Phys.org: Earth science

A team at Los Alamos National Laboratory has used machine learning—an application of artificial intelligence—to detect the hidden signals that precede an earthquake. The findings at the Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii are part of a years-long research effort pioneered at Los Alamos, and this latest study represents the first time scientists were able to detect these warning signals in a stick-slip fault, the kind that can generate massive destruction.

You would have learned about the "water cycle" in primary school—water's journey, from evaporation to rainfall to flowing in a stream or sinking into the ground to become groundwater.

About 183 million years ago, volcanic activity in modern South Africa unleashed an estimated 20,500 gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the ocean–atmosphere system over a period of 300 to 500 thousand years. Known as the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (T-OAE), the lack of oxygen, or anoxia, in the water during this time caused a mass extinction of marine species.

The summer sun beats down. People without air conditioning must find refuge in schools and community centers. Outdoor workers struggle to keep cool. Hot nights interrupt people's sleep, not allowing them to get the rest needed to recover from the warmth of the day. People with cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses have these conditions worsen.

A combined team of Earth scientists and climate specialists at the University of California San Diego and the National Center for Atmospheric Research has found via modeling that geoengineering projects such as marine cloud brightening can have unexpected and sometimes harmful consequences.

The Arctic Ocean is warming four times faster than the rest of the world's oceans, a trend that could potentially spill over to the rest of the world in the form of altered weather patterns and other climate consequences. Efforts such as the Synoptic Arctic Survey are studying the Arctic Ocean to better understand ocean currents, in the hope of allowing scientists to better predict future changes.

This summer between June 17 and July 2, NASA is flying aircraft over Baltimore, Philadelphia, parts of Virginia, and California to collect data on air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions.

By analyzing 56-million-year-old sediments, a UNIGE team has measured the increase in soil erosion caused by global warming, synonymous with major flooding.

The climate modeling community has been particularly vexed by the glacial/interglacial cycles of the past three million years, when the Northern Hemisphere oscillated between times with and without large ice sheets.

A new and worrying way that large ice sheets can melt has been characterized by scientists for the first time. The research focuses on how relatively warm seawater can lap at the underside of ground-based ice, which can accelerate the movement of the ice into the ocean.

The December 2020 earthquake near the Croatian town of Petrinja (magnitude 6.4) was felt in all Croatia and in many places in the neighboring countries, and caused serious damage at the site. A recent Croatian-Hungarian collaboration has analyzed the horizontal and vertical displacements caused by the quake and placed them in a regional geodynamic interpretation frame.

Central Asian dust has a significant impact on regional and global climate, and it is crucial for the balance of local ecosystems, socio-economic development, and human health.

The polar regions are critical to understanding climate change due to their significant impact on global weather patterns and sea levels. Traditional methods of measuring sea ice thickness face challenges such as high costs and limited spatial coverage.

In the next upgrade of ECMWF's Integrated Forecasting System (IFS), changes in the ocean wind wave model component will be implemented that improve forecasts.

A doubling of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could cause an increase in the average temperature on Earth from 7 to a maximum of 14 degrees. This is shown in the analysis of sediments from the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, by researchers at NIOZ and the Universities of Utrecht and Bristol. Their results were published in Nature Communications.

The Aral Sea, located in Central Asia, has been shrinking in surface area due to climate change and human activities. This shrinkage has caused a regional ecological crisis, significantly affecting the key ecosystem services in the region.

Researchers from The University of Western Australia have created an experiment to explain the volcanic processes needed to transport green metals from the Earth's interior to its surface.

Caltech researchers have discovered a new class of enzymes that enable a myriad of bacteria to "breathe" nitrate when in low-oxygen conditions. While this is an evolutionary advantage for bacterial survival, the process produces the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) as a byproduct, the third-most potent greenhouse gas, after carbon dioxide and methane.

Earth and environmental scientists have reported that, as human socio-economic activities increase, greenhouse gas emissions will rise, leading to more frequent extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. However, a research team from Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) has published a study suggesting that anthropogenic greenhouse gases might actually mitigate droughts, offering a new perspective on the impact of human activities on nature.

Inland seas around the world are drying up due to increasing human water use and accelerating climate change, and their desiccation is releasing harmful dust that pollutes the surrounding areas during acute dust storms. Using the Great Salt Lake in Utah as a case study, researchers show that dust exposure was highest among Pacific Islanders and Hispanic people and lower in white people compared to all other racial/ethnic groups, and higher for individuals without a high school diploma.