Phys.org: Earth science

Researchers at ETH Zurich have now discovered for the first time that large blackwater lakes in the extensive peatlands of the central Congo Basin are releasing ancient carbon. To date, climate researchers had assumed that carbon was stored safely for millenia in the peat. How the carbon is mobilized from the peat to the lake, where it is finally released to the atmosphere, is still unknown. Climate changes and altered land use, especially the conversion of forest to cropland, could exacerbate this trend—with consequences for the global climate.

When we dream of landscapes, we might imagine rolling valleys or rugged mountains. But there is a whole landscape hidden from human view: the secret world of the seafloor.

Tiny aerosol particles in the air play a big role in regulating how much sunlight our planet absorbs or reflects, and how clouds form above us. In a recent study, researchers found that extreme heat waves can trigger new particle formation (NPF), even at temperatures as high as 40°C (104°F).

Scientists say they have drilled deeper than ever beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, peering back millions of years to reveal signs it was once, at least in part, open ocean.

A study led by the University of Barcelona and published in the journal Nature Communications shows that climate change has profoundly altered extreme episodes of melting in the Greenland ice sheet by making them more frequent, more extensive and more intense. Since 1990, the area affected by extreme melting episodes has increased at a rate of 2.8 million km² per decade. Additionally, the production of water from ice melt has increased more than sixfold, rising from 12.7 gigatons per decade to 82.4 gigatons per decade.

Antarctica plays a crucial role in Earth's climate system by reflecting solar radiation back into space. The large white ice surfaces and clouds play a decisive role in this process. However, how clouds actually form in Antarctica, how they interact with the atmosphere and what role aerosols play in this process has not been sufficiently researched to date. Engaging in the SANAT flight campaign, the Alfred Wegener Institute, the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry aim to help close this knowledge gap. The flight-based aerosol measurements conducted in Antarctica are the first of their kind in 20 years and also the first to extend deep into the interior.

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.