We sometimes forget that one consequence of climate change is likely to be new ways for diseases to spread. But the natural world offers stark reminders. Some like it hot: more protozoans can infect the monarch butterfly as climates become milder; nematode parasites get two chances to infect caribou and reindeer as a result of Arctic warming; and coral pathogens become more active with warmer seas.

It’s official: global warming could get worse – almost unimaginably worse. Conditions on planet Earth mean that in theory, at least, there could be a runaway greenhouse effect. There is already a runaway greenhouse effect on the planet Venus

An Alaskan village's quest to move to higher ground and avoid being drowned by climate change has sputtered to a halt, The Guardian has learned. Newtok, on the Bering Sea coast, is sinking and the highest point in the village – the school which sits perched atop 20-foot pilings - could be underwater by 2017. But the village's relocation effort broke down this summer because of an internal political conflict and a freeze on government funds.

Hurricane Sandy caused upward of $60 billion in damage, including an estimated $19 billion in damage and economic losses in New York City alone. Sea level rise played a relatively minor role in contributing to these losses. However, a new study finds that that might not be the case for future storms, even those that pack less of a punch than Sandy.

There have been dire warnings about melting glaciers in the Himalayas leading to falling flows in some of Asia’s major’s rivers. Now scientists are turning some of their original research on its head. The river systems fed by the glaciers of the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau are a vital source of water, food and energy for hundreds of millions of people downstream.

Recent warnings that this greenhouse gas could cost us $60 trillion have received widespread publicity. But many scientists are skeptical. It was a stunning figure: $60 trillion.

Over the next century, plants and animals on land might be in for a wild and ultimately devastating ride. Warming temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and extreme weather and climate events are likely to increase at a rate and magnitude not seen in more than 65 million years, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Science.

The Arctic permafrost thaws each year, but – to the surprise of scientists from Denmark – in some areas it is not releasing the carbon dioxide it contains nearly as fast as they had expected.

An intense heat wave in Siberia has contributed to an unusual flare up of wildfires across the fragile and carbon-rich landscape. Smoke from the fires is lofting high into the atmosphere, and is drifting toward the Arctic, where soot can hasten the melting of snow and sea ice.

Consider it a taste of the future: the fire, smoke, drought, dust, and heat that have made life unpleasant, if not dangerous, from Louisiana to Los Angeles. New records tell the tale: biggest wildfire ever recorded in Arizona (538,049 acres), biggest fire ever in New Mexico (156,600 acres), all-time worst fire year in Texas history (3,697,000 acres).

Measurements tell us that global average sea level is currently rising by about 1 inch per decade. But in an invisible shadow process, our long-term sea level rise commitment or "lock-in" — the sea level rise we don’t see now, but which carbon emissions and warming have locked in for later years — is growing 10 times faster, and this growth rate is accelerating.

Some recent fires in the forests of Alaska have been the worst for 10,000 years, researchers say – and they could happen elsewhere in this warming world.

A warming climate will play havoc with energy supplies and food for millions of people in West Africa, as well as putting industrial growth in doubt.

Atmospheric rivers, airborne corridors of concentrated moisture which carry huge volumes of water, are set to get wider and longer, causing more frequent and catastrophic floods as the atmosphere warms.

The worldwide impacts of a rapidly warming Arctic could cost the global economy an estimated $60 trillion, nearly equal to the entire global economy in 2012, according to a new study. That report, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is the first to analyze the potential economic costs of rapid Arctic warming.

In a sign of how swiftly and extensively climate change is reshaping the Arctic environment, a new study has found that the region’s mighty boreal forests — stands of mighty spruce, fir, and larch trees that serve as the gateway to the Arctic Circle — have been burning at an unprecedented rate during the past few decades.

Scientists have identified the problem that commercial hatcheries must overcome to keep baby oysters alive in increasingly acid seas − but wild oysters are still under threat

Clear and compelling evidence shows that winter snows vital for tourism and agriculture are in rapid decline in Southern California.

Sea-level rise may be slow to show its hand but once it really starts, researchers say, it will keep going for centuries, with baleful effects. For each degree by which the Earth warms, they believe, sea levels will probably rise by over two metres.

Ocean acidification will make coral skeletons more feeble and coral reefs more vulnerable to battering by the seas – but it may not kill the corals, according to new research from the University of California, Santa Cruz.Two important habitats for marine life, coral reefs and eelgrass meadows, will survive climate change but it will make them vulnerable.

The bad habits of the locals have been blamed for the decline of Lake Chad in Africa but it was pollution from people far away that caused rain patterns to shift.

Some parts of the world face frequent catastrophic floods by the end of this century while other regions could get less hazardous.

Work by 100 scientists over five years reveal that more than half the species studied are in danger because of a warming planet.