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Global warming controversy

The global warming controversy is an ongoing dispute about the effects of humans on global climate and about what policies should be implemented to avoid possible undesirable effects of climate change. The current scientific consensus on climate change is that recent warming indicates a fairly stable long-term trend, that the trend is largely human-caused, and that serious damage may result at some future date if steps are not taken to halt the trend. Mainstream scientific organizations worldwide (Royal Society, American Geophysical Union, Joint Science Academies, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, American Meteorological Society, and American Association for the Advancement of Science) concur with the assessment that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the human-caused increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. However, there is also a small but vocal number of scientists in climate and climate-related fields that disagree with the consensus view.

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Earth & Climate News

August 12, 2026

Researchers have found a clever new way to map a part of Earth’s upper atmosphere that is notoriously difficult to observe. Using orbital data from roughly 1,200 Starlink satellites, they ...
Scientists have created an unusually corrosion-resistant stainless steel that could replace costly titanium components used to produce green hydrogen. The breakthrough could reduce structural material costs by roughly 40 times and make ...
Marine heatwaves are emerging as a threat not just to coral reefs and fisheries, but to human health and well-being. Researchers warn that unusually hot oceans can fuel stronger storms, trigger harmful algal blooms, reduce seafood supplies, disrupt ...
Deep underground, bacteria may be capable of doing something remarkable: trapping toxic uranium before it spreads. When researchers fed microbes in uranium-contaminated mine water with glycerol, about 95% of the dissolved uranium disappeared within ...
Glyphosate was long thought to be safe for honeybees because they lack the enzyme the chemical targets in weeds. However, researchers found that exposed bees foraged 13 percent less after only three days and showed changes in brain chemicals linked ...
Ancient seafloor sediments have revealed a surprising twist in how the Atlantic’s massive circulation system works. During a cold period about 3.4 million years ago, the flow of warm, salty water ...
Historic wildfires scorched huge areas of Spain and France, with one Spanish blaze burning an area about the size of New York City and a French fire generating a rare, towering fire cloud. A dangerous combination of lush winter growth, severe heat, ...
Animal bones preserved in South Australia’s underwater caves reveal distinctive clues shaped by darkness, algae, bacteria, and other environmental conditions. The findings give scientists a powerful new way to reconstruct how ancient megafauna ...
Thawing Arctic permafrost is releasing ancient carbon into the ocean, raising fears that microbes could turn it into greenhouse gases and accelerate climate change. But sediment cores collected near ...
An AI analysis of 1.2 million satellite images shows that floating algae blooms are spreading across the global ocean. The rapid growth of massive seaweed mats could reshape marine habitats while bringing foul-smelling decay, ecological damage, and ...
Coastal communities are facing a hidden threat that is making rising seas far more dangerous: the land beneath them is sinking. New research shows that people in densely populated coastal regions experience an average relative sea-level rise of ...
Global warming appears to have shifted into a faster gear. After removing the effects of El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar cycles, researchers found that the planet has warmed at roughly 0.35°C per decade over the past ten years, compared ...

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