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Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Can solar projects improve biodiversity? Solar projects do not inherently reduce biodiversity, and when designed with best practices, they can sustain or even increase local wildlife and plant diversity. Impacts depend on where and how projects are built. Siting solar on already developed land and minimizing soil disturbance can maintain habitats and s

This article by Mathew Barlow, Professor of Climate Science, UMass Lowell and Judah Cohen, Climate scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. A severe winter storm that brought crippling freezing rain, sleet and snow to a large part of the U.S. in late Janu

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 25, 2026 thru Sat, January 31, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category: Climate Change Impacts (11 articles) Thailand’s endangered ‘sea cows’ are washing ashore – pointing to a crisis in our seas "The Andaman Coast has one of the largest concentration of dugong in the world, so why are numbers falling dramatically and what can they tell us about a biodiversity warning cry" The Guardian, Gloria Dickie, Jan 23, 2026.

Open access notables Are Hibernators Toast? Global Climate Change and Prolonged Seasonal Hibernation, Dausmann & Cooper, Global Change Biology This review examines the multifaceted implications of global climate change on mammalian hibernators, emphasizing physiological, ecological and phenological impacts. While high-latitude habitats are experiencing faster overall warming, tropical and southern hemisphere regions face more unpredictable and variable climate alterations. Increasing temperature can directly affect hibernators by elevating hibernacula temperatures, shortening torpor bouts, increasing arousal frequency, and depleting energy reserves crucial for survi

This is a re-post from the WMO Climate variability and long-term climate change are increasingly shaping the performance and reliability of renewable energy systems worldwide, according to the WMO–IRENA Climate-driven Global Renewable Energy Resources and Energy Demand Review: 2024 Year in Review, released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are solar projects hurting farmers and rural communities? The largest land use scenario for solar development would occupy only 1.15% of the 900 million acres of U.S. farmland. Many would not be sited on farmland at all. Agrivoltaics is a practice allowing the synergistic installation of solar arrays on farmland. Panels can provide beneficial shade to crops and

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob Henson A prolonged, dangerous bout of frigid temperatures with snow, sleet, and freezing rain will encompass much of the central and eastern United States this weekend into early next week. To make matters worse, there are fresh model signals that one or more reinforcing rounds of cold and snow may emerge around the end of January and early February, including parts of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The intensity, duration, and geographic spread of this U.S. winter blast could have major consequences, from sustained power outages to transportation snarls and widespread business closures.The National Weather Service office for the Washington, D.C., area 

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 18, 2026 thru Sat, January 24, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category: Climate Change Impacts (7 articles) Ocean Damage Nearly Doubles the Cost of Climate Change "Ignoring the blue economy has left a multi-trillion-dollar blind spot in climate finance, according to a study from Scripps Oceanography." Inside Climate News, Johnny Sturgeon, Jan 15, 2026. ‘Climate change is here&r

Open access notables Mapping Europe’s rooftop photovoltaic potential with a building-level database, Kakoulaki et al., Nature Energy Individual building-level approaches are needed to understand the full potential of rooftop photovoltaics (PV) at national and regional scale. Here we use the European Digital Building Stock Model R2025, an open-access building-level database, to assess rooftop solar potential for each of the 271 million buildings in the European Union. The results show that potential capacity could reach 2.3 TWp (1,822 GWp residential, 519 GWp non-residential), with an annual output of 2,750 TWh based on current PV te

This is a re-post from the WMO Press Office The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has confirmed that 2025 was one of the three warmest years on record, continuing the streak of extraordinary global temperatures. The past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated. Key messages