Phys.org: Earth science

New York's Long Island Sound (LIS) is an important inlet and estuary in the North Atlantic Ocean, which is highly urbanized due to its proximity to the city. This daily activity of passenger transport, fishing and cargo ships has had significant consequences on the marine landscape here, resulting in environmental degradation that impacts the flora and fauna that call LIS home.

Arid Central Asia is an important dust source in the northern hemisphere, which has a significant impact on the ecological environment of Central Asia, Northwest China and even the East Asian monsoon region. The Kyzylkum Desert is one of the biggest deserts in Central Asia and the eleventh largest desert in the world.

A study led by a University of Waikato Ph.D. student has shed light on the cause of delayed climate recovery following Earth's most severe extinction event 251 million years ago—a discovery that will contribute to our understanding of the global climate system.

A major fault is often surrounded by a web of secondary faults created as the forces that cause slip deform nearby rocks. This damage zone can act as a record of fault activity, but what we can learn from it—such as how the fault may behave during future earthquakes—has not been fully explored.

July 22, 2024, was the hottest day on record, according to a NASA analysis of global daily temperature data. July 21 and 23 of this year also exceeded the previous daily record, set in July 2023. These record-breaking temperatures are part of a long-term warming trend driven by human activities, primarily the emission of greenhouse gases. As part of its mission to expand our understanding of Earth, NASA collects critical long-term observations of our changing planet.

An international research team presented a new reconstruction of past Arctic sea ice that revealed low levels of sea ice coverage in the 1940s.

Researchers at Heidelberg University are studying the formation of this characteristically blue-colored crystal in volcanic melts

The historic hurricane of October 1987 that wrought devastation to households across the South and East of Britain exposed a range of anxieties and fears in people and an increasing sense of separation from nature.

Schmid College of Science and Technology Associate Professor Joshua Fisher is a co-investigator on a groundbreaking three-year project, which, led by the stratospheric and remote sensing company Urban Sky, aims to predict and manage wildfires.

A consortium of researchers led by the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and Charles University, Prague have developed a new data-driven map which predicts substantially more peatland area in the Amazon basin than previously estimated. The high-resolution map provides the first field-data-driven extent of peatlands in the Amazon basin and will be useful for future research and policy on the vulnerability of peatlands to climate change and human impacts.

Lesotho is a small, land-locked, mountainous country located in the middle of South Africa. Its Eastern Lesotho Highlands are often referred to as the region's "water tower" because they receive some of the highest rainfall amounts in southern Africa, providing water to South Africa and electricity to Lesotho through the Lesotho Highlands Water Project.

New research from a collaborative team featuring Texas A&M University atmospheric scientist Dr. Andrew Dessler is exploring the climate impact of the 2022 Hunga Tonga volcano eruption and challenging existing assumptions about its effects in the process.

Three recent papers authored by Ted Schuur, Regents' professor of biological sciences at Northern Arizona University, and other researchers around the world, organized through the Permafrost Carbon Network, investigate the biological processes taking place in the warming Arctic tundra and provide insight into what we can expect from that region as the climate continues to change.

Scientists have known from ice core research that it's easier to melt an ice sheet than to freeze it up again. Now, they know at least part of the reason why, and it has to do with ice's "sponginess," according to a new study published July 24 in The Cryosphere.

A type of invisible, unpredictable air turbulence is expected to occur more frequently in the Northern Hemisphere as the climate warms, according to new research. Known as clear air turbulence, the phenomenon also increased in the Northern Hemisphere between 1980 and 2021, the study found.

Rainfall fluctuates more vigorously. Why? Scientists say it's because of us. Many people around the world have noticed that rainfall is becoming increasingly erratic. Intense downpours are occurring more frequently, while dry periods seem to last longer and become more severe. These changes have raised concerns and prompted scientists to investigate the links between climate change and these unpredictable rainfall patterns.

Scientists for decades have attempted to learn more about the complex and mysterious chain of events by which tiny droplets in clouds grow large enough to begin falling toward the ground. Better understanding this process, known as the "rain formation bottleneck," is fundamental to improving computer model simulations of weather and climate and ultimately generating better forecasts.

In an actively warming world, large-scale wildfires are becoming more common. These wildfires emit black carbon to our atmosphere, one of the most potent short-lived atmospheric warming agents. This is because of its strong sunlight absorption characteristics. But scientists have yet to get a handle on the extent of atmospheric warming caused by black carbon in pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) clouds that develop from high-intensity wildfires.

Research by Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) examining greenhouse gas emissions from the drying lake bed of Great Salt Lake, Utah, calculates that 4.1 million tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were released in 2020. This research suggests that drying lake beds are an overlooked but potentially significant source of greenhouse gases, which may further increase due to climate change.

Information like forest canopy height can be useful in assessing the health of a forest, but current measuring methods are not always feasible for large geographic regions or adaptable to diverse forest types. Monitoring from space can be a solution.