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Climate change will move and reduce the land suitable for growing food and timber, putting the production of these two vital resources into direct competition, a new study has found. The sight of vineyards in Britain is becoming more common as hotter summers create increasingly suitable conditions for growing grapes.

Imperial research has found limits to how quickly we can scale up technology to store gigatonnes of carbon dioxide under the Earth's surface. Current international scenarios for limiting global warming to less than 1.5 degrees by the end of the century rely on technologies that remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the Earth's atmosphere faster than humans release it.

A new study by the Milner Centre for Evolution in the Department of Life Sciences has shed light on the mystery as to why are there so many different types. Cacti are amongst the most diverse plants, from the giant saguaro cactus that can grow up to 18 metres in height, all the way down to the tiny button cactus which is a few centimetres tall.

Planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from global food supply chains could fall by 17% if people change their food choices towards more plant-based diets, a new study reveals. More than half of the global population (56.9%) are currently over-consuming and would save nearly a third (32.4%) of global dietary emissions by switching to the plant-forward planetary health diet proposed by the EAT-Lancet Commission, according to the research.

The dry tropical forests of Africa are great at absorbing and storing carbon, explains Professor Mat Disney in The Conversation. Understanding how they do so is crucial for understanding climate change. Dry, tropical forests are often overshadowed in popular and scientific perception by wet and tall rainforests.

Pollutants preserved in Antarctic ice document historic fires in the Southern Hemisphere, offering a glimpse at how humans have impacted the landscape and providing data that could help scientists understand future climate change. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey tracked fire activity over the past 150 years by measuring carbon monoxide trapped in Antarctic ice.

Older trees have important carbon capture role - countering existing theories that mature woodland has no capacity to respond to elevated carbon dioxide levels Mature forests have a key role to play in the fight against climate change - extracting carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and locking it into new wood, a new study reveals.

Modern commercial aircraft flying at high altitudes create longer-lived planet-warming contrails than older aircraft, a new study has found. The result means that although modern planes emit less carbon than older aircraft, they may be contributing more to climate change through contrails. Led by scientists at Imperial College London, the study highlights the immense challenges the aviation industry faces to reduce its impact on the climate.

In a new study, published in Nature Reviews Endocrinology , endocrinologists and researchers from the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health (NDWRH) at the University of Oxford, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the William Harvey Research Institute (WHRI) at Queen Mary University of London and the National University of Singapore have emphasised the critical need for further research into the effects of heat exposure on the endocrine system.

Earth systems could be 'tipped' into unstable states if warming overshoots 1.5C target, but impacts could be minimised if warming is swiftly reversed. The Paris Agreement target to keep global warming below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels was set to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Researchers have identified an entirely new type of wood that does not fit into either category of hardwood or softwood. Scientists from the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University and Jagiellonian University, Poland made the discovery while undertaking an evolutionary survey of the microscopic structure of wood from some of the world's most iconic trees and shrubs.

A new study has revealed that changes in the ocean floor impacts currents, giving new insight into the deep-sea pathways of nutrients and pollutants. The study, published in Nature Geoscience by scientists at The University of Manchester and led by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), has found that currents sped up, slowed down, changed direction, and sometimes reversed direction completely, depending on the varying and uneven surfaces and features found on the ocean floor.

Scientists are using new technology to help endangered animals by listening to their sounds. The research, conducted by The University of Warwick and the University of New South Wales in Australia, analyses animal sounds from endangered species including types of elephants, whales and birds. It uses a new method adapted from tech used to analyse brain waves in neuroscience.

Microbes hidden within tree bark can absorb methane - a powerful greenhouse gas - from the atmosphere. Tree bark surfaces play an important role in removing methane gas from the atmosphere, according to a study published in Nature. While trees have long been known to benefit climate by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, this new research reveals a surprising additional climate benefit.

Researchers have analysed data from 127 studies to reveal 'thresholds' for when logged rainforests lose the ability to sustain themselves. The results could widen the scope of which forests are considered 'worth' conserving, but also show how much logging degrades forests beyond the point of no return.

Water scarcity drove steam power adoption during Industrial Revolution, new research suggests A groundbreaking new reconstruction of 19th-century Britain's water resources has revealed how limited access to waterpower during the Industrial Revolution helped drive the adoption of steam engines in Greater Manchester's Cottonopolis.

The Last Common Universal Ancestor (LUCA), from which life evolved into bacteria, plants and animals, was older and more complex than previously thought. An international team of researchers, including Dr James Clark from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, has shed light on Earth's earliest ecosystem, showing that within a few hundred million years of planetary formation, life on Earth was already flourishing.

The capacity of Mozambican woodlands to capture and store carbon is underestimated and potentially undervalued for their protection and restoration, finds new research from an international team of scientists including UCL researchers. The research, led by carbon data provider Sylvera and published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment , found that miombo woodlands, which span large areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, store 1.5 to 2.2 times more carbon than had previously been estimated by standard methods.

Research into a rare planet is revealing the link between hot Jupiter-sized exoplanets and cold solar system giants like Saturn. Astronomers searching for exoplanets (planets outside of our solar system) have investigated a Saturn-sized body around a Sun-like star, 490 lightyears from Earth. The research, led by The University of Warwick in collaboration with other global institutions, focused on a transiting exoplanet called TOI-2447 b, which is much cooler and further away from its host star than most known exoplanets.

New evidence of changes to the Gulf Stream during the last ice age could indicate additional sensitivity to future climatic changes, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The research, published in Nature, found that during the last ice age about 20,000 years ago, the Gulf Stream was stronger than today because of more powerful winds across the subtropical North Atlantic.