After a string of below-average temperatures this week, Melbourne will turn on the heat to mark the first day of summer. But don’t get too excited; it won’t last long.

While odd things are happening at both ends of the globe, it's the South Pole that is harder to decipher.

Pauline Hanson is copping flak for taking her senators to a healthy part of the Great Barrier Reef in an effort to disprove claims the icon is dying.

The government agency responsible for the Great Barrier Reef says urgent action is needed to save the world heritage site after yet-to-be-published surveys found the record coral bleaching damage earlier this year was even worse than initially thought.

People can fixate on polar bears and say "it's a pity but it doesn't affect me'. They're wrong, a conservation biologist says.

A fledging of the rare night parrot, thought extinct for nearly 100 years, has been photographed for the first time.

Donald Trump, who called climate change a hoax during his campaign and vowed to pull out of the Paris accord, now says global warming might be real after all.

Australia is heading for a relatively hot and dry start to summer as key climate drivers combine to raise the fire threat is many parts of the country.

A threat by the incoming Trump administration to the climate research of US space agency NASA would be disastrous for global efforts to monitor and counter global warming, Australian researchers said.

Marco Tschannen like many other Sydneysiders, enjoys a coffee from his local cafe in the morning but every paper cup he throws out will take up to 50 years to decompose while contributing to 3.2 billion cups Australia throws out annually.

Fast-moving thunderstorms create airport havoc but the peak has passed, the bureau says.

Researchers say adopting daylight saving time in south-east Queensland could save the declining koala population.

The skeleton of a dodo has been sold at auction to a private collector for £280,000 ($560,000).

The Baird government has been accused of raiding NSW's $1.4 billion Climate Change Fund to subsidise increased land clearing.

ANU researchers raised a huge $70,000 in less than two days to help with their desperate efforts to save Australia's most endangered bird.

Up to 70 gigaltires will be redirected to agriculture because of concerns about job losses in rural towns.

We're not the only ones who can wear rose-coloured glasses. Little pink pigs can as well.

Claims that a rejig of the national parks service in NSW will undermine fire emergency responses.

"I stopped to turn my bike around and went a bit closer towards them to try and get a photo and one started running for me."

More than 45 countries, mostly developing nations, have said they will switch entirely to renewable energy as soon as possible.

Like the thousands of waterbirds he tracks every year, Professor Richard Kingsford migrates annually to NSW's Macquarie Marshes to witness a "great sight of nature: tens of thousands of waterbirds breeding in wetlands".

The Federal Government had consigning the mighty Murray to a "certain slow death" by reneging on a promise to increase environmental water flows, South Australia's environment minister Ian Hunter said on Friday morning.

A Queensland bird expert believes he may have witnessed the start of an evolutionary change in the nesting behaviours of crows after one pair's "terrible attempt" outside his office.

After several years of work, scientists are reporting remarkable results, and hope the research might help alleviate global poverty.

A man has attempted to throw a net over Premier Mike Baird as tensions boiled over in Ballina after the installation of the first shark nets in the region.

Something is off. The Arctic is superhot, even as a vast area of cold polar air has been displaced over Siberia.

Scientists know a tide gauge at Kaikoura rose 90 centimetres during Monday's magnitude-7.8 earthquake, but that's one of the few pieces of detailed data so far about how much the level of the coastline has risen.

BHP's boss has urged US President-elect Donald Trump to refrain from tearing up the Paris climate change agreement.