Phys.org: Earth science

Researchers have long been puzzled by the observed cooling of the eastern tropical Pacific and the Southern Ocean accompanying global warming. Existing climate models have failed to capture this pattern. At the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, researchers have come a significant step closer to the answer: Using a new generation of more physical climate models, they have demonstrated the first successful representation of the observed trend in a climate simulation and have delivered an explanation of the underlying mechanisms.

Volcanic eruptions are significant geologic hazards. Underwater volcanoes are challenging to study, yet they play an integral role in marine geology and may cause destructive tsunamis that can threaten coastal communities.

The climate crisis is warming Antarctica fast, with potentially disastrous consequences. Now scientists have modeled the best- and worst-case scenarios for climate change in Antarctica, demonstrating just how high the stakes are—but also how much harm can still be prevented.

Forest loss does more than reduce tree cover. A new global study involving UBC Okanagan researchers shows it can fundamentally change how watersheds hold and release water. The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed data from 657 watersheds across six continents.

Researchers have identified a "tipping point" about 2.7 million years ago when global climate conditions switched from being relatively warm and stable to cold and chaotic, as continental ice sheets expanded in the Northern Hemisphere. Following this transition, Earth's climate began swinging back and forth between warm interglacial periods and frigid ice ages, linked to slow, cyclic changes in Earth's orbit. However, glacial periods after this tipping point became far more variable, with large swings in temperature over relatively short timescales of roughly a thousand years.

Each year, the world's leading climate scientists evaluate the most critical evidence on how our planet is changing. Their assessments draw heavily on data from Earth-observing satellites—and the latest report delivers a stark warning: the planet's energy balance is drifting further out of alignment, ocean warming is now accelerating, and the land's capacity to absorb carbon is declining, along with other troubling trends.

In a world-first use of medical imaging technology, scientists have revealed the earthquake-generating potential of faults in the Hamilton and Hauraki areas. The study shows that hidden geological faults in Hamilton city and newly studied faults in the Hauraki district are capable of generating moderate to large earthquakes, and have done so in the past 15,700 years.

Despite decades of industrial deposition, nitrogen availability in the boreal forest is steadily declining. In a new study published in Nature, researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences using decades of unique, stored data have found that atmospheric CO₂ is the main driver.

Western Australian hydrothermal and magmatic deposits that formed several hundred kilometers apart more than two and half billion years ago share more commonalities than previously thought.

Western Australia's jarrah forests were unevenly impacted by the record-breaking 2023–2024 heat wave and subsequent drought, with some areas experiencing more severe tree die-off than others, according to a new study.

A new study published in the Journal of Climate reveals how surface warming in Antarctica, particularly over the Antarctic Peninsula, is significantly altering the stability of the lowest layers of the atmosphere.

An earthquake typically sets off ruptures that ripple out from its underground origins. But on rare occasions, seismologists have observed quakes that reverse course, further shaking up areas that they passed through only seconds before. These "boomerang" earthquakes often occur in regions with complex fault systems. But a new study by MIT researchers predicts that such ricochet ruptures can occur even along simple faults.

The Antarctic ice sheet does not behave as one single tipping element, but as a set of interacting basins with different critical thresholds. This is the finding of a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI-GEA). With today's warming, about 40% of the ice stored in West Antarctica may already be committed to long-term loss, while parts of East Antarctica could cross thresholds at moderate levels of warming between 2 to 3°C compared to pre-industrial levels, contributing significantly to global long-term sea-level rise.

About 56 million years ago, Europe and North America began pulling apart to form what became the ever-expanding North Atlantic Ocean. Vast amounts of molten rock from Earth's mantle reached the ocean floor as the crust stretched and thinned, creating a volcanic, rifted margin between Norway and Greenland, a marine feature that has intrigued scientists for decades.

In the whole history of Earth's climate, few events are as extreme as those that geologists call "Snowball Earth."

Experts have warned that extensive storm damage caused to one of South Devon's most iconic routes is likely to become more frequent as global sea levels rise and the impacts of extreme wave events increases. Members of the University of Plymouth's Coastal Processes Research Group have been conducting detailed measurements and visual assessments along Start Bay for the past 20 years.

Since 10 January 2026, the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) has received reports of hundreds of "whumpfs" (i.e., sounds indicating a collapse in the snowpack) and of remote triggering events—unmistakable signs of a critical avalanche situation involving a weak snowpack. A whumpf is where snow sports enthusiasts cause a fracture in a weak layer of the snow, which within seconds propagates as a crack across the terrain. If the crack reaches steep terrain, this may trigger an avalanche—a remote triggering event.

Northern Japan, especially the island of Hokkaido, is home to some of the snowiest cities in the world. Sapporo, the island's largest city and host of an annual snow festival, typically sees more than 140 days of snowfall, with nearly six meters (20 feet) accumulating on average each year. The ski resorts surrounding the city delight in the relatively dry, powdery "sea-effect" snow that often falls when frigid air from Siberia flows across the relatively warm waters of the Sea of Japan.

Yesterday, an international team of researchers from various disciplines set off aboard the German research vessel METEOR for an expedition along the west coast of Africa, led by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. The expedition focuses on two poorly understood phenomena: the Benguela upwelling system off the coasts of Angola and Namibia, which partly operates independently of the wind, and the recurring marine heat waves known as Benguela Niños, which have a significant impact on the local climate and cause flooding in Angola and Namibia.

Forecasting earthquakes presents a serious challenge on land, but in the oceans that cover around 70% of Earth's surface it is all but impossible. However, the vast network of undersea cables that crisscross the world's seas could soon change this. As well as transmitting data around the planet, they can also monitor the tectonic movements that cause earthquakes and tsunamis.