Phys.org: Earth science

An innovative scientific study involving an international group of 29 ice sheet experts, and led by the University of Lincoln, U.K., has identified that global climate change-related rises in sea level could be better predicted by gaining a clearer understanding of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.

Australian geologists have used plate tectonic modeling to determine what most likely caused an extreme ice-age climate in Earth's history, more than 700 million years ago.

Few gemstones are more difficult to find than diamonds. Geologists from ETH Zurich and the University of Melbourne have now established a link between their occurrence and the mineral olivine. This could make the search for diamonds easier in the future.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey have uncovered the first direct evidence that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet shrunk suddenly and dramatically at the end of the Last Ice Age, around eight thousand years ago.

Permafrost (from "permanent" and "frost") is ground that continuously remains at or below 0° C for at least two consecutive years. Around 15% of the land surface in the Northern Hemisphere is underlain by permafrost, which often contains and preserves biomass accumulated throughout millennia and thus acts as a carbon sink.

The same phosphorous that fertilizes the thriving agriculture of the Midwest is also responsible for a vast "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico near the Mississippi Delta. Efforts to reduce the amount of phosphorus that enters the Mississippi River system are underway, but research led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests that remnants of the contaminant are left behind in riverbeds for years after introduction and pose an overlooked—and lingering—problem.

Researchers at the Statewide California Earthquake Center, or SCEC, are unraveling the mysteries of earthquakes by using physics-based computational models running on high-performance computing systems at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The team's findings will provide a better understanding of seismic hazards in the Golden State.

For 30 years, researchers operated a network of weather stations on Greenland in harsh conditions. The dataset from this highly relevant climate research has now been reprocessed and published in an article in Earth System Science Data. The publication is also an appreciation of the lifework of former WSL director Prof. Dr. Konrad Steffen, who died in an accident in Greenland in 2020.

A more accurate way of identifying underground nuclear tests, including those conducted in secret, has been developed by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU).

Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is one of the most active in the world. Its eruption in 2018 was its largest in 200 years and among the costliest volcanic disasters in U.S. history. Devastating as it was to the Hawaiian landscape, Kilauea's eruption proved a boon to science. Researchers were there to collect unprecedented seismic and other data and say we might use it to understand the stresses that lead to major earthquakes.

Researchers report that replacing 50% of animal products with alternative proteins by 2050 could free up enough agricultural land to generate renewable energy equivalent in volume to today's coal-generated power while simultaneously removing substantial CO2 from the atmosphere.

Forests, which cover a third of Earth's land surface, are pivotal in carbon storage and the water cycle, though the full scope of their impact remains to be fully understood. In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers from Stockholm University and international colleagues provide new insights into the complex role forests play in the climate system and water cycle.

The Seattle fault zone is a network of shallow faults slicing through the lowlands of Puget Sound, threatening to create damaging earthquakes for the more than four million people who live there.

The year 2023 stands out as the warmest year on record globally, accompanied by the highest recorded ocean temperatures. Amidst these extreme and unusual climatic conditions, Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE), after breaking the second consecutive satellite-recorded low in February 2023, failed to recover at an average rate in the autumn and winter months.

A team of geoscientists from the University of Toronto is shedding new light on the century-old model of plate tectonics, which suggests the plates covering the ocean floors are rigid as they move across the Earth's mantle.

About 80% of intense tropical cyclones (TCs) possess concentric eyewalls—namely, the primary and secondary eyewalls. The intensity of the TC can vary considerably during secondary eyewall formation (SEF) and eyewall replacement, posing a great challenge to predicting TC intensity.

In December 1861, intense rainfall began pounding central California, thrashing the state for the next 43 days. The rain, which scientists now think was caused by atmospheric rivers, killed thousands of people and destroyed the state's economy, transforming the Central Valley into a sea nearly the size of Lake Ontario.

The San Joaquin Valley of California, despite supplying a significant percentage of the country's food, is nevertheless a dry, arid place. Fresno, at the heart of the valley, receives just over 10 inches of rain a year on average, according to the National Weather Service, and sometimes as little as 3.

The alarm bells are loud and clear. Federal and international climate officials recently confirmed that 2023 was the planet's hottest year on record—and that 2024 may be even hotter.

As temperature records tumble, and the threat of bushfires and dry conditions looms large, an international study by Flinders University and Argentinian researchers renews the urgency of calls to make more concerted efforts to prepare for climate extremes in South Australia.