Lauren Sommer
Lauren Sommer covers climate change for NPR's Science Desk, from the scientists on the front lines of documenting the warming climate to the way those changes are reshaping communities and ecosystems around the world.
Prior to joining NPR, Sommer spent more than a decade covering climate and environment for KQED Public Radio in San Francisco. During her time there, she delved into the impacts of California's historic drought during dry years and reported on destructive floods during wet years, and covered how communities responded to record-breaking wildfires.
Sommer has also examined California's ambitious effort to cut carbon emissions across its economy and investigated the legacy of its oil industry. On the lighter side, she ran from charging elephant seals and searched for frogs in Sierra Nevada lakes.
She was also host of KQED's macrophotography nature series Deep Look, which searched for universal truths in tiny organisms like black-widow spiders and parasites. Sommer has received a national Edward R. Murrow for use of sound, as well as awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Based at NPR's San Francisco bureau, Sommer grew up in the West, minus a stint on the East Coast to attend Cornell University.
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To prevent flooding, communities often raise levees next to rivers higher and higher. Now, a new approach is about backing off, moving levees away from rivers to create floodplains. -
A wet winter in California has helped many plants and animals, but some species are struggling. An effort is underway to relocate endangered rabbits to higher ground.
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Climate change is causing ice caps and glaciers to disappear. Reporters from NPR's Climate Desk talk about their stories connecting the dots between melting ice and our everyday lives.
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As Western wildfires get more destructive, scientists are finding a far-off connection to shrinking ice on the Arctic Ocean.
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The massive ice sheet on Greenland is shrinking as the climate gets hotter, pouring fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean. That could be setting off a chain reaction that's altering ocean ecosystems.
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The world's massive ice sheets and glaciers are melting as climate change raises temperatures. Scientists warn that disappearing ice is having surprising and far-reaching effects.
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California has been deluged by storms this winter, but fixing the state's severe drought will take more than rain. The state had deeper problems in how it uses water.
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As the climate gets hotter, animals and plants are moving because it is harder to survive where they live. One of the most consequential shifts is happening to some of the smallest living things.
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As the climate changes, anxiety among younger people is rising. NPR launches a comic book with advice from and for kids on how to cope. (Story originally aired on Morning Edition on Nov. 27, 2022.)
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Thanks to a new federal law, cities will get better forecasts about how climate change intensifies rainstorms. Still, it won't be in time for billions of dollars of federal infrastructure spending.
