You may be waiting until Dec. 21 to celebrate winter but if you’re meteorologically oriented, now is the time to break out the hot chocolate and ugly sweaters. Meteorological winter officially kicked off this week with a bang in California, providing some much-needed rain to start the wet season there. And over the next 6-10 days, the majority of the U.S. is likely to experience some unseasonably warm temperatures, according to forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (MORE:...

In some Canadian lakes, the water has been turning into a creepy jelly-like consistency, baffling swimmers and locals alike. The find prompted researchers at Cambridge University to investigate the cause, and in a recently released study, scientists concluded the nasty occurrence is our fault. Specifically, it's acid rain that's choking off calciumand causing some organisms to struggle to survive,the report said. Among those plankton is Daphnia, which relies on high levels of calcium in the water to thrive, Phys.org reported....

Leaders from countries across the globe are meeting in Lima, Peru,for the U.N. Climate Talks with the hope that they can agree on a draft to an international climate agreement that would reverse the course of anthropogenic climate change. With 2014 on course to become the warmest year on record and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently announcing that, due to carbon emissions, humans were on pace for a"dangerous" rise in global temperatures, scientists say a landmark international...