Phys.org: Earth science

Global warming will likely hinder our future ability to control ground-level ozone, a harmful air pollutant that is a primary component of smog, according to a new MIT study.

Increasingly powerful AI models can make short-term weather forecasts with surprising accuracy. But neural networks only predict based on patterns from the past—what happens when the weather does something that's unprecedented in recorded history?

In a first, researchers from NASA and Virginia Tech have used satellite data to measure the height and speed of potentially hazardous flood waves traveling down U.S. rivers. The three waves they tracked were likely caused by extreme rainfall and by a loosened ice jam.

Lake Tahoe is experiencing large-scale shifts in ultraviolet radiation (UV) as climate change intensifies wet and dry extremes in the region. That is according to a study led by the University of California, Davis's Tahoe Environmental Research Center and co-leading collaborator Miami University in Ohio.

Gully erosion is the most severe form of soil erosion, and it can seriously impact agricultural fields, contributing to sediment loss and severe nutrient runoff into waterways. Gullies can be triggered suddenly by a single heavy rainfall event, creating deep channels that are difficult to rehabilitate even with heavy machinery. Accurately predicting where gully erosion is likely to occur allows agricultural producers and land managers to target their conservation efforts more effectively.

A new study published in Science Advances by researchers from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GIG-CAS), along with international collaborators, reveals that deeply subducted carbonates can cause significant variations in the redox states of Earth's mantle. This process influences the formation of sublithospheric diamonds and plays a role in the long-term evolution of cratons—ancient stable parts of the continental lithosphere.

When a volcano erupts, it can spew ash high into the atmosphere—inserting aerosols right where clouds typically form. How exactly these aerosols impact cloud formation has long been a mystery to atmospheric scientists.

Lightning is a phenomenon that has fascinated humanity since time immemorial, providing a stark example of the power and unpredictability of the natural world. Although the study of lightning can be challenging, scientists have, in recent years, made great strides in developing our understanding of this extreme spectacle.

To reach the goals of the Paris Agreement, we not only have to reduce CO2 emissions, but also remove CO₂ from the atmosphere (carbon dioxide removal, CDR) on a large scale. This can involve both land- and ocean-based methods.

Analysis has shown a boulder weighing almost 1,200 tons in Tonga is one of the largest known wave-transported rocks in the world, providing new insights into the Pacific region's history and risk of tsunamis.

The Chesapeake Bay is the continental United States' largest estuary, spanning approximately 320 kilometers (200 miles) between northeastern Maryland and Virginia Beach. Like many coastal ecosystems, its water chemistry is affected by agricultural runoff, chemical weathering, and increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

On our planet, the cycle and balance of carbon from reservoir to reservoir is a matter of life or death. Carbon moves from the atmosphere to the ocean, to carbon-based life forms, to rocks or sediments, and it can be tied up in any of these reservoirs throughout the process.

A team of atmospheric scientists at the University of Washington has found evidence that weather forecasters may be able to look ahead for up to 30 days when making predictions. In their study, posted on the arXiv preprint server, the group tested Google's GraphCast AI-based weather modeling and predicting system using a technique to improve initial weather conditions to improve its accuracy.

A mysterious and highly active undersea volcano off the Pacific Coast could erupt by the end of this year, scientists say.

As wildfires continue to ravage regions from Los Angeles to South Korea, a new study featured on the cover of Advances in Atmospheric Sciences sheds light on the large-scale climate patterns influencing these devastating global extreme events.

The Arctic is one of the coldest places on Earth, but in recent decades, the region has been rapidly warming, at a rate three to four times faster than the global average. However, current climate models have been unable to account for this increased pace.

Efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C under the Paris Climate Agreement may not go far enough to save the world's ice sheets, according to a study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

The Amazon Basin lost about 27,000 square kilometers of forest each year from 2001 to 2016. By 2021, about 17% of the basin had been deforested.

The near-bottom water in the U.S. Northeast continental shelf provides a critical cold-water habitat for the rich regional marine ecosystem. This "cold pool" preserves winter temperatures, even when waters become too warm or salty elsewhere during the summer.

Swathes of South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia are in the grip of drought as they experience some of the lowest rainfall totals on record.