Research conducted by scientists funded through the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) has helped resolve key uncertainties about the causes of global climate change and has helped refine projected future changes in temperature and sea-level rise, as published in the Working Group I contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, the summary of which was issued on 2 February 2007.

The largest climate change in central North America since the age of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, a temperature drop of nearly 15 degrees Fahrenheit, is documented within the fossilized teeth of horses and other plant-eating mammals, a new study reveals.

In releasing its latest comprehensive report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) focuses an important spotlight on the current state of the Earth's climate.

Evidence presented in the first phase of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 4th Assessment Report, released today in Paris, paints the clearest picture yet that human-derived greenhouse gases are playing a significant role in observed global warming, says a Duke University scientist who co-authored one of the report's main chapters.

The climate system, and in particular sea level, may be responding more quickly to rising carbon emissions than climate scientists have estimated with climate models.

The pattern of nitrogen release from decaying plant material is remarkably similar and predictable across the planet, researchers have concluded in a new study, which should make it easier to understand nutrient dynamics, vegetation growth, estimate carbon release and sequestration, and better predict the impacts of climate change.

Over the past decade, in numerous field sites throughout the world, mesh bags of leaf and root litter sat exposed to the elements, day and night, throughout the four seasons, gradually rotting away.

With the scientific data on global climate change so widely available, why do some nations' governments take action while others deny that the problem even exists? In the middle of the United States' warmest winter on record, a conference at the University of Minnesota will bring together social scientists from around the world to investigate that very question.

Fluctuations in weather and the environment affect survival and reproduction of animals. But are all individuals within a population equally susceptible? Theory on the evolution in age-structured populations suggests not - those life stages that are more important for overall fitness should be less susceptible to environmental variation than other life stages.

Roses flowering at Christmas and snow-free ski resorts this winter suggest that climate change is already with us and our farmers and growers will need ways of adapting. Scientists studying how plants have naturally evolved to cope with the changing seasons of temperate climates have made a discovery that could help us to breed new varieties of crops, able to thrive in a changing climate.

Countering Charles Darwin's view that evolution occurs gradually, UC Irvine scientists have discovered that plants with short life cycles can evolutionally adapt in just a few years to climate change.

A team of American and French scientists has developed a method to determine the influence of past volcanic eruptions on climate and the chemistry of the upper atmosphere, and significantly reduce uncertainty in models of future climate change.