Austral Summer Scenery, by WHOI

The sights of summer in Antarctica invariably includes ice. Researcher Emelia DeForce captured this image of a well-worn iceberg in January 2013, the height of austral summer during a cruise in early 2013.

Earth Overshoot Day 2013

There are only so many natural resources the earth can supply and today we’ve gone over our annual limit. August 20 is Earth Overshoot Day 2013, marking the date when humanity exhausted nature’s budget for the year. We are now operating in overdraft. For the rest of the year, we will maintain our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Climate Panel Cites Near Certainty on Warming

An international panel of scientists has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warns that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace.