When Reuters photographer Lucas Jackson headed to Greenland in June, he traveled with a heavy, oversized rolling bag containing a crucial piece of equipment to document climate change. Jackson, one of a handful of Reuters photographers licensed to operate a drone, spent seven rainy days camped alongside Greenland's Helheim glacier, near the small seaside village of Tasiilaq. Using an Inspire 1 Pro drone, Jackson captured more than 700 gigabytes of footage and images in Greenland.

Targeted engineering projects to hold off glacier melting could slow down the collapse of ice sheets and limit sea-level rise, according to a new study published in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere. While an intervention similar in size to existing large civil engineering projects could only have a 30% chance of success, a larger project would have better odds of holding off ice-sheet collapse. But study authors Michael Wolovick and John Moore caution that reducing emissions still remains key to stopping climate change and its dramatic effects.

One day in 1961, an American economist named Daniel Ellsberg stumbled across a piece of paper with apocalyptic implications. Ellsberg, who was advising the US government on its secret nuclear war plans, had discovered a document that contained an official estimate of the death toll in a preemptive “first strike” on China and the Soviet Union: 300 million in those countries, and double that globally.

Planet on brink of 'tipping point' as thawing soil and sediment releases large volumes of carbon dioxide and methane into atmosphere. The world is on course to exceed global warming limits set out in the Paris climate agreement much earlier than previously thought, scientists have warned, following the first comprehensive study of the impact of melting permafrost.

California is set to launch a satellite to track greenhouse gases, as former US Secretary of State John Kerry and island nation leaders warned that the world is far off course to avoid the worst effects of rising temperatures. Gov. Jerry Brown announced plans for the satellite on the last day of a climate change summit hosted by San Francisco, in a final rebuke to President Donald Trump’s denial of man-made warming.

Lakes across Alaska and Siberia have started to bubble with methane, and the release of this highly potent greenhouse gas has scientists worried. Last month NASA released footage showing the bubbling Arctic lakes, which are the result of a little known phenomenon called “abrupt thawing.” It occurs when the permafrost—ground that has been frozen for potentially thousands of years—thaws faster than expected.

The map looks terrifyingly unfamiliar. Not because of the outlines of the continents; those are comforting in their hooks, tails, splotches, and whorls. It’s the storms. Across the globe’s tropics right now, seven superstorms are swirling over oceans. Hurricane Florence is butting into the Carolinas on North America’s southeastern coast. Tropical storms Helene, Isaac, and Joyce are hovering over the Atlantic like jets stacked on approach to Charlotte.

Harrison Ford made a few requests Thursday at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. The event brings together leaders from around the world to discuss tackling climate change, and while onstage, the actor begged voters to know where candidates stand on the matter before filling out their ballots. "For God's sake, stop electing leaders who don't believe in science," he said. "Or even worse, pretend they don't believe in science. Never forget who you're fighting for."

In a world of increasingly complex issues, survival cannot be left to political opinion — it has to be guided by our best scientific and technological minds.

Millenia ago, ancient farmers cleared land to plant wheat and maize, potatoes and squash. They flooded fields to grow rice. They began to raise livestock. And unknowingly, they may have been fundamentally altering the climate of the Earth.

The Trump administration, taking its third major step this year to roll back federal efforts to fight climate change, is preparing to make it significantly easier for energy companies to release methane into the atmosphere. Methane, which is among the most powerful greenhouse gases, routinely leaks from oil and gas wells, and energy companies have long said that the rules requiring them to test for emissions were costly and burdensome.

The BBC has accepted it gets coverage of climate change “wrong too often” and told staff: “You do not need a ‘denier’ to balance the debate.” In a briefing note sent to all staff warning them to be aware of false balance, the corporation has offered a training course on how to report on global warming. The move follows a series of apologies and censures for failing to challenge climate sceptics during interviews, including Nigel Lawson.

More than 18,000 people marched Saturday in Paris as part of an international mobilisation to show popular support for urgent measures to combat climate change ahead of a San Francisco summit.

An hour’s drive from Las Vegas stands America’s Hoover Dam, a commanding barrier of concrete holding back the trillions of gallons of Colorado River water held inside Lake Mead. The dam is a proud place, built by thousands of hands and with 5 million barrels of concrete. Its golden elevator doors, Gotham-esque pillars, and stoic guardian angel statues line the lofty walkways atop the structure. A U.S. flag beating patriotically over the desert gets swapped out every few days, and then put out for sale in the visitor center.

United Nations secretary general António Guterres has warned that the world is facing “a direct existential threat” and must rapidly shift from dependence on fossil fuels by 2020 to prevent “runaway climate change”. Guterres called the crisis urgent and decried the lack of global leadership to address global warming.

Tomorrow’s atmospheric scrubbers will suck carbon straight from the air

As access to cheap, plentiful energy dries up and the effects of climate change take hold, we are entering a new era of profound challenge ― and free market capitalism cannot dig us out. This is the conclusion of a report produced for the United Nations by Bios, an independent research institute based in Finland.

There is no such thing as a category 6 hurricane or tropical storm – yet. The highest level – the top of the scale for the most powerful, most devastating hurricane or tropical storm capable of destroying entire cities like New Orleans or New York – is a category 5 storm. Meteorologists and scientists never imagined that there would be a need for a category 6 storm, with winds that exceed 200 miles per hour on a sustained basis, sweeping away everything in its path. Until now, such a storm wasn’t possible, so there was no need for a new category above category 5.

And yet, when you dig into it, it's money we should probably spend.

Three new reports say governments can either act now on climate, and reap trillions of dollars in benefits – or miss the window and put a wrecking-ball to GDPs.

Cyclical natural phenomena that affect planet’s climate will amplify effect of manmade global warming, scientists warn

The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer. This phenomenon – which has never been recorded before – has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere. One meteorologist described the loss of ice as “scary”. Others said it could force scientists to revise their theories about which part of the Arctic will withstand warming the longest.

For the tourists thronging the streets and pavement cafes of Chamonix, the neck-craning view of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, is as dazzling as ever. But the mountaineers who climb among the snowy peaks know that it is far from business as usual – due to a warming climate, the familiar landscape is rapidly changing. “Global climate change has serious and directly observable consequences in high mountains,” says Vincent Neirinck from Mountain Wilderness, a campaign group that works to preserve mountain environments around the world.

“There will always be drinking water here. It’s just a question of how much you want to pay for it.”

Overfishing, hunting and pollution are putting pressure on the birds, but climate change may prove to be the biggest challenge.

See how days at or above 90 degrees Fahrenheit have changed in your lifetime and how much hotter it could get.

We knew everything we needed to know, and nothing stood in our way. Nothing, that is, except ourselves. A tragedy in two acts.

We knew everything we needed to know, and nothing stood in our way. Nothing, that is, except ourselves. A tragedy in two acts.

This summer, the arctic burned. Boreal forests, usually caked in ice, were charred. Further south, from Quebec to Japan, hundreds of people dropped like scorched flies in the heat, as though under a giant magnifying glass. Across Europe, the same: deaths, drought and crop failure. As heatwaves multiply in the future, so will heat-related deaths: 7,000 a year in the UK alone. Droughts will be more intense, leading to food shortages.

Coastal communities struggling to adapt to climate change are beginning to do what was once unthinkable: retreat

Leading scientists warn that passing such a point would make efforts to reduce emissions increasingly futile

One of the world's largest banks says the planet is running out of resources and warns that neither governments nor companies are prepared for climate change. The world spent its entire natural resource budget for the year by August 1, a group of analysts at HSBC said in a note that cited research from the Global Footprint Network (GFN).

Half of the Great Barrier Reef has been bleached to death since 2016. Mass coral bleaching, a global problem triggered by climate change, occurs when unnaturally hot ocean water destroys a reef’s colorful algae, leaving the coral to starve. The Great Barrier Reef illustrates how extensive the damage can be: Thirty percent of the coral perished in 2016, another 20 percent in 2017. The effect is akin to a forest after a devastating fire.

Last winter, unforgettable video footage online showed a starving polar bear, struggling in its Arctic hunting grounds. Because of global warming, the ice was thin and the food supply was scarce. The video generated a wellspring of sympathy for the plight of this poor creature, and invigorated calls for stronger efforts to combat climate change – and rightly so.

Earth is panting as soil struggles to keep up with climate change.