California is undergoing a record-setting drought that began in 2012, the worst in at least 1,200 years. It can be seen in many ways: most of the freshwater reservoirs are drying up, crops are wilting in the fields and groundwater is rapidly depleting.

At the top of the world, it’s time to get ready for a new future. In the winter of 2013–14, hundreds of milk-white birds with luminous yellow eyes and wingspans of up to 5 feet descended on beaches, farmers’ fields, city parks and airport runways throughout southern Canada and the United States.

One of nature’s most spectacular events occurs every autumn, when the leaves of hardwood trees burst into brilliant color before falling to the ground. These autumnal displays entice people to experience nature in all its raw beauty.

If you’ve ever wondered how much little things really matter, consider the mountain pine beetle. Roughly the size of a grain of rice, the glossy black insect lives only about a year. A throng of beetles can ravage a pine as tall as an eight-story building, as the tree first oozes sap, then its needles turn rusty red...

Spring and summer have come early – and observations from some parts of the country even suggest that typical autumn events, such as the development of beech nuts and hawthorn berries, are already in evidence. But, to understand effects on our wildlife, a longer view is needed...

The 2014 State of the Climate report. a joint undertaking by the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology, found that Australia’s temperature is predicted to rise by 1°F to 2.7°F by 2030; in comparison, between 1910 and 1990 the temperature rose by 1°F.

-

Increasingly common false spring events are leaving crops and wild plants vulnerable to subsequent freezes, creating a cascade of consequences for ecosystems. The spring of 2012 was the earliest recorded across the United States since 1900.

The world faces a serious water crisis, warned former heads of government and experts recently in a book that identifies a multitude of associated security, development and social risks, including food, health, energy and equity issues.

The question of how global warming will influence El Niño has been a challenging one for scientists to answer. A new study suggests while the overall number of El Niños is unlikely to increase, particularly strong “super” El Niños are likely to occur twice as frequently in a warming world.

A wildfire exploded outside Los Angeles Thursday as record temperatures spread across California, where drought conditions are escalating as the state comes off its driest year on record.A new update to the U.S. Drought Monitor shows that severe drought, the second-worst drought category, has spread across 62.7 percent of the California as of Tuesday.

Our society's addiction to fossil fuels is not only polluting our skies and wreaking havoc on our climate - it's also threatening to kill one of mankind's most precious resources.