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There is a new way to measure the average temperature of the ocean thanks to researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. In an article published in the Jan. 4, 2018, issue of the journal Nature, geoscientist Jeff Severinghaus and colleagues at Scripps Oceanography and institutions in Switzerland and Japan detailed their ground-breaking approach.

Cultural evolution has made humans enormously potent ecosystem engineers and has enabled us to survive and flourish under a variety environmental conditions.

The Chinese megacity of Shenzhen has successfully switched 100 percent of its 16,359-vehicle bus fleet to electric vehicles, reaching its goal just six years after it vowed to move away from diesel engines, according to reporting by CleanTechnica and other news outlets. The fleet — which has three times as many buses as New York City — serves a population of 12 million. The switch is expected to save the equivalent of 345,000 tons of diesel fuel and cut 1.35 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Large areas of the Earth’s surface are experiencing rising maximum temperatures, which affect virtually every ecosystem on the planet, including ice sheets and tropical forests that play major roles in regulating the biosphere, scientists have reported.

One morning not long ago, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, I traveled with a Wildlife Conservation Society biologist on a switchback route up and over the high ridge of the Western Ghats. Our itinerary loosely followed the corridor connecting Bhadra Tiger Reserve with Kudremakh National Park 30 miles to the south.