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      Landfills belch toxic ‘forever chemicals’ into the air

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      What’s dumped into a landfill is supposed to stay there, but a new study finds that toxic “forever chemicals” are wafting from the waste into the air.

      Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have been detected in the gas exuded by some Florida landfills in quantities comparable to or even greater than in the liquids that seep from the waste, researchers report June 26 in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. These chemicals have been linked to cancer, weakened immune systems, developmental problems in children and a tide of other harmful health effects (SN: 6/15/21). More

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      The world has water problems. This book has solutions

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      The Last DropTim SmedleyPicador, $29.99

      A journalist and a farmer visit three fields with different styles of cultivation — conventional, organic and no-till — to bury cotton underwear in each. Though this sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, it’s actually a test of soil health. Healthy soil that produces robust crops holds plenty of water and teems with life that will feast on the undies. This scene is just one of many in U.K.-based journalist Tim Smedley’s book The Last Drop. More

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      Federally unprotected streams contribute most of the water to U.S. rivers

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      The dry-looking stream in your backyard may play a major role in feeding U.S. rivers.

      Channels that flow only in direct response to weather conditions like heavy rain, called ephemeral streams, on average contribute 55 percent of the water in regional river systems in the United States, researchers report in the June 28 Science.

      But last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that some waterways — including these streams — are not federally protected from pollution under the Clean Water Act. The decision could have a substantial ripple effect on the environment. More

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      Why this year’s climate conditions helped Hurricane Beryl smash records

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      Hurricane Beryl, the Atlantic Ocean’s first hurricane in 2024, began roaring across the Caribbean in late June, wreaking devastation on Grenada and other Windward Islands as it grew in power. It’s now swirling on like a buzzsaw toward Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula.

      Beryl is a record-breaking storm, commanding attention in a year already filled with record-breaking climate events (SN: 6/21/24; SN: 4/30/24).

      On June 30, the storm became the earliest Atlantic hurricane on record to achieve Category 4 status. Just a day later, it had intensified further, becoming the earliest Atlantic storm on record to achieve Category 5 status, with sustained winds of about 270 kilometers per hour, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. (As of late July 2, the storm has weakened slightly but remains a powerful Category 4 ahead of making landfall in Jamaica.) More

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      How powdered rock could help slow climate change

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      On a banana plantation in rural Australia, a second-generation farming family spreads crushed volcanic rock between rows of ripening fruit. Eight thousand kilometers away, two young men in central India dust the same type of rock powder onto their dry-season rice paddy, while across the ocean, a farmer in Kenya sprinkles the powder by hand onto his potato plants. Far to the north in foggy Scotland, a plot of potatoes gets the same treatment, as do cattle pastures on sunny slopes in southern Brazil.

      And from Michigan to Mississippi, farmers are scattering volcanic rock dust on their wheat, soy and corn fields with ag spreaders typically reserved for dispersing crushed limestone to adjust soil acidity. More

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      In ‘Warming Up,’ the sports world’s newest opponent is climate change

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      Warming UpMadeleine OrrBloomsbury Sigma, $28

      It’s easy to think of sports as an escape from reality, removed from the glaring problems of our world. Researcher Madeleine Orr shatters that illusion in Warming Up: How Climate Change Is Changing Sport. In her debut book, Orr shepherds readers through an at-times overwhelming deluge of all the ways climate change is disrupting sports around the world, providing a compelling case for action from athletes, sports leagues and fans alike. More

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      A heat dome is baking the United States. Here’s why that’s so dangerous

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      June is the new July. Or maybe even August. At least it feels that way, as summer heat has already soared to record highs.

      In the United States, West Coast residents sweltered earlier in the month as a high-pressure weather system called a heat dome trapped record-breaking high temperatures over the region (SN: 7/19/23). Now, another heat dome is bringing another wave of extreme heat to swaths of the Midwest and East Coast, with temperatures forecasted to reach close to 38° Celsius (100° Fahrenheit) in many cities. More

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      The Arctic is warming rapidly. These clouds may hold clues as to why

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      In the Arctic, a mysterious atmospheric phenomenon generates some of the oddest clouds on Earth.

      Up there, streaky wisps can swiftly transform into towering thunderstorms. These strange clouds are not just visually mesmerizing. Nor are they just drivers of powerful storms. They may also play a role in the Arctic’s breakneck pace of warming, researchers say, a pace about four times as fast as that of the rest of the planet (SN: 8/11/22).

      But climate simulations of the region can’t accurately incorporate the birth and evolution of these clouds: There’s simply too little known about the forces that shape them. More