Phys.org: Earth science

As the austral summer draws to a close, we are preparing to fly over the Southern Alps to survey glaciers. This annual flight supports the longest scientific study of Aotearoa New Zealand's icescapes—and it shows that all of our glaciers have retreated since 1978.

Eighty-five percent of the Earth's air resides in the lowest layer of its atmosphere, or troposphere. Yet, major gaps remain in our understanding of the atmospheric chemistry that drives changes in the troposphere's composition.

Africa, Asia, Australia, Antarctica, North and South America, Europe—and the Maritime Continent.

One in 50 people living in two dozen coastal cities in the United States could experience significant flooding by 2050, according to Virginia Tech-led research.

Changes in human activity may have led to atmospheric CO2 levels declining in the 16th century, due to large-scale land use changes in the Americas during New World-Old World contact between 1450 and 1700 CE, suggests a Nature Communications paper. The findings are based on data from an Antarctic ice core, dated up to about 500 years old.

A series of atmospheric rivers drenched California in February, with record amounts of rainfall and hurricane-force winds sweeping across parts of the state. At one point, weather agencies posted flood watches for nearly the entirety of California's coast. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission captured data on some of the flooding near the community of Manchester, roughly 105 miles (169 kilometers) north of San Francisco. The satellite is a collaboration between NASA and the French space agency, CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales).

Take a deep breath. Pay attention to how air moves from your nose to your throat before filling your lungs with oxygen. As you exhale your breath, a mix of oxygen and carbon dioxide leaves your nose and mouth.

Will ice floating in the Arctic Ocean move faster or slower over the coming decades? The answer to this question will tell us whether marine transportation can be expected to get more or less hazardous. It might also have important implications for the rate of ice cover loss, which is hugely consequential for Northern Indigenous communities, ecosystems, and the global climate system.

Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently combined satellite data, field observations, and sophisticated numerical modeling to paint a picture of how 22.45 million square kilometers of the Arctic will change over the next 80 years.

In the four years since the Black Summer bushfires, Australia has become more focused on how best to prepare for, fight and recover from these traumatic events. But one issue has largely flown under the radar: how the emissions produced by bushfires are measured and reported.

Global warming caused by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases is already affecting our lives. Scorching summers, more intense heat waves, longer drought periods, more extended floods, and wilder wildfires are consequences linked to this warming.

Data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) have revealed another summer of exceptionally low sea-ice extent around Antarctica.

The Arctic could see summer days with practically no sea ice as early as the next couple of years, according to a new study out of the University of Colorado Boulder.

The water cycle looks simple in theory—but human impacts, climate change, and complicated geography mean that in practice, floods and droughts remain hard to predict. To model water on Earth, you need incredibly high-resolution data across an immense expanse, and you need modeling sophisticated enough to account for everything from snowcaps on mountains to soil moisture in valleys. Now, scientists have made a tremendous step forward by building the most detailed models created to date.

If you've driven the mostly flat stretch of I-25 in Colorado from Pueblo to Trinidad, you've seen them: the Spanish Peaks, twin mountains that soar into the sky out of nowhere, reaching altitudes of 13,628 and 12,701 feet above sea level.

A global team of researchers has made strides in refining weather forecasting methods, with a specific focus on addressing the persistent issue of "quantile crossing." This phenomenon disrupts the order of predicted values in weather forecasts and arises from the numerical weather prediction (NWP) process—a two-step forecasting method involving observations and atmospheric evolution laws.

As global temperatures continue to rise, coastal communities are confronted with the pressing challenge of surging sea levels. The urgency to provide decision-makers with reliable forecasts of future sea levels becomes increasingly critical. At the forefront of this predictive effort lies Dynamic Sea Level (DSL), a nuanced variable intricately linked to seawater density and ocean circulation, currently under intensive scrutiny in climate models.

An increase in pockets of open water in Antarctica's sea ice (polynyas) may mean coastal plants and animals could one day establish on the continent, University of Otago-led research suggests.

A research team led by Pro. Zhou Weijian from the Institute of Earth Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhengzhou University and the Xi'an Institute for Innovative Earth Environment Research, has revealed a new pattern of the Holocene temperature change in arid Central Asia.

Permafrost, or ground that is frozen for two or more years, stretches over about 14 million square kilometers in the Northern Hemisphere, 15% of the hemisphere's land area. Cold temperatures limit the decomposition of organic material, making permafrost soils a significant carbon sink. But warming temperatures from climate change are thawing permafrost and allowing microbes to decompose stored carbon. The result is a release of greenhouse gases, creating a feedback loop that further drives warming climate conditions.