Phys.org: Earth science

Hydroacoustic signals captured by the world's international nuclear monitoring system suggest an underwater landslide may have broken communications cables and disrupted internet traffic in west African countries for several weeks in March 2024.

Early Friday, a major 7.7 magnitude earthquake that originated near Mandalay, Myanmar, shook the Earth as far as Bangkok, about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) away.

A new study reveals that the devastating 2023 flood in Derna, Libya, was not merely the result of extreme rainfall but was drastically intensified by a major design shortcoming and its resulting collapse of two embankment dams.

El Niño, a climate phenomenon marked by warming sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, is known to trigger extreme weather events worldwide, from droughts and floods to disruptions in agriculture and ecosystems. Despite its global impact, the mechanisms behind El Niño remain complex and not fully understood, making accurate predictions challenging.

Climate science has correctly predicted many aspects of the climate system and its response to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Recently, discrepancies between the real world and our expectations of regional climate changes have emerged, as have disruptive new computational approaches.

A new method based on optical interferometry, to monitor structural damage to buildings hit by earthquakes in real time, is the outcome of the Foresight research project, led by the Politecnico di Milano and carried out together with INRiM—the National Metrology Institute of Italy and INGV—the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.

Global climate models predict that the ocean around Antarctica should be warming, but in reality, those waters have cooled over most of the past four decades.

For the first time, researchers have collected detailed measurements of water vapor high above the surface of the Greenland ice sheet. Their research, aided by a custom-designed drone, could help scientists improve ice loss calculations in rapidly warming polar regions.

Ocean acidification, caused by the ongoing absorption of atmospheric CO₂, poses threats to marine ecosystems and biodiversity. Accurately assessing variations in seawater pH is crucial for evaluating biological responses to acidification and predicting the ocean's capacity for carbon sequestration.

The Mozambique Channel, between Mozambique and Madagascar, is home to some of the most turbulent waters in the ocean. Swirling at a rate of more than 1 meter per second, currents in the channel can form structures known as anticyclonic rings that spread up to 350 kilometers across—about the width of Missouri—and extend 2,000 meters below the surface.

Powerful winter storms which led to deaths and power outages in the UK and Ireland were made more likely by an intense swirling vortex of winds miles above the Arctic, say scientists.

In the past, intact forests absorbed 7.8 billion metric tons of CO2 annually—about a fifth of all human emissions—but their carbon storage is increasingly at risk from climate change and human activities such as deforestation.

In the Arctic, permafrost plays a crucial role in building infrastructure. However, as the region warms and permafrost thaws, infrastructure is threatened as the ground shifts beneath the built environment. Unfortunately, the full extent of the risks associated with this process is not yet realized, but researchers are working to address this knowledge gap.

Ecosystems in the Southern Ocean, the body of water surrounding Antarctica, are under threat from climate change. The area's inhabitants, from whales to krill to phytoplankton, face changes such as a loss in sea ice and rising ocean temperatures. If species that are unique to the area, such as the Antarctic toothfish, dwindle in population as a result, this decrease could affect fishery operations and lead to cascading socioeconomic and geopolitical consequences.

New research led by a York University professor sheds light on the earliest days of Earth's formation and potentially calls into question some earlier assumptions in planetary science about the early years of rocky planets. Establishing a direct link between Earth's interior dynamics occurring within the first 100 million years of its history and its present-day structure, the work is one of the first in the field to combine fluid mechanics with chemistry to better understand Earth's early evolution.

A research team, led by Prof. Meng Qingyan from the Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has successfully developed the Global Spatiotemporal Fusion Model (GLOSTFM), a high-efficiency spatiotemporal fusion model that utilizes multi-source satellite data.

Tropical marine low clouds play a crucial role in regulating Earth's climate. However, whether they mitigate or exacerbate global warming has long remained a mystery. Now, researchers from the School of Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have developed a method that significantly improves accuracy in climate predictions. This led to a major discovery—that tropical cloud feedback may have amplified the greenhouse effect by a staggering 71% more than previously known to scientists.

A new study analyzed nearly four decades of deep ocean observations to reveal significant cooling and freshening of deep water in the Subtropical North Atlantic. The results suggest that warmer, saltier deep waters observed across other parts of the Atlantic may reach the region within the next 10 years, potentially influencing large-scale sea level changes and altering the flow of ocean currents in the region.

Methane emissions from a large open-cast coal mine in Australia are three to eight times higher than reported. This has been revealed in a study based on aircraft-based measurements by the University of Bremen and Airborne Research Australia (ARA). It is the first time that precise data has been available.

New research from the University of Western Australia has highlighted the impact of the 2023–24 summer's extreme heat and drought on Perth's ecosystems.