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How Climate Change Threatens Costa Rica’s Peatlands

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Sunday, March 23, 2025

In Costa Rica’s Cordillera de Talamanca, a team of researchers from the Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED), Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR), and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) has uncovered a vibrant yet vulnerable world of biodiversity. Their study, titled “Flora of High-Mountain Tropical Peatlands: Threats and Management Measures, Cordillera de Talamanca, Costa Rica,” identified 67 plant species thriving in the region’s high-mountain tropical peatlands. These unique ecosystems within the Macizo de la Muerte between El Empalme and Cerro Bellavista in Tapantí National Park, span an altitude of 2,400 to 3,100 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l.). The team surveyed five distinct peatlands, revealing both the richness of these habitats and the threats they face. The results painted a striking contrast. Peatlands in the Salsipuedes and Cerro Paramillo sectors, sheltered within protected areas, displayed greater floristic diversity, with a variety of plants adapted to the soggy, high-altitude conditions. However, three peatlands outside state protection—closer to the bustling Inter-American Highway—showed lower biodiversity. Researchers attribute this decline to the “edge effect,” where habitat boundaries disrupt ecosystems, and to agro-productive activities like farming that encroach on these fragile zones. Near the highway, the team observed a shift in plant life, with species requiring less water dominating the landscape—a sign of environmental stress. Peatlands, often overlooked, are vital to the Mesoamerican Hotspot, a globally recognized cradle of biodiversity. Beyond harboring unique flora, they act as natural sponges, storing water and carbon, and serve as sensitive barometers of human influence. The study pinpointed climate change and anthropogenic pressures, such as land development, as major risks. With 40.3% of the inventoried species identified as ecologically significant—either as keystone species supporting other life or as biogeographical rarities—the stakes for conservation are high. Looking ahead, the researchers aim to broaden their exploration across the Cordillera de Talamanca, hoping to gather more data to shape effective management strategies. Their work underscores an urgent call to action: preserving these highland ecosystems is not just about saving plants, but about safeguarding a delicate balance that benefits the region and beyond. As climate pressures mount, these findings could guide Costa Rica—and the world—in protecting nature’s unsung heroes. The post How Climate Change Threatens Costa Rica’s Peatlands appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

These unique ecosystems within the Macizo de la Muerte between El Empalme and Cerro Bellavista in Tapantí National Park, span an altitude of 2,400 to 3,100 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l.). The team surveyed five distinct peatlands, revealing both the richness of these habitats and the threats they face.

The results painted a striking contrast. Peatlands in the Salsipuedes and Cerro Paramillo sectors, sheltered within protected areas, displayed greater floristic diversity, with a variety of plants adapted to the soggy, high-altitude conditions. However, three peatlands outside state protection—closer to the bustling Inter-American Highway—showed lower biodiversity.

Researchers attribute this decline to the “edge effect,” where habitat boundaries disrupt ecosystems, and to agro-productive activities like farming that encroach on these fragile zones. Near the highway, the team observed a shift in plant life, with species requiring less water dominating the landscape—a sign of environmental stress.

Peatlands, often overlooked, are vital to the Mesoamerican Hotspot, a globally recognized cradle of biodiversity. Beyond harboring unique flora, they act as natural sponges, storing water and carbon, and serve as sensitive barometers of human influence. The study pinpointed climate change and anthropogenic pressures, such as land development, as major risks. With 40.3% of the inventoried species identified as ecologically significant—either as keystone species supporting other life or as biogeographical rarities—the stakes for conservation are high.

Looking ahead, the researchers aim to broaden their exploration across the Cordillera de Talamanca, hoping to gather more data to shape effective management strategies. Their work underscores an urgent call to action: preserving these highland ecosystems is not just about saving plants, but about safeguarding a delicate balance that benefits the region and beyond. As climate pressures mount, these findings could guide Costa Rica—and the world—in protecting nature’s unsung heroes.

The post How Climate Change Threatens Costa Rica’s Peatlands appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

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Alaska Natives Want the Military to Finally Clean Up Its Toxic Waste

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In June 1942, Japan’s invasion of the Aleutian islands in Alaska prompted the US military to activate the Alaska territorial guard, an Army reserve made up of volunteers who wanted to help protect the US. So many of the volunteers were from Alaska’s Indigenous peoples—Aleut, Inupiak, Yupik, Tlingit, and many others—that the guard was nicknamed the “Eskimo Scouts.” When World War II ended and the reserve force ceased operations in 1947, the US approached the Indigenous Yupik people of Alaska with another ask: Could the Air Force set up “listening posts” on the island of Sivuqaq, also known as St. Lawrence Island, to help with the intelligence gathering needed to win the Cold War? Viola Waghiyi, who is Yupik from Sivuqaq, said the answer was a resounding yes. “Our grandfathers and fathers volunteered for the Alaska territorial guard,” she said. “We were very patriotic.” But that trust was abused, Waghiyi said. The US military eventually abandoned its Air Force and Army bases, leaving the land polluted with toxic chemicals such as fuel, mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are known as “forever chemicals” because they persist so long in the environment. The contamination was largely due to spilled and leaking fuel from storage tanks and pipes, both above ground and below ground. More chemical waste came from electrical transformers, abandoned metals, and 55-gallon drums. Now, Waghiyi is the environmental health and justice program director at the Alaska Community Action on Toxics, an organization dedicated to limiting the effects of toxic substances on Alaska’s residents and environment. Last week, the organization filed a complaint to the United Nations special rapporteur on toxics and human rights, in partnership with the University of California-Berkeley Environmental Law Clinic. Their complaint calls for the United Nations to investigate how military waste on Sivuqaq continues to violate the rights of the people who live there, such as the right to a clean and healthy environment and Indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent to what happens on their land. “By exposing the Yupik people of Sivuqaq to polluted drinking water sources, air, and soil, and by contaminating local native foods; by causing pervasive human exposure to hazardous chemicals through multiple routes; by toxifying the broader ecosystem; and by not cleaning up contamination sufficiently to protect human health and the environment, the US Air Force and Army Corps of Engineers violated human rights long recognized in international law,” the complaint says. “We wanted our lands to be turned back in the same condition when they turned over.” This submission from Alaska is part of a larger, global effort to raise awareness of military toxic waste by the United Nations. The UN special rapporteur on toxics and human rights is collecting public input on military activities and toxic waste until April 1. The information collected will be used in a report presented to the UN General Assembly in October. The two shuttered bases in Sivuqaq, Alaska, are now classified as “formerly used defense,” or FUD, sites, overseen by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and more than $130 million has been spent to remove the contamination. John Budnick, a spokesman for the US Army Corps of Engineers in Alaska, said the cleanup is considered complete but that the agency is reviewing the site every five years “to ensure the selected remedies continue to be protective of human health and the environment.” “We have completed the work at Northeast Cape, but additional follow-up actions may result from the monitoring phase of the Formerly Used Defense Sites Program,” he said. The last site visit occurred last July and an updated review report is expected to be released this summer. The federal Environmental Protection Agency similarly concluded in 2013 that an additional EPA cleanup wouldn’t significantly differ from what the Army Corps of Engineers is doing and declined to place the sites on the EPA’s list of hazardous waste cleanup priorities. A 2022 study found that so far, federal cleanup efforts have been inadequate. “High levels of persistent organic pollutants and toxic metals continue to leach from the Northeast Cape FUD site despite large-scale remediation that occurred in the early 2000s,” the authors concluded. The persisting pollution has garnered the attention of Alaska’s state Department of Environmental Conservation, which oversees the cleanup of contaminated sites. Stephanie Buss, contaminated sites program manager at the agency, said her office has asked the Army Corps of Engineers to do additional cleanup at Northeast Cape. “These active contaminated sites have not met closure requirements,” she said. The second former base, Gambell, was classified as completed but still lacks land use controls, she noted. “DEC takes community health concerns seriously and will continue to provide oversight of the conditions at its active sites in accordance with the state’s regulatory framework to ensure an appropriate response that protects human health and welfare,” Buss said. That same 2022 study found that 89 percent of the fish around the Northeast Cape base contained mercury exceeding the levels the EPA deemed appropriate for people who rely on subsistence fishing. “All fish sampled near the FUD site exceeded the EPA’s PCB guidelines for cancer risk for unrestricted human consumption,” the researchers further found. Waghiyi said the contamination displaced 130 people, and has left her friends and family with a lasting legacy of illness. “It’s not a matter of if we’ll get cancer, but when,” Waghiyi said. Her father died of cancer. Her mother had a stillborn child. Waghiyi herself is a cancer survivor and has had three miscarriages. “We feel that they have turned their back on us,” Waghiyi said of the U.S. military. “We wanted our lands to be turned back in the same condition when they turned over.” The US military has a long history of contaminating lands and waters through training and battles sites, including on Indigenous lands. Citizens of the Navajo Nation in Arizona and Yakama Nation in Washington continue to raise concerns about the ongoing effects of military nuclear testing on their lands and health. In the Marshall Islands, fishing around certain atolls is discouraged due to high rates of toxicity due to nuclear testing and other military training. On Guam, chemicals from an active Air Force base have contaminated parts of the islandʻs sole-source aquifer that serves 70 percent of the population. Last year, a federal report found that climate change threatens to unearth even more US military nuclear waste in both the Marshall Islands and Greenland. In 2021, the Navy in Hawaiʻi poisoned 90,000 people when jet fuel leached from aging, massive underground storage tanks into the drinking water supply after the Navy ignored years of warning to upgrade the tanks or remove the fuel. The federal government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to remove unexploded ordnance from the island of Kahoʻolawe, a former bombing range in Hawaiʻi, but the island is still considered dangerous to walk on because of the risk of more ordnance unearthing due to extensive erosion. The complaint filed last week by the Alaska Community Action on Toxics calls for the United Nations to write to federal and state agencies and call upon them to honor a 1951 agreement between the government and the Sivuqaq Yupik people that prohibited polluting the land. The agreement said that the Sivuqaq Tribes would allow the Air Force to construct surveillance sites to spy on the Soviet Union, but they had four conditions, including allowing Indigenous peoples to continue to hunt, fish and trap where desired and preventing outsiders from killing their game. Finally, the agreement said that “any refuse or garbage will not be dumped in streams or near the beach within the proposed area.” “The import of the agreement was clear: The military must not despoil the island; must protect the resources critical to Indigenous Yupik inhabitants’ sustenance; and must leave the island in the condition they found it, which ensured their health and well-being,” the Alaska Community Action on Toxics wrote in their complaint. “This is a burden we didn’t create,” Waghiyi said.

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The Guardian view on climate fiction: no longer the stuff of sci-fi | Editorial

A new prize recognises the power of storytelling to address the biggest issue of our timeNo novelist should ignore the climate emergency, Paul Murray, author of the bestselling novel The Bee Sting, told the Observer last year: “It is the unavoidable background for being alive in the 21st century.” In recognition of the vital role of literature in responding to the Anthropocene moment, this week the inaugural shortlist was announced for the Climate Fiction prize.The five novels include Orbital by Samantha Harvey, set during one day on the International Space Station and the winner of last year’s Booker prize; time-travelling romcom The Ministry of Time from debut novelist Kaliane Bradley; eco-thriller Briefly Very Beautiful by Roz Dineen; And So I Roar, about a young girl in Nigeria, by Abi Daré; and a story of migrants in an abandoned city in Téa Obreht’s The Morningside. All the shortlisted authors are women. Continue reading...

No novelist should ignore the climate emergency, Paul Murray, author of the bestselling novel The Bee Sting, told the Observer last year: “It is the unavoidable background for being alive in the 21st century.” In recognition of the vital role of literature in responding to the Anthropocene moment, this week the inaugural shortlist was announced for the Climate Fiction prize.The five novels include Orbital by Samantha Harvey, set during one day on the International Space Station and the winner of last year’s Booker prize; time-travelling romcom The Ministry of Time from debut novelist Kaliane Bradley; eco-thriller Briefly Very Beautiful by Roz Dineen; And So I Roar, about a young girl in Nigeria, by Abi Daré; and a story of migrants in an abandoned city in Téa Obreht’s The Morningside. All the shortlisted authors are women.Climate fiction is not new. Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam dystopian trilogy, Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic The Road, Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviour and Richard Power’s Pulitzer-prize-winning The Overstory are just some of the landmark literary novels to have taken on the crisis. Science fiction, inevitably, has become the genre of ecological catastrophe, with hits like Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future (Barack Obama was a fan), which opens in 2025 with all the inhabitants of a small Indian town dying in a heatwave.The late Ursula K Le Guin wrote that the job of sci-fi was “to extrapolate imaginatively from current trends and events to a near-future that’s half prediction, half satire”. The job of the realist novel is to reflect the world in which we live. For a long time, the possibilities of environmental breakdown were largely considered too wild for the realism. As a result, climate fiction hasn’t been taken seriously enough. In The Great Derangement in 2016, Amitav Gosh argued that the failure of so many novelists, including himself, to address the most urgent issue of the age was part of a broader cultural failure at the heart of the climate crisis itself.Freakish weather events are no longer the stuff of speculative fiction – “global weirding” is upon us. What was once dubbed “cli-fi” is simply contemporary fiction. Ecological anxiety is as much a part of the fictional worlds of a young generation of novelists like Sally Rooney as the internet and mobile phones.The novels on the Climate Fiction prize shortlist do not conform to dystopian stereotypes. Some aren’t explicitly about the crisis. Some are even hopeful. Far from being a portrait of a world ravaged by disasters, Orbital, for example, is a hymn to the awe-inspiring beauty of our planet.It could be argued that having a Booker prize winner on the shortlist suggests there is no need for a specific award, which might marginalise climate fiction as a niche genre. There is no shortage of literary gongs. The Wainwright prize, set up in 2014 to celebrate the best nature books, now includes an award for writing on global conservation.Yet awards amplify the message and reach of books that might otherwise be overlooked. Scientists have been warning about global heating’s dire consequences for decades. Governments and industry haven’t listened. Now novelists are taking up the challenge. Stories can create an impact far greater than data alone. They can inspire change. In a world where reality has become stranger than fiction, this new prize is necessary and important. There is no bigger story.

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Government

More Oregonians could access e-bikes under proposed bills. But lawmakers have questions

Lawmakers believe it’s time for Oregon to expand access to e-bikes and establish clearer safety regulations.

Oregon lawmakers are weighing a pair of bills that could reshape who gets to ride electric assisted bikes and similar devices — and what regulations they have to follow.Proposals to allow children as young as 12 to ride e-bikes and add safety regulations have received strong support from some lawmakers, but key provisions have sparked concerns from others.E-bikes have skyrocketed in popularity nationwide in recent years, and Oregon has been no exception. As of early 2024, they accounted for nearly one-fifth of all bicycles in Portland, according to the city’s transportation department. Advocates say the vehicles are a climate-friendly and cheaper alternative to cars that benefit riders’ physical health and help reduce congestion.As e-bikes — and similar devices like electric unicycles and low-speed motorized bikes — continue to grow in popularity, some lawmakers believe it’s time for the state to both expand access to the devices and establish clearer safety regulations.Expanding the use of e-bikes in Oregon is “really one of those win-win-win kinds of solutions,” said Rep. Mark Gamba, a Democrat from Milwaukie and e-bike user. “It gives people a dependable, relatively fast form of transportation that isn’t polluting and doesn’t cost a lot of money to maintain.”To boost e-bike use, Gamba has proposed House Bill 2963, which would establish a voucher program to help low-income Oregonians afford the devices. Electric-powered bikes are typically more expensive than regular bikes and can cost thousands of dollars.The bill would seed the voucher program with $6 million. Residents could apply for vouchers up to $1,200 to cover the cost of purchasing e-bikes. Only Oregonians on the Oregon Health Plan or recent users of it would qualify, which Gamba said would streamline the application process.“For somebody who’s poor and can barely keep a car running or can’t afford a car at all, it’s a game changer,” he said.In a similar effort to expand access, House Bill 3626 proposes lowering the minimum age to ride most e-bikes from 16 to 12. It would also set clear standards for other electric-powered devices that currently operate in a regulatory gray area and would require the Oregon Department of Transportation to develop education materials regarding safety measures for e-bikes and other low-speed motorized devices.The lower age requirement would apply to Class 1 and 2 e-bikes, which only provide motor assistance up to 20 miles per hour. The bill would not change the 16-year age minimum for faster classifications of e-bikes.A number of city officials, transportation and environmental advocates have expressed support for the lower age threshold, saying that allowing more children to ride e-bikes will increase their independence while alleviating car dependency for families.“I’m here because I want my child to grow up with the freedom to transport herself around town on safe e-bikes and all these other lovely e-mobility things here in Bend,” Hal DeShow, a Bend resident, told the Joint Committee on Transportation Monday. “I want to see our air quality improve. I want to see our traffic congestion ease as parents stop driving their teenagers everywhere. I want to see kids on bikes.”The bill was introduced by Democratic Reps. Emerson Levy of Bend and Daniel Nguyen of Dunthorpe, who say the proposed changes are long overdue and will help cities set and enforce their own laws.Their bill would set statewide standards for “powered micromobility devices,” which include motorized devices such as electric skateboards and motorized bikes that do not exceed 30 miles per hour. It also would expand helmet requirements for children under 16 from bicycles to include e-bikes and other motorized devices.But some of these proposals have raised concerns among lawmakers.For one, DMV Administrator Amy Joyce told lawmakers Monday that overseeing such complicated regulations and educating the public about them would be burdensome. And some lawmakers are hesitant to give more responsibilities or funding to the Oregon Department of Transportation, which has been under heavy scrutiny this year as lawmakers scramble to help the agency address a massive funding gap.“I’m very sensitive to anything that’s going to cost ODOT money,” said Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, a Republican from Albany. Also, at least one lawmaker on the transportation committee, Republican Sen. Bruce Starr of Dundee, indicated that he wants to hear from local law enforcement officials about their thoughts on the bills before voting on them.But perhaps the biggest hurdle for lawmakers in passing these proposals will be finding consensus on how much cyclists in Oregon should pay for their share of the state’s road and bike infrastructure. Oregon currently has a $15 tax on bicycle purchases, which goes to bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. But some lawmakers say that e-cyclists and other users of low-speed motorized devices should pay to help maintain the state’s roads and traffic infrastructure.“If we transfer all the vehicles from being on the roads and we have a lot of these micro mobility devices, there has to be a shared cost and contribution to the system,” Sen. Mark Meek, a Democrat from Gladstone, said Monday. “There’s just no way that we can be inclusive without including a share into the system.”— Carlos Fuentes covers state politics and government. Reach him at 503-221-5386 or cfuentes@oregonian.com.Latest local politics stories

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Southern elephant seals are adaptable – but they struggle when faced with both rapid climate change and human impacts

Protecting remaining strongholds and minimising human impacts on food sources will be crucial to avoiding further population decline of this remarkable creature.

Wikimedia Commons/Antoine Lamielle, CC BY-SASouthern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) are an iconic species of the Southern Ocean. But with rapid environmental changes in their ocean home, the seals’ population range has been shifting. Once spread across vast areas of the southern hemisphere, these apex predators are facing challenges from both climate shifts and human activities. Our new research examines ancient and modern DNA, archaeological records and ecological data. It reveals how these large marine mammals have adapted – and sometimes failed to adapt – to such pressures since the height of the last Ice Age thousands of years ago. A dynamic evolutionary history Today, the largest southern elephant seal populations are found on subantarctic islands, including South Georgia, Macquarie Island and the Falkland Islands. These colonies act as global strongholds for the species. Yet in the past, until just a few hundred years ago, many smaller populations existed on the Victoria Land Coast in Antarctica and closer to temperate zones, on mainland Australia and New Zealand. Our study focused on the Australasian lineage of southern elephant seals, drawing on samples from these ancient colonies. By analysing their genetic makeup, we pieced together a timeline of their biological heritage, including population expansions and contractions. This has crucial implications for understanding the resilience of elephant seals in the face of climate change. Subantarctic islands such as the Kerguelen islands remain strongholds for southern elephant seals. Antoine Lamielle, CC BY-SA From genetic clues in subfossil and archaeological remains, some thousands of years old, we found evidence of repeated population cycles. Expanding sea ice during cold glacial periods forced the seals northward, only for them to recolonise the Southern Ocean as sea ice retreated during warm interglacials. This history was particularly dynamic after the height of the last Ice Age 21,000 years ago. The planet started warming then, which led to dramatic ecological shifts. A mummified southern elephant seal found on the Victoria Land Coast in Antarctica. Brenda Hall, CC BY-SA Elephant seals likely expanded from ice-free refuges in temperate regions such as Tasmania and New Zealand into newly available subantarctic and Antarctic coastlines. However, this range expansion wasn’t permanent. As the current warm interglacial (the Holocene) progressed, new challenges arose: Indigenous hunting and, later, extensive European industrial sealing. For Indigenous communities in New Zealand and Australia, elephant seals were a part of their diet. We know this from seal remains in middens (rubbish dumps) and material culture, including necklaces made from elephant seal teeth which have been found in early Māori archaeological sites. Archaeological remains from coastal sites in New Zealand and Tasmania indicate significant hunting and reliance on seals by Indigenous populations. Along with human-driven environmental changes, this led to local extinctions. Impacts of humans and climate change Genetically, the seals from these ancient Australasian and Antarctic colonies were distinct but related. They formed a unique lineage in the Pacific that included Macquarie Island. This genetic diversity likely resulted from periods of isolation in separate refuges at the height of the last Ice Age. However, with modern climate shifts and human exploitation, much of this genetic diversity has been lost. The colonies that once thrived on the Victoria Land Coast in Antarctica are now extinct. Meanwhile, Macquarie Island is home to a significant breeding colony facing its own challenges. Changes in Antarctic sea ice are increasing the distance between breeding grounds on the island and feeding grounds at sea. This has affected the colony’s stability in recent decades. One of the most striking outcomes of our research is how quickly these large, long-lived animals can respond to environmental pressures. Seals adapted to a shifting climate by expanding their range in response to new habitats and retracting when conditions became unsuitable. This ability to move and adapt, however, was limited when confronted by the dual pressures of rapid climate change and human exploitation, which reduced their numbers and genetic diversity drastically over a short period. This schematic shows living (solid circles) and extinct (opaque circles) southern elephant seal populations and the extent of sea ice around Antarctica (opaque blue-grey) at the height of the last Ice Age. Berg et al (2025), CC BY-SA Can the Southern Ocean ecosystem adapt? As human-driven climate change continues, the Southern Ocean is expected to continue warming. This will cause further habitat loss for species that depend on sea ice and are affected by shifts in the availability of prey. The elephant seals’ history offers a window into how marine mammals may respond to these changes. But it also serves as a warning: human impacts, coupled with environmental pressures, can lead to swift, sometimes irreversible declines. Our research underscores the importance of conserving the genetic diversity and habitats of southern elephant seals. These seals are not just a testament to adaptability in a changing world; they are reminders of the vulnerability of even the most resilient species. Protecting their remaining strongholds and minimising human impacts on their food sources and breeding grounds will be crucial if we hope to avoid further contractions in their population. The story of the southern elephant seal is one of survival, adaptation and loss. As we face our own climate challenges, we must consider the lessons embedded in their genetic and ecological history. It’s a reminder that while nature often adapts to change and can weather some ecosystem threats, human-driven impacts can push even the most adaptable species beyond the point of recovery. Nic Rawlence receives funding from the Marsden Fund. Mark de Bruyn received funding from a Griffith University New Investigator grant. Michael Knapp does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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See How Drought Whiplash Led to California Wildfires

California is experiencing wider swings between wet and dry spells

See How Drought Whiplash Led to California WildfiresCalifornia is experiencing wider swings between wet and dry spellsBy Clara Moskowitz & Wesley Grubbs edited by Jen Christiansen & Clara MoskowitzThe devastating fires in California early this year came after a particularly unfortunate weather pattern—an exceptionally wet period of about 18 months, followed by an exceptionally dry spell. The wet duration encouraged grass and brush growth, and then the lack of rain dried it all out, priming it to catch on fire and spread quickly.“It was a classic example of wet-to-dry whiplash,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. And such whiplashes may be getting more common. “With climate change, it’s not just that we’re seeing things get drier and drier. There’s also a trend toward more variability, with wider swings between wet and dry,” Swain says.The warming climate is leading to what scientists call the “expanding atmospheric sponge” effect. Warmer air can hold more water vapor than cooler air, so the atmosphere is like a kitchen sponge that gets larger. If water is available, the atmosphere will absorb more of it, and when you wring out the sponge, you get more precipitation. But if there is no water to absorb, that thirstier air sucks more moisture out of the landscape, from bodies of water, surfaces and plants, drying everything out.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.PALMER HYDROLOGICAL DROUGHT INDEXThis measurement uses reservoir and groundwater levels, among other factors, to measure drought. Each dot on the chart below represents the drought level for one month in one region of California.Wesley Grubbs; Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information (data)

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How Climate Change Threatens Costa Rica’s Peatlands

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Alaska Natives Want the Military to Finally Clean Up Its Toxic Waste

The Guardian view on climate fiction: no longer the stuff of sci-fi | Editorial

More Oregonians could access e-bikes under proposed bills. But lawmakers have questions

Southern elephant seals are adaptable – but they struggle when faced with both rapid climate change and human impacts

See How Drought Whiplash Led to California Wildfires

Suggested Viewing

Uncovering the Permian Climate Bomb

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How Climate Change Threatens Costa Rica’s Peatlands

Related News

Alaska Natives Want the Military to Finally Clean Up Its Toxic Waste

The Guardian view on climate fiction: no longer the stuff of sci-fi | Editorial

More Oregonians could access e-bikes under proposed bills. But lawmakers have questions

Southern elephant seals are adaptable – but they struggle when faced with both rapid climate change and human impacts

See How Drought Whiplash Led to California Wildfires

Suggested Viewing

Uncovering the Permian Climate Bomb

Talking Trees

Beyond the Soil

A Whale's Worth

Resilience

Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Join us to forge
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