Phys.org: Earth science

A lot of attention has been paid to how climate change can drive biodiversity loss. Now, MIT researchers have shown that the reverse is also true: Reductions in biodiversity can jeopardize one of Earth's most powerful levers for mitigating climate change.

The findings are important because methane is over 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Arctic lakes are already major natural methane sources globally, but the processes that control how methane is produced and released from lake sediments have remained poorly understood—until now.

Wetlands are among the most efficient ecosystems for carbon sequestration, storing more than 30% of global soil carbon in only 3%–13% of Earth's land surface. However, the spatiotemporal patterns of wetland carbon uptake and their role in regulating global land carbon sink dynamics have been poorly quantified.

Though scientists have long understood how lightning strikes, the precise atmospheric events that trigger it within thunderclouds have remained a perplexing mystery. The mystery may now be solved, thanks to a team of researchers led by Victor Pasko, professor of electrical engineering in the Penn State School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, that has revealed the powerful chain reaction that triggers lightning.

New findings from studying over two decades of satellite observations reveal that Earth's continents have experienced unprecedented freshwater loss since 2002, driven by climate change, unsustainable groundwater use and extreme droughts. The study, led by Arizona State University and published today in Science Advances, highlights the emergence of four continental-scale "mega-drying" regions, all located in the northern hemisphere, and warns of severe consequences for water security, agriculture, sea level rise and global stability.

Heat waves aren't just getting worse on land, the majority of the world's oceans are experiencing record-breaking temperatures too. These marine heat waves are getting longer, more intense and reaching farther than ever before. In particular, 2023's marine heat waves (MHWs) exhibited the longest duration, widest extents, and highest intensities on record—and 2024 wasn't any better.

The soil in high-elevation, cooler, drier tropical forests in the Colombian Andes stores more carbon from fires than lower, warmer regions, new research shows.

Penn State Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jacob Holland-Lulewicz is among a group of archaeologists who have spent years conducting research on the barrier islands off the coast of Georgia. The islands have changed shape and even numbers over the centuries, with Hurricane Irma splitting one into two distinct masses in 2018 and potential changes on the horizon now that the current hurricane season is underway.

Northwestern University and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) scientists have developed a new process-based framework that provides a more accurate and dynamic approach to landslide prediction over large areas.

Deep below the surface of the ocean, unseen waves roil and churn the water. These internal waves, traveling between water layers of different temperatures and densities, draw cold, nutrient-rich water up from the depths and play a major role in oceanic circulation. Understanding and modeling their behavior is critical for developing more accurate simulations of an increasingly unpredictable climate.

The Pacific Northwest boasts an extensive network of more than 600 seismic monitoring stations that help researchers track tectonic and volcanic phenomena, including earthquakes.

Driven by high temperatures in the Gulf, Hurricane Ian rapidly intensified from a Category 3 to Category 5 before making landfall in Southwest Florida on September 28, 2022. The deadly storm caught many by surprise and became the costliest hurricane in state history.

For decades, medium-range weather forecasting—predicting conditions 1 to 5 days ahead—has relied heavily on traditional numerical models. However, this approach often struggles when applied to specific regions with limited historical data.

When an earthquake causes a landslide, debris flow, or erosion, it can change the makeup of nearby lakes by introducing larger sediment particles, causing faster sediment buildup, and affecting carbon sequestration. The sediments that build up on lake bottoms act as a historical archive, recording the lake's biological, physical, and chemical changes and how they affect microbes such as diatoms (microscopic glass-like algae). Yet little is known about how sudden, earthquake-driven disturbances may affect lake ecosystems.

Ocean tides can trigger city-sized icebergs to break off from Antarctic ice shelves, scientists said on Thursday, offering a potential way to predict these dramatic events in the future.

Researchers have developed a novel method to detect and study how ice forms in mixed-phase clouds, significantly boosting scientists' ability to forecast weather and model climate change.

The seismic signature of a fireball meteoroid event can be used to tell whether the fireball fragmented or remained intact as it fell through the atmosphere, according to new research published in Seismological Research Letters.

Megathrust earthquakes are large earthquakes that occur on faults found along the boundaries between tectonic plates. The Nankai Trough is a megathrust earthquake zone lying off the southwestern coast of Japan, and experts estimate that this zone could generate a potentially devastating (magnitude 8 or 9) large earthquake sometime in the next 30 years. In addition to the direct catastrophic impact of such powerful ground shaking, a seismic event of this magnitude could trigger cascading hazards such as destructive tsunamis.

As temperatures, biodiversity losses, and sea levels rise globally, scientists are concerned about the likelihood of abrupt climatic shifts occurring, particularly within sensitive subsystems of the climate system such as the Amazon rainforest, Antarctic sea ice, and the Tibetan Plateau. Abrupt shifts can manifest as, for example, large and sudden changes in the rate of precipitation in a monsoon system, ice melt in Antarctica, or permafrost thaw in the Northern Hemisphere.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge are using AI to speed up landslide detection following major earthquakes and extreme rainfall events—buying valuable time to coordinate relief efforts and reduce humanitarian impacts.