Home / Alexandra Witze

I’m a science journalist in Boulder, Colorado, who specializes in the earth, planetary and astronomical sciences. See below for selected clips, or check out my Twitter feed for more recent news (@alexwitze).

My book ISLAND ON FIRE, coauthored with my husband Jeff Kanipe, is about the extraordinary 18th-century eruption of the Icelandic volcano Laki.

Reach me at witzescience@gmail.com.

Science News • 10th March 2022

We're living through a climate crisis. How did we get here?

“What’s happening to the planet is not routine,” says Ralph Keeling, a geochemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. “We’re in a planetary crisis.”

Nature • 14th July 2021

Racism is magnifying the deadly impact of rising city heat

Scientists are mapping correlations between race, poverty and heat in cities, and suggesting solutions to reduce the dangers.

Science News • 6th May 2021

How to detect, resist and counter the flood of fake news

From lies about election fraud to QAnon conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine falsehoods, misinformation is racing through our democracy. And it is dangerous.

Nature • 23rd September 2020

Universities will never be the same after the coronavirus crisis

How virtual classrooms and dire finances could alter academia. Part 1 in a series on science after the pandemic.

Nature • 14th January 2020

How the fight over a Hawaii mega-telescope could change astronomy

The Thirty Meter Telescope controversy is forcing scientists to grapple with how their research affects Indigenous peoples.

Nature • 16th July 2019

These young scientists will shape the next 50 years of Moon research

Half a century after Apollo, Nature profiles five researchers who are shaking up lunar exploration.

Knowable • 14th March 2019

The secrets of extreme wildfires

Researchers probe the weather-like physics of deadly infernos.

Air & Space Magazine • 1st October 2017

As the earth melts

Seen from the window of a Lockheed P-3 Orion turboprop flying at 1,500 feet, Greenland’s ice seems to go on forever.