Phys.org: Earth science

Researchers have revealed the declining health of coastal marshes several years before visible signs of decline, providing an early warning and an opportunity to protect an ecosystem that serves as the first line of defense against coastal flooding.

New research from the University of California, Davis, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Texas A&M University reveals that massive emissions, or burps, of carbon dioxide from natural Earth systems led to significant decreases in ocean oxygen concentrations some 300 million years ago.

The Korea Institute of Ocean Science & Technology (KIOST) has revealed that marine microalgae are responsible for ocean aggregates of buoyant microplastics (MPs), increasing the density of MP aggregates and causing them to sink.

Unexpected severe turbulence injured crew and passengers on a Qantas Boeing 737 during descent at Brisbane on May 4, 2024. The subsequent Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation suggested the severity of the turbulence caught the captain by surprise.

At any given time, about two-thirds of Earth's surface is covered by clouds. Overall, they make the planet much cooler than it would be without them.

In the last few decades, Arctic sea ice has receded ever further, including increasingly in winter when the extent of sea ice is at its most prominent. One of the main drivers of this development is thought to be the warming of Atlantic water that flows from Europe's Norwegian Sea into the Arctic Ocean, passing through the Barents Sea and the Fram Strait in the process.

When visiting Godrevy beach on the north Cornish coast, most people look out to sea at the lighthouse, surfers and seals rather than the cliffs behind. But these cliffs hold a history of past climate and sea levels that is incredibly valuable to scientists like me, who are trying to determine how quickly sea level is going to rise in the future.

Years after wildfires burn forests and watersheds, the contaminants left behind continue to poison rivers and streams across the Western U.S.—much longer than scientists estimated.

How does climate change affect the way humans organize themselves? How has it shaped the course of human evolution? An international team of scientists, including scientists from the Université de Montréal, think the key to answering those questions is to pay more attention to the archaeological record.

For more than a century, a patch of cold water south of Greenland has resisted the Atlantic Ocean's overall warming, fueling debate among scientists. A new study identifies the cause as the long-term weakening of a major ocean circulation system.

A study led by researchers from Brown University finds that rainfall patterns across northern Africa remained largely stable between 3.5 and 2.5 million years ago—a pivotal period in Earth's climate history when the Northern Hemisphere cooled and places like Greenland became permanently glaciated.

The Earth is rapidly warming, and similar climate upheavals over 300 million years ago once triggered massive fluctuations in marine life.

A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, 2025, became a widespread catastrophe due to the collapse of vulnerable buildings, which directly led to the majority of deaths and destruction, according to a new report by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH).

Over the last two decades, the scientific community has made rapid strides in understanding climate change and air pollution—but progress on their combined effects remains limited. Traditional models often gloss over the complex web of interactions between land, sea, and sky, especially when simulating compound events like heat waves coinciding with stagnant air. These gaps are particularly troubling in densely populated coastal and urban zones, where human exposure is highest.

Volcanic islands, such as the islands of Hawaii and the Caribbean, are surrounded by coral reefs that encircle an island in a labyrinthine, living ring. A coral reef is punctured at points by reef passes—wide channels that cut through the coral and serve as conduits for ocean water and nutrients to filter in and out. These watery passageways provide circulation throughout a reef, helping to maintain the health of corals by flushing out freshwater and transporting key nutrients.

A research team led by the University of Aberdeen has developed a pioneering AI model to improve accuracy and reduce computational time in land cover mapping, particularly for vegetation.

Due to global warming, the North Atlantic Oscillation, an atmospheric circulation pattern that strongly influences European weather, is becoming more extreme in the summer, according to a study published in Communications Earth & Environment.

As Earth's largest carbon reservoir, the ocean locks carbon away from the atmosphere. However, scientists still struggle to measure and monitor exactly how much carbon is stored in the ocean, hindering efforts to model and respond to our changing climate.

Ocean waters are getting greener at the poles and bluer toward the equator, according to an analysis of satellite data published in Science on June 19.

In Europe, people are increasingly exposed to extreme heat events—with serious consequences for human health, ecosystems, and agriculture. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology have developed and tested a method that can be used to improve the prediction of European hot summers up to a few years in advance.