Phys.org: Earth science

A recent study in Nature Geoscience offers important new insights into the hidden role of ancient groundwater beneath the ocean floor—and how it may have interacted with ice sheets and rising sea levels during past climate changes.

For a wide variety of earthquake scenarios in Alaska, an earthquake early warning (EEW) system could provide at least 10 seconds of warning time for hazardous shaking, according to a new report.

A previously unexploited source of information is now throwing new light on Earth's climate during the age of dinosaurs. Fossilized dinosaur teeth show that concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the Mesozoic Era, i.e., 252 to 66 million years ago, were far higher than they are today. This has been determined by researchers at the universities in Göttingen, Mainz, and Bochum following the analysis of oxygen isotopes in the dental enamel of dinosaur teeth.

Discover a vast, previously unknown world of microbial life that survives—and even thrives—for hundreds of millions of years in some of the planet's harshest environments.

A study published in the journal Tectonics has provided new insights into the forces that cause tectonic movements in Europe's most seismically active regions. Researchers used advanced satellite data to track land movements in Greece, western Turkey and the southern Balkan countries.

Periods of extreme heat often lead to increased exposure to ground-level ozone, in addition to other negative effects. This is dangerous for humans, the environment and agriculture. A study led by Forschungszentrum Jülich now provides surprising findings: With strong global warming, ozone pollution could decrease in some regions of the world.

A research team led by Dr. Shi Hailiang at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a novel infrared imaging payload and AI-based retrieval framework capable of detecting carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) emissions from space at a spatial resolution of approximately 100 meters.

Storm Floris made landfall in northern parts of the UK on the morning of Monday August 4, 2025, bringing intense rainfall followed by severe winds throughout the afternoon. The Met Office issued an amber weather warning for much of Scotland and yellow alerts for parts of Northern Ireland and northern England.

Climate change is starving the Arctic Ocean of essential nutrients, with the region's six largest rivers now delivering far less of the type of nitrogen that marine ecosystems need to survive, according to new research in one of Earth's most vulnerable regions.

As the climate warms and regional drying becomes more frequent, peatlands—some of the planet's most important carbon sinks—are increasingly under threat. But a study led by an international team including scientists from the University of Bristol has shown peatland ecosystems may have a natural defense through the combined forces of plant changes and microbes.

A UNSW-led global collaborative study has found most shoreline prediction models are effective at forecasting changes to natural, sandy beaches with an accuracy of approximately 10 meters.

Almost a quarter of the glaciers in one of the world's last pristine ecosystems have melted from climate change, according to new research from Monash University.

If your home was destroyed by a sudden disaster that you couldn't control, you would hope that at the very least, your insurance would cover your losses. However, disaster risk financing systems are struggling to keep pace with growing economic losses. Natural catastrophic (NatCat) events are becoming increasingly costly, and recent global warming could potentially worsen the situation.

NASA has a long record of monitoring Earth's sea surface height, information critical not only for tracking how the ocean changes over time but also for hurricane forecasting. These extreme storms can cost the United States billions of dollars each year, wreaking havoc on lives and property. Meteorologists have worked to improve forecasts for a hurricane's path, or track, as well as its intensity, measured as surface wind speed. Sentinel-6B, the U.S.-European satellite launching later this year, will help in that effort.

Forests play a central role in the global carbon cycle as trees store carbon in their trunks, branches, roots and leaves. However, climate change and human activities can change the ability of forests to absorb carbon and the annual changes in these carbon stocks are highly variable in space and time around the globe. That's why having continuous observations of the evolution of forest biomass over a long period is important for monitoring this essential climate variable.

After a massive earthquake off the coast of Kamchatka, a peninsula in the far east of Russia, on July 30, 2025, the world watched as the resultant tsunami spread from the epicenter and across the Pacific Ocean at the speed of a jet plane.

Forests cover about 40% of the EU's land area. Between 1990 and 2022, they absorbed around 10% of the continent's man-made carbon emissions. However, the carbon dioxide absorption capacity of forests, also known as carbon sinks, is becoming increasingly weaker.

Terrestrial plants drove an increase in global photosynthesis between 2003 and 2021, a trend partially offset by a weak decline in photosynthesis—the process of using sunlight to make food—among marine algae, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change.

A new study shows that natural dust particles swirling in from faraway deserts can trigger freezing of clouds in Earth's Northern Hemisphere. This subtle mechanism influences how much sunlight clouds reflect and how they produce rain and snow—with major implications for climate projections.

Around 800 million years ago, during the Tonian period, the Yangtze Block in South China experienced significant tectonic activity, in which the ancient supercontinent Rodinia broke off from the area that is now South China. This created the Yangtze Block plate, which then collided with the China Ocean Plate, causing an area of subduction—where the oceanic plate slides under the lighter continental plate. This process is known to result in the creation of a string of volcanoes on the surface.