Governments might be able to prevent future pandemics by investing as little as $22 billion a year in programs to curb wildlife trafficking and stem the destruction of tropical forests, a new analysis by an international team of scientists and economists shows.

Scientists at Duke University are harnessing the power of big data and geospatial analysis to create new ways to track the effects of climate change on species and food webs.

Pollution declines from pandemic shutdowns may aid in answering long-standing questions about how aerosols influence climate.

Global methane levels have hit an all-time high after what appears to be a near-record yearly atmospheric increase in the potent greenhouse gas.

New NOAA analysis highlights an alarming trend; experts call for curbing pollution from oil and gas wells

Reforestation has been shown to cool surface temperatures, and a novel study suggests it may also reduce air temperature up to several stories above the ground.

Scientists have devised a simple new model that explains how the undesirable effects of urban heat islands vary across seasons. Their results could help cities in different climatic regions design heat mitigation strategies.

Predicting if droughts and heat waves will kill forests is difficult, but new work by scientists and engineers at Duke, Princeton, Stanford and the University of Alabama (UA) could help scientists spot problems early enough that they can still mitigate the threats and help restore at-risk forests.

Reducing fossil fuel emissions steadily over coming years will prevent millions of premature deaths and help avoid the worst of climate change without causing the large spike in short-term warming that some studies have predicted, new analysis by researchers at Duke University and the University of Leeds finds.

Junfeng “Jim” Zhang, professor of global and environmental health at Duke University, has received a $2 million grant to lead a four-year study on the effects of early-life and prenatal exposure to air pollution on birth weight and growth. These are two important predictors of childhood obesity.

John Poulsen, assistant professor of tropical ecology at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, has received an $848,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the effects of declining elephant populations on Africa’s forests.

The Duke Forest is a 7,000 acre teaching and research forest used by the university since 1931 to facilitate research and education. Today, it remains an outdoor classroom and living laboratory but the topics under study and the people driving the work are far more diverse than ever before.