Phys.org: Earth science

Amid chronic groundwater depletion, water overallocation, land and soil degradation, deforestation, and pollution, all compounded by global heating, a UN report today declared the dawn of an era of global water bankruptcy, inviting world leaders to facilitate "honest, science-based adaptation to a new reality."

No one ever thought the birth of the Rocky Mountains was a simple process, but we now know it was far more complex than even geophysicists had assumed.

Carbon released from Earth's spreading tectonic plates, not volcanoes, may have triggered major transitions between ancient ice ages and warm climates, new research finds.

The remnants of ice attached to the coast offer astounding insights into the climate history of past millennia. An international research team led by the CNR Institute of Polar Sciences (Italy) and involving the University of Bonn has applied a new method of analyzing sediment drill cores to show the climate history of the past 3,700 years in Antarctica. Surprisingly, it is connected to the natural fluctuations in solar activity. The study has now been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Soils store more carbon than the atmosphere and vegetation combined, with soil microorganisms playing the main role. As a result, the global soil carbon cycle—by which carbon enters, moves through, and leaves soils worldwide—exerts a significant impact on climate change feedback.

The climate warmed up almost as quickly 56 million years ago as it is doing now. When a huge amount of CO2 entered the atmosphere in a short period of time, it led to large-scale forest fires and erosion. Mei Nelissen, Ph.D. candidate at NIOZ and UU, and her colleagues were able to see this very clearly in the layers of sediment drilled off the Norwegian coast. The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 19.

Marine turbidites are layers of mud and sand deposited on the deep ocean floor by massive underwater landslides and are often used as a historical record for reconstructing earthquake histories.

Researchers at the University of Tsukuba conducted a three-year observational study (January 2019–December 2021) using a network of live cameras to monitor characteristic clouds around Mount Fuji.

According to researchers from Science Tokyo, a new three-dimensional model of the fault beneath the Marmara Sea in Turkey reveals where a future major earthquake could take place. Using electromagnetic measurements, the team mapped hidden structures that help explain how earthquakes initiate and where ruptures could occur in this region.

Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have studied how polymer-coated fertilizer (PCF) applied to fields ends up on beaches and in the sea. They studied PCF deposits on beaches around Japan, finding that only 0.2% of used PCFs are washed into rivers and returned to the coastline. When there are canals connecting fields to the sea, this rises to 28%.

New research by Monash University and the ARC Center of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century analyzed close to three decades of weather data during the coral bleaching season and identified the prevalence of "doldrum days," and the absence of the trade winds, as a key factor in the mass bleaching events threatening the Great Barrier Reef.

Geologists from Heriot-Watt are part of an international research team that has confirmed why the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake off northeast Japan behaved in such an extreme and destructive way.

Wildfires are devastating events that destroy forests, burn homes and force people to leave their communities. They also have a profound impact on local ecosystems. But there is another problem that has been largely overlooked until now. When rain falls on the charred landscapes, it increases surface runoff and soil erosion that can last for decades, according to a new study published in Nature Geoscience.

What's the shape of water? In 2022, NASA launched the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite to answer this question by precisely measuring the height and extent of bodies of water. Virginia Tech geoscientists are using the same satellite to ask a related question: How is water shaping the land?

It is well known that discarded cigarette butts release nicotine, heavy metals and other toxins into the environment, including natural water systems. Less understood, however, is what happens to the plastic-based filters that shed these chemicals.

The long-term health of the ocean off the coast of Southern California, and the health of the region's freshwater streams and rivers and lakes, soon could hinge on the Trump administration's definition of a single word: ditch.

On Wednesday, January 14, 2026, the coolest library on Earth was inaugurated at the Concordia station, Antarctica. Samples from glaciers rescued worldwide are now beginning to be stored there for safekeeping. This will allow, among other things, future generations to continue studying traces of past climates trapped under ice, as glaciers on every continent continue to thaw out at a fast pace.

As Earth warms due to climate change, oceans are heating up, becoming more acidic, and losing oxygen. These changes threaten marine life, food webs, and global fisheries. Scientists agree that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is essential, but current efforts are not enough to keep global warming below the 1.5–2 degrees Celsius targets set by the Paris Agreement. Because of this, researchers are exploring climate intervention strategies as possible additions to emissions cuts.

Intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE) reflects how efficiently plants assimilate carbon relative to water loss at the leaf level. While widely studied using carbon isotope and gas-exchange measurements, most existing knowledge is derived from local observations.

Curtin University researchers have demonstrated a new way to uncover the ancient history of Australia's landscapes, which could offer crucial insights into how our environment responds to geological processes and climate change and even where deposits of valuable minerals may be found.