Phys.org: Earth science

Melting of the Antarctic ice sheet due to global warming has long-term, irreversible societal impacts with important implications for people around the world. Spatial patterns of sea level change from ice sheet mass loss vary in cause, and have worldwide impacts.

Tulane University researchers, collaborating with an international team of scientists, have discovered why some parts of Earth's crust remain strong while others give way, overturning long-held assumptions about how continents break apart.

An international study presents the first global assessment of blue carbon accumulated in the living parts of seagrass plants. According to the results, their leaves, rhizomes and roots store up to 40 million tons of carbon worldwide.

For nearly a decade, Leigh Stearns and collaborators aimed a laser scanner system at Greenland's Helheim Glacier. Their long-running survey reveals that Helheim's massive calving events don't behave the way scientists once thought, reframing how ice loss contributes to sea-level rise.

Three new high-profile studies led by Dr. Yi Yao (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and ETH Zurich) show that while irrigation may be seen as a tool to dampen heat extremes, its benefits will come with adverse impacts.

By the beginning of June this year, approximately 38 million tons of Sargassum drifted towards the coasts of the Caribbean islands, the Gulf of Mexico, and northern South America, marking a negative record. Especially during the summer months, the brown algae accumulate on beaches, decomposing and emitting a foul odor. This not only repels tourists but also threatens coastal ecosystems. In the open ocean, Sargassum seaweed floating on the surface serves as nourishment and habitat for numerous marine species.

A collaborative research team has discovered that the Southern Ocean releases substantially more carbon dioxide (CO2) during the dark austral winter than previously thought. Their new study reveals that this winter outgassing has been underestimated by up to 40%.

Techniques to reflect an additional small portion of sunlight back into space could help cool the planet if deployed globally, but they cannot address the full range of climate impacts or replace emission cuts, according to a Royal Society briefing.

We've gone to the bottom of the ocean to study how its chemistry shapes our planet's climate, even chasing lava-spewing underwater volcanoes to do it. But it turns out we may have missed something far closer to home: the water beneath our feet.

A study published in Nature Climate Change by an international team of scientists from the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) at Pusan National University in South Korea, presents new evidence that ocean turbulence and a process known as "horizontal stirring" will increase dramatically in the Arctic and Southern Oceans due to human-induced global warming and decreasing sea ice coverage.

Beneath the surface of lakes and coastal waters lies a hidden world of sediment that plays a crucial role in the health of aquatic ecosystems. "Benthic fluxes" of nitrogen and phosphorus, such as releases of these dissolved nutrients from sediments to their overlying waters, can fuel algae growth and toxic harmful algal blooms (HABs), which degrade water quality, disrupt wildlife and recreation, and reduce property values.

The United States is falling far behind China in remote sensing research, according to a comprehensive new study that tracked seven decades of academic publishing and reveals a notable reversal in global technological standing.

Ancient trees may have played a key role in regulating Earth's climate during the last ice age—by 'breathing' less efficiently.

Earth is reflecting less sunlight, and absorbing more heat, than it did several decades ago. Global warming is advancing faster than climate models predicted, with observed temperatures exceeding projections in 2023 and 2024. These trends have scientists scrambling to understand why the atmosphere is letting more light in.

A Peking University research team led by Wang Heyuan and Wang Kai at the Institute for Carbon Neutrality (ICN) used AI models to determine that the global land carbon sink has drastically shrunk due to an abrupt and extreme jump in global temperature. Their study, "AI-tracked halving of global land carbon sink in 2024," was published in Science Bulletin.

A research team led by Professor Zhang Qinghong and Li Rumeng from the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Peking University (PKU) School of Physics, has found that hailstorms in China have surged since the Industrial Revolution, likely due to human-driven climate warming. The study, published in Nature Communications in September 2025, combines historical records, meteorological data, and artificial intelligence to track long-term hailstorm trends.

Small mountain ponds high in the tropical Andes may be playing an outsized role in global climate change, according to new research led by scientists at the University of North Carolina.

Microorganisms in the Black Sea can produce large amounts of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O). However, this gas never reaches the atmosphere because it is swiftly consumed by other microorganisms, which convert it to harmless dinitrogen gas (N2). Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology have now investigated this process and identified the key players involved.

With heat waves among Europe's deadliest climate hazards, a team of scientists led by CMCC has developed a prediction system capable of providing helpful information four to seven weeks before summer, which gives valuable time to improve preparedness.

In a new study published in Global Change Biology, Prof. Zhang Yuanming's team from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has unveiled a previously underestimated factor in greenhouse gas emissions from arid environments: hydroxyl radicals, often dubbed "free radicals."