A New Report Lays Bare the Effects of Climate Change on the N.C. Coast
The data are in, and the numbers are unequivocal: the coast of North Carolina, and especially the northern part of the Outer Banks, is sinking into the sea.
Natural Filters: Mussels Deployed To Clean Up Polluted Waterways
A stream with a healthy population of mussels indicates a pretty pristine habitat and good water quality. Everywhere, however, numbers of mussels are in peril. Everywhere the causes of decline are the same: alteration and damming of streams and rivers, and human-induced runoff of silt and nutrients.
Why Dangerous Sinkholes Keep Appearing Along the Dead Sea
For millennia, the salty, mineral-rich waters of the Dead Sea have drawn visitors and health pilgrims to its shores. But in recent years, gaping chasms have been opening up without warning along its banks, posing a threat to such visitors and tourism in general.
What the Earth Would Look Like if all the Ice Melted, Video
As National Geographic showed us in 2013, sea levels would rise by 216 feet if all the land ice on the planet were to melt. This would dramatically reshape the continents and drown many of the world’s major cities.
Northern Coastal Marshes More Vulnerable to Nutrient Pollution
Salt marshes at higher latitudes, such as those in densely populated coastal regions of New England and northern Europe, are more vulnerable to the effects of nutrient pollution, a new Duke University study finds.
Communicating a Hurricane’s Real Risks
A surprising and little known fact: More than half of those who die during hurricanes perish from drowning. For the first time this year, scientists began communicating warnings that included storm surge.
Trace Amounts of Fukushima Radioactivity Detected Along Shoreline of British Columbia
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have for the first time detected the presence of small amounts of radioactivity from the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in a seawater sample from the shoreline of North America.
New Interactive Storm-Surge Map Helps Residents See Potential Flood Risks
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is testing a new feature that lets people get a look at what kind of damage and storm surges are possible, and using nearby Charleston for the preliminary model.
Beautiful Vacation Destinations Overtaken By Trash
By 2025, the amount of waste we produce as a planet is set to exceed 2.2 billion metric tons a year, and by 2100 we will be churning out more than 11 million tons a day. As a result many of our world’s most beautiful and historic destinations are being buried under mountains of trash. Here are some of the worst.