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.
-
Crab and lobster fishing seasons are increasingly closing over concerns about whales. They can get entangled in the long ropes on fishing gear. Now, a new solution could help — pop up fishing gear.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Climate change is causing ice caps and glaciers to disappear. One animal that the ice melt is affecting is the North Atlantic right whale.
-
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.
-
As Western wildfires get more destructive, scientists are finding a far-off connection to shrinking ice on the Arctic Ocean.
-
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. -
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.
-
The world's tropical rainforests are still getting hit hard by deforestation. Now, scientists are finding that's having an expected impact: causing droughts.
