Phys.org: Earth science

A new study finds a significant impact of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on coral bleaching events in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR).

In a revelation that highlights the fragile balance of our planet's atmosphere, scientists from China, Germany, and the U.S. have uncovered an unexpected link between massive wildfire events and the chemistry of the ozone layer. Published in Science Advances, this study reveals how wildfires, such as the catastrophic 2019/20 Australian bushfires, impact the stratosphere in previously unseen ways.

The Tibetan Plateau hosts the world's largest permafrost region in the middle and low latitudes. Compared to the high-latitude Arctic permafrost, the permafrost here is thinner, warmer, and more sensitive to global warming. The active layer is a crucial zone for energy exchange between permafrost and the atmosphere, effectively reflecting the impact of climate change on permafrost.

Turbulence, temperature changes, water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, and other gases absorb, reflect, and scatter sunlight as it passes through the atmosphere, bounces off the Earth's surface, and is collected by a sensor on a remote sensing satellite. As a result, the spectral data received at the sensor is distorted.

Although it is surrounded by stressed coral reefs, an island in the Indonesian Spermonde Archipelago has not shrunk but continued to grow. Reef islands hence react dynamically to environmental changes that disturb their reef systems, according to a new study by researchers from the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in Bremen, Germany.

Severe droughts in the Amazon basin over the past two decades have caused low water level periods to last around a month longer than usual, triggering profound impacts on the local population.

New Monash research has untangled the influence of regional climate drivers, including the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (El Niño), on the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Snow accumulation and surface melting are two important processes that are key to predicting how Antarctica will contribute to future sea level rise.

The retreat of high mountain glaciers has accelerated since the 1980s, resulting in increased glacier runoff. However, it remains uncertain whether melting mountain glaciers enhance or release greenhouse gases, and whether areas exposed to glacier retreat emit or absorb such gases.

When it comes to inland surface water bodies, saline lakes are unique. They make up 44% of all lakes worldwide and are found on every continent including Antarctica. These lakes' existence depends on a delicate balance between a river basin's water input (precipitation and inflows) and output (evaporation and seepage).

Lakes, with their rich biodiversity and important ecological services, face a concerning trend: rapidly increasing temperatures. A recent study published in Nature Geoscience by an international team of limnologists and climate modelers reveals that if current anthropogenic warming continues until the end of this century, lakes worldwide will likely experience pervasive and unprecedented surface and subsurface warming, far outside the range of what they have encountered before.

Forests have been embraced as a natural climate solution, due to their ability to soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow, locking it up in their trunks, branches, leaves, and roots. But a new study confirms widespread doubts about the potential for most forests in the Western US to help curb climate change.

A study published in the journal Science China Earth Sciences integrates existing monitoring data to discuss the characteristics of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from reservoirs in the Yellow River Basin. While CO2 emission flux from reservoirs is lower than that from river channels, the emission fluxes of CH4 and N2O are 1.9 times and 10 times those from rivers, respectively, indicating that the emission of CH4 and N2O is significantly enhanced in reservoirs.

Cosmic rays could offer scientists another way to track and study violent tornadoes and other severe weather phenomena, a new study suggests.

With the intensification of global climate change, understanding historical climate patterns is crucial for predicting future trends in climate change.

Storm-chasing for science can be exciting and stressful—we know, because we do it. It has also been essential for developing today's understanding of how tornadoes form and how they behave.

It was only in the low 90s, but a bona fide swelter had set in across Tucson by 9:45 a.m. on June 28, if the sights at Reid Park were any indication.

Research from Los Alamos National Laboratory shows that a new rock physics model will provide more comprehensive and actionable data about how carbon dioxide changes rock properties throughout geologic storage sites, which will make monitoring for geologic carbon storage more reliable. The results were published in Communications Earth & Environment journal.

An increased amount of thick sea ice flowing south from the Arctic Ocean shortened the ice-free shipping season in several parts of the Northwest Passage between 2007 and 2021, according to an analysis in Communications Earth & Environment.

Droughts evoke images of months to years of dry, dangerous conditions caused by minimal rain. While this captures traditional droughts, similar conditions can occur in a matter of weeks or even days.

A group of scientists have released a landmark report on glacial geoengineering—an emerging field studying whether technology could halt the melting of glaciers and ice sheets as climate change progresses.