Phys.org: Earth science

Accurate land cover mapping underpins biodiversity protection, climate adaptation, and sustainable land use. Despite advances in remote sensing, satellite-only approaches remain limited by cloud cover, revisit intervals, and the lack of ground-truth data. Dynamic products such as Dynamic World have improved timeliness but still struggle to capture sudden transitions or validate their results.

Rocks store information from long ago. For instance, their composition can reveal the environmental conditions during their formation. This makes them extremely important in climate research. This led a research team at the University of Göttingen and the GFZ Helmholtz Center for Geosciences to investigate the following: do "cherts"—sedimentary rocks that form when silica-rich sediment mud is buried hundreds of meters deep—reveal anything about the climate of the past?

A study led by University of Arizona researchers shows that decades of groundwater pumping by humans has depleted Tucson-area aquifers far more than natural climate variation. Published in the journal Water Resources Research, the study provides the first multi-millennial reconstruction for the region that places human impacts on groundwater into long-term context.

Sea ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean is at one of its lowest levels on record, yet there's no unanimity on when that ice will disappear completely during summer months.

Sometime between 1381 and 1391, an earthquake exceeding magnitude 8.0 rocked the northeastern Caribbean and sent a tsunami barreling toward the island of Anegada.

Under the lead of the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW), a review article outlined the state of the Baltic Sea coast and its expected development as a result of climate change. The article shows that the Baltic Sea can serve as a model for the consequences of climate change and that interdisciplinary research is needed to investigate changes in its shallow coastal zones. The focus is on researching the interactions between the coastal area and the open ocean and the aim is to develop a basis for marine conservation measures. The feature article was recently published in the journal Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.

Large changes in global sea level, fueled by fluctuations in ice sheet growth and decay, occurred throughout the last ice age, rather than just toward the end of that period, a study published in the journal Science has found.

A global research effort led by Colorado State University shows that extreme, prolonged drought conditions in grasslands and shrublands would greatly limit the long-term health of crucial ecosystems that cover nearly half the planet. The findings are particularly relevant as climate change increases the possibility of more severe droughts in the future, potentially leading to a situation that echoes the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is one of the most dynamic regions of the Antarctic continent. Much of its bed lies below sea level, making the region particularly sensitive to ocean warming. Understanding the development of the WAIS is central to anticipating future sea level changes. If the WAIS were to melt completely, global sea levels could rise by more than 4 meters.

The deal is done for the new underwater vehicle that will replace Ran, the submarine that was lost under a glacier in Antarctica in 2024. A large donation means that researchers at the University of Gothenburg can plan for new expeditions.

Tiny airborne particles known as aerosols, from biomass burning, urban pollution, and industrial emissions, can dramatically alter rainfall, cloud formation, and atmospheric stability. A new study led by Professor Kyong-Hwan Seo of Pusan National University, Korea, shows that aerosols profoundly reshape precipitation over the Maritime Continent, a region including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and surrounding seas, where millions rely on predictable rainfall for water, food, and flood protection.

Increased warming in high-latitude wetlands seems poised to increase the activity of methanogens, or methane-producing microbes. These ecosystems are complex places, however, making outcomes hard to predict.

Dangerous flooding has damaged neighborhoods in almost every state in 2025, leaving homes a muddy mess. In several hard-hit areas, it wasn't the first time homeowners found themselves tearing out wet wallboard and piling waterlogged carpet by the curb.

A new study published in the journal Nature Communications reveals that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a key driver of global climate variability, is projected to undergo a dramatic transformation due to greenhouse warming.

Human-driven climate change made wildfires in parts of South America and Southern California many times larger and more destructive, according to an annual assessment by international experts.

POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) Professor Hyung Joo Lee's research team, including integrated program students Min Young Shin and Na Rae Kim, has published the results of a study analyzing how the combined effects of droughts and wildfires influence fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in California, U.S., using 15 years of data.

Peatlands are among the world's most important yet underappreciated ecosystems. They are a type of wetland that covers a small fraction of Earth's land, while containing the most carbon-rich soils in the world.

Remnants of a powerful typhoon swept into Western Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta on Oct. 12, 2025, producing a storm surge that flooded villages as far as 60 miles up the river. The water pushed homes off their foundations and set some afloat with people inside, officials said. More than 50 people had to be rescued in Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, hundreds were displaced in the region, and at least one person died.

On 30 July, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula triggered a tsunami that spread across the Pacific Ocean.

A team of scientists led by Rutgers researchers has uncovered evidence that modern sea level rise is happening faster than at any time in the past 4,000 years, with China's coastal cities especially at risk.