Soils around the globe have increased their emissions of carbon dioxide over the past few decades, according to an analysis of 439 studies.

Trees in the Eastern United States are growing faster than they have in the last two centuries in response to Earth's warming climate, a new study finds.

The hole in the ozone layer is now steadily closing, but its repair could actually increase warming in the southern hemisphere, according to scientists at the University of Leeds.

Like any other field, research on climate change has some fundamental gaps, although not the ones typically claimed by sceptics. Quirin Schiermeier takes a hard look at some of the biggest problem areas.

From beetles to barnacles, pikas to pine warblers, many species are already on the move in response to shifting climate regimes. But how fast will they -- and their habitats -- have to move to keep pace with global climate change over the next century? In a new study, a team of scientists including Dr. Healy Hamilton from the California Academy of Sciences have calculated that on average, ecosystems will need to shift about 0.42 kilometers per year (about a quarter mile per year) to keep pace with changing temperatures across the globe.

The United Nations climate talks that seemed headed for sure disaster were saved from utter collapse late Friday night in Copenhagen, after leaders from the U.S., India, Brazil, South Africa and China came to an agreement to combat global warming. The deal contained no specifics on emissions cuts, but it did commit the countries to look to keep global warming at 2°C or less and to promise $30 billion in funding to battle climate change by 2012.

Whatever agreement emerges from the climate meeting in Copenhagen, many expect that it will include a mechanism allowing rich nations to offset their emissions by paying poorer countries to protect their forests — and the carbon they contain. But just how much carbon is at stake? Researchers at the meeting have given their best answer yet: the first satellite-based estimates of the biomass contained in the world's tropical forests.

In two decades of climate change negotiations, a deep divide has remained between wealthy nations and developing ones, each side insisting the other move first to lower carbon emissions and curb the effects of global warming.

How do plant ecosystems react to rising concentrations of the greenhouse gas CO2 in the atmosphere over the long term? This fundamental question is becoming increasingly pressing in light of global climate change. Researchers from the Chair of Grassland Science at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have now – for the first time worldwide – taken up this issue for grasslands. The scientists found their answers in two unlikely places: in horns of Alpine ibex from Switzerland and in 150-year-old hay from England.

In the long term, the Earth's temperature may be 30-50% more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than has previously been estimated, reports a new study published in Nature Geoscience.

Just two years ago, a United Nations panel that synthesizes the work of hundreds of climatologists around the world called the evidence for global warming “unequivocal.”

In a striking finding that raises new questions about carbon dioxide's (CO₂) impact on marine life, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists report that some shell-building creatures -- such as crabs, shrimp and lobsters -- unexpectedly build more shell when exposed to ocean acidification caused by elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂).

With greenhouse gas emissions continuing to rise, strong efforts will be required to reverse global warming

Wetlands from Bangladesh to Florida submerged. Drought and devastating heat in important granaries such as the Yangtze floodplain in China or Ukraine. Rains that come too often or too hard in India or the U.S. Northeast. The list of potentially devastating impacts from climate change is a long one.

Using gravity measurement data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, a team of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin has found that the East Antarctic ice sheet-home to about 90 percent of Earth's solid fresh water and previously considered stable-may have begun to lose ice.

Africa is poised to experience a surge in civil wars, causing nearly 400,000 additional battle deaths by 2030 – all as a direct result of rising temperatures. This bold prediction is one of the most alarming results yet to emerge from attempts to discover how climate change will affect patterns of human conflict. It is already proving controversial.

Rising water temperatures are kicking up more powerful winds on Lake Superior, with consequences for currents, biological cycles, pollution and more on the world's largest (by surface area) freshwater lake and its smaller brethren.

Since 1985, surface water temperatures measured by lake buoys have climbed 1.2 degrees per decade, about 15 percent faster than the air above the lake and twice as fast as warming over nearby land.