Phys.org: Earth science

In recent years, the Prairies have seen bigger swings in climate conditions—very wet years followed by very dry ones. That makes an already unpredictable landscape even harder to forecast, with real consequences for flood preparedness and water quality.

Wild animals are not just inhabitants of the natural world. Many also act as natural landscape engineers, reshaping Earth's surface as they burrow, feed, and build shelters that move soil and sediment across ecosystems. From animals disturbing riverbeds to burrowing species redistributing soil, wildlife constantly modifies the physical structure of landscapes through everyday activities.

Earth has already exceeded its ability to support the global population sustainably, with new research warning of increasing pressure on food security, climate stability, and human well-being. However, slowing population growth and raising global awareness could still offer humanity some hope.

Volcanoes are both captivating and disastrous. Most are likely familiar with the common short-term dangers associated with them: explosive forces, lava, and even atmospheric particles disrupting air traffic. But researchers also explore longer-term impacts of eruptions, as their contributions to broader climate patterns are important, but not well understood. For example, it's known that ejected material can reach high into the atmosphere and cause local or even global cooling to some degree.

Experiments by University of Leeds researchers, published in Earth's Future, have shown that thawing of permafrost makes it between 25 and 100 times more permeable, allowing more climate change forcing gases to escape.

Some Arctic regions regain their "greenness" within a decade of a sudden permafrost collapse, while others can take a century or more to recover, researchers report in a new study. The difference is directly related to each site's gross primary productivity, a measure of its photosynthetic capacity, the researchers discovered. This finding will allow scientists to accurately predict how long it will take a specific site to recover after a permafrost collapse.

In recent years, residents of Spain, France and the UK have looked up to see an eerie sight: deep orange sunrises and skies thick with a yellowish haze. These hazy skies often deposit "blood rain," rust-colored precipitation that leaves a fine grit on cars and windows.

Both winds and tides inject energy into the ocean. Much of that energy is then transported up to thousands of miles by internal waves: large-scale underwater waves that can travel between ocean basins. Quantifying the amount of energy transported by internal waves and assessing their dynamics are difficult given their location and scale. Still, the question is important because internal wave dynamics interact with the global climate and underwater ecosystems by influencing currents, ocean mixing, and more.