Carolyn Gramling

Carolyn Gramling

Earth & Climate Writer

Carolyn is the Earth & Climate writer at Science News. Previously she worked at Science magazine for six years, both as a reporter covering paleontology and polar science and as the editor of the news in brief section. Before that she was a reporter and editor at EARTH magazine. She has bachelor’s degrees in Geology and European History and a Ph.D. in marine geochemistry from MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She’s also a former Science News intern.

All Stories by Carolyn Gramling

  1. Climate

    Expanding ice slabs are increasing Greenland’s contribution to sea level rise

    Since 2001, melting and refreezing have created vast ice layers near the surface that could drastically amp up meltwater runoff and sea level rise.

  2. Earth

    How Kilauea’s lava fed a massive phytoplankton bloom

    Kilauea’s heavy flow of lava into the ocean in 2018 added both food and heat to fuel a sudden bloom of ocean algae.

  3. Earth

    Hurricane Dorian’s slow pace makes it dangerous and hard to predict

    Hurricane Dorian is one of several recent hurricanes that moved extremely slowly. Whether that's due to climate change isn't yet clear.

  4. Earth

    Ocean acidification could weaken diatoms’ glass houses

    Ocean acidification may lead to smaller, lighter diatoms in seawater, which could also shrink how much carbon the tiny ocean algae can help sequester.

  5. Climate

    Mercury levels in fish are rising despite reduced emissions

    Climate change and overfishing can increase how much mercury accumulates in fish, counteracting efforts to reduce human-caused emissions.

  6. Climate

    The Arctic is burning and Greenland is melting, thanks to record heat

    A heat wave is melting Greenland’s ice and fueling blazes across the Arctic that are pumping record amounts of carbon dioxide into the air.

  7. Paleontology

    This newfound predator may have terrorized the Cambrian seafloor

    A newly discovered spaceship-shaped predator raked through the Cambrian seafloor in search of food.

  8. Climate

    How today’s global warming is unlike the last 2,000 years of climate shifts

    Temperatures at the end of the 20th century were hotter almost everywhere on the planet than in the previous two millennia.

  9. Earth

    U.S. wells are pumping up groundwater from increasing depths

    Around the United States, groundwater wells are getting deeper in search of new sources of freshwater, a new study shows.

  10. Paleontology

    A flexible bone that helps mammals chew dates back to the Jurassic Period

    A flexible bone that helps with chewing may have helped give rise to the Age of Mammals, a new fossil shows.

  11. Climate

    ‘Sunny day’ high tide floods are on the rise along U.S. coasts

    Sea level rise led to record-breaking tidal flooding in cities along the U.S. East Coast, a NOAA report found.

  12. Earth

    3 questions seismologists are asking after the California earthquakes

    After back-to-back quakes, scientists are scrambling to figure out which faults ruptured and what it means for future California quake activity.