Phys.org: Earth science

Ancient trees may have played a key role in regulating Earth's climate during the last ice age—by 'breathing' less efficiently.

Earth is reflecting less sunlight, and absorbing more heat, than it did several decades ago. Global warming is advancing faster than climate models predicted, with observed temperatures exceeding projections in 2023 and 2024. These trends have scientists scrambling to understand why the atmosphere is letting more light in.

A Peking University research team led by Wang Heyuan and Wang Kai at the Institute for Carbon Neutrality (ICN) used AI models to determine that the global land carbon sink has drastically shrunk due to an abrupt and extreme jump in global temperature. Their study, "AI-tracked halving of global land carbon sink in 2024," was published in Science Bulletin.

A research team led by Professor Zhang Qinghong and Li Rumeng from the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Peking University (PKU) School of Physics, has found that hailstorms in China have surged since the Industrial Revolution, likely due to human-driven climate warming. The study, published in Nature Communications in September 2025, combines historical records, meteorological data, and artificial intelligence to track long-term hailstorm trends.

Small mountain ponds high in the tropical Andes may be playing an outsized role in global climate change, according to new research led by scientists at the University of North Carolina.

Microorganisms in the Black Sea can produce large amounts of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O). However, this gas never reaches the atmosphere because it is swiftly consumed by other microorganisms, which convert it to harmless dinitrogen gas (N2). Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology have now investigated this process and identified the key players involved.

With heat waves among Europe's deadliest climate hazards, a team of scientists led by CMCC has developed a prediction system capable of providing helpful information four to seven weeks before summer, which gives valuable time to improve preparedness.

In a new study published in Global Change Biology, Prof. Zhang Yuanming's team from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has unveiled a previously underestimated factor in greenhouse gas emissions from arid environments: hydroxyl radicals, often dubbed "free radicals."

High Mountain Asia (HMA), the source region of major Asian rivers, plays a vital role in sustaining downstream water and ecosystem security. Over the past 50 years, summer precipitation in HMA has exhibited a dipole pattern—drying in the south and moistening in the north.

One of the most iconic ecosystems of the Peruvian plateau, the Junín Lake basin, suffers from "critical" levels of arsenic, lead and cadmium contamination, leading to health risks including cancer, according to new analysis.

Cities around the world are working to limit emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases, but there have been few ways of measuring whether those gases are actually decreasing in any given municipality. In new research, University of California, Irvine scientists have created an effective method to measure greenhouse gas emissions around cities—something that can help local governments gauge the effectiveness of their emission-curbing programs.

It matters where the rain that irrigates your food comes from.

Earthworms don't stop shaping soil processes when they die. A new study shows they can still help store carbon in the soil, even after death. "This is quite surprising," says lead author Tullia Calogiuri. "Most of our knowledge about earthworms comes from their activity while alive, such as burrowing, feeding, and producing feces. Finding that they also play a role after death is exciting."

A paper authored by University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) graduate student Zeb Leffler has been published in the Geophysical Research Letters. The student's master's research addresses a long-standing challenge in meteorology: improving the accuracy of hurricane wind estimates after landfall. Knowing the exact strength of surface winds is crucial for effective risk communication and post-storm recovery efforts.

In the early hours of Sept. 10, 2017, the turquoise waters of Biscayne Bay were mostly calm: herons and egrets worked the shallows, Miami's skyline stretching across the horizon. Yet within the quiet, unease lingered. Winds grew heavier, clouds darkened and within hours Hurricane Irma and all its fury descended on South Florida. While residents braced for flooding and prayed their homes would hold, scientists, including FIU physical oceanographer Wei Huang, worried about the bay itself.

A glacier on Antarctica's Eastern Peninsula experienced the fastest retreat recorded in modern history—in just two months, nearly 50% of the glacier disintegrated.

Groundwater replenishing beneath temperate farmland fields may come from very recent rainfall, merely one to two weeks old, whereas the water actually taken up by crops is drawn from much older sources.

Recently, Science put out an article detailing new research on the Myanmar earthquake that occurred on March 28, 2025. In one of these studies, Shengji Wei and colleagues analyze data on the event and provide insight on multiple factors that lead to these rare and devastating supershear ruptures. Their research was published this week.

Industries and individuals around the world burned record amounts of oil, gas and coal last year, releasing more greenhouse gases than ever before, a group of leading scientists said in a new report, warning that humanity is hurtling toward "climate chaos."

For the past 250 years, people have mined coal industrially in Pennsylvania, U.S.. By 1830, the city of Pittsburgh was using more than 400 tons of the fossil fuel every day. Burning all that coal has contributed to climate change. Additionally, unremediated mines—especially those that operated before Congress passed regulations in 1977—have leaked environmentally harmful mine drainage. But that might not be the end of their legacy.