News
How climate change is knocking natural events wildly out of sync
Climate change is throwing off the timing of key events in the natural world, from the flowering of plants to the migrations of birds and mammals. Now, ecologists are warning that this could spiral out of control and cause whole ecosystems to break down.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
State of Play
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.