The world’s longest chain of continental volcanoes has been discovered stretching for more than 2,000 kilometres along eastern Australia.The ancient volcanic chain, reported in the journal Nature, runs from Cape Hillsborough on the central Queensland coast, south-west through central New South Wales to Cosgrove in Victoria.”This volcanic chain was created over the past 33 million years, as Australia moved north-northeast over a mantle plume hotspot which we believe is now located in Bass Strait,” said the study’s lead author, Dr Rhodri Davies of the Australian National University.

Source: World’s longest continental volcanic chain, the Cosgrove hotspot track, discovered in Australia – Science – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

IF A POLITICIAN were to suggest testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific today, they would rightly be thought to have lost their minds; be out of step with reality and the common good, and certainly at odds with the global mindset.

Thirty years ago, it was a different time and the exploding of nuclear bombs beneath the Pacific Ocean was routine. But it was even then not acceptable, and it did not go unchallenged.

On this day three decades ago, a dozen courageous people were preparing to sail from Auckland in the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior. They planned to put themselves in the test zone at Mororoa Atoll, in opposition to the planned detonation. They carried with them the hopes and voices of many more people from around the world.

via 30 years on from Rainbow Warrior bombing environment voices are still needed – Opinion – ABC Environment (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

In the depths of the Red Sea, a magical world exists.

It’s a world where corals light up the dark. They harvest light, providing an underwater rainbow of beautiful colours.

These fluorescent corals were already known to exist in shallow waters, but deeper down, new glowing coral reefs have been discovered.

via BBC – Earth – Glowing deep-sea corals found.

New research supported by the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office and insurer Lloyd’s of London finds that, absent major changes, humanity risks a catastrophic collapse in its ability to feed itself by mid-century, due in significant part to human-caused climate change.Last year, the United Nations’ “highly conservative” IPCC climate panel warned that humanity is risking a “breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes” on its current path of unrestricted carbon pollution. Many studies in the last 12 months have strengthened the scientific case (see this, for instance).

via New Research Warns Of Catastrophic Food Shortages Due To Climate Change.

Situated north of Alaska and Canada’s Northwest Territories lies the Beaufort Sea. This body of water has the unique feature of being frozen most of the year, while the water near the shores does unfreeze during the summer months. It is home to whales, sea birds and numerous aquatic life.It is also in trouble.The Beaufort Sea is acidifying at a rate that is the fastest in the world, according to Canada’s Globe and Mail. The acid in the Beaufort Sea is a prime example of the effects of global warming on large bodies of water.

via Canada’s Beaufort Sea Becoming Most Acidic | RYOT News.

end your way through the forest of red and white oak trees just outside the unincorporated township of Leonard, Oklahoma, and eventually you’ll find yourself at Glasnost Road. Glasnost intersects with Observatory Lane—the reflective road signs are written in English and Russian, so you won’t get lost—and there you’ll come across two modest buildings, one enclosed by a high fence and an unexpected redbud tree. This is the campus of the Leonard Geophysical Observatory, where the research scientist Amie Gibson and the seismic research specialist and lab technician Jake Nance do the majority of the daily (and absurdly unrelenting) work of deciphering raw seismic data into magnitudes and locations for the thousands of earthquakes that now shake Oklahoma each year.

via Goodbye to an Oklahoma Earthquake Observatory – The New Yorker.

In a world-first study, scientists have transplanted kelp off the coast of Tasmania to better understand the impact of climate change.

The kelp, which grows from northern New South Wales around to Western Australia, provides an ecosystem for hundreds of marine species.

Now it is thinning and becoming patchy because of warming waters.

via Kelp beds transplanted to Tasmania to help reveal effects of climate change – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Ben Kravitz has studied geoengineering for the past seven years and doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon, despite ongoing controversy around the issue. That’s because even if geoengineering never happens in the real world, the concept alone is already playing an important role in the climate change story.

“[Theoretical geoengineering] has allowed us to ask questions about how the climate system works that we didn’t even know we wanted to ask,” says Kravitz, a researcher at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “It’s actually in some ways changed the way I think about problems in climate science.”

via Why We Should Talk About Geoengineering Even If We Never Do It : Climate Desk.