, shows a large algal bloom in the Baltic Sea. (ESA Photo) Swirling in the middle of the Baltic Sea, it may resemble a hurricane, but the beauty of an algal bloom has a toxic side as well. The image above was captured by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2A satellite on Aug. 7 as it passed over the Baltic Sea. It shows a massive algal bloom glowing green in the water as a ship passes...

Before the opening of the annual Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), leaders of the six smallest members teamed up to give Australia and New Zealand a tongue-lashing for their minimal efforts in the war on climate change. The five-day forum, which began Monday, comes and caused heavy flooding in Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands. Representatives from the Cook Islands, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau and Tuvalu met beforehand to, calling the rest of the world to action. They stated...