Phys.org: Earth science

The overall amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been steadily increasing, a clear trend linked to human activities and climate change. Less concerning but more mysterious, the difference between the highest and lowest amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere each year has also been increasing.

University of Idaho researchers have developed a mathematical model that simplifies the way scientists understand changes in glacier movement. This new approach demonstrates that diverse patterns of ice flow—ranging from short-term fluctuations to multi-year trends—can be explained using a single set of fundamental equations.

Seismology has revealed much of the basics about earthquakes: Tectonic plates move, causing strain energy to build up, and that energy eventually releases in the form of an earthquake. As for forecasting them, however, there's still much to learn in order to evacuate cities before catastrophes like the 2011 magnitude 9.0 Tōhoku earthquake that, in addition to causing the tsunami that led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, resulted in more than 18,000 deaths.

In the last few years, Antarctic sea ice has been behaving erratically. Sea ice cover has been much more variable than it used to be, with anomalies lasting much longer than previously documented. Most concerning for scientists is that sea ice cover has been remarkably low in recent years. A new study shows that the extreme lows are highly unlikely to have happened in the last century.

The Greenland Ice Sheet is the largest ice mass in the Northern Hemisphere, and it's melting rapidly. Climate change is causing more intense atmospheric rivers, which can deliver intense snowfall—enough to slow Greenland's ice mass loss, a new study finds.

To reduce the loss of human lives and damage to property caused by typhoon disasters, it is crucial to continuously improve numerical models and enhance their capacity to forecast typhoon tracks and intensities. Numerical models serve as important tools in typhoon numerical simulations and operational forecasts. Since 1990, the accuracy of typhoon track forecasts using numerical models has gradually improved. However, improvement in intensity forecasts has been slow.

The American Meteorological Society has released the following statement regarding weather forecasting at the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

New research has revealed that soils surrounding onshore oil and gas wells are able to absorb methane leakage, preventing the potent greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Historically, the ocean has been difficult to model. Scientists struggled in years past to simulate ocean currents or accurately predict fluctuations in temperature, salinity, and other properties. As a result, models of ocean dynamics rapidly diverged from reality, which meant they could only provide useful information for brief periods.

At a dire point in the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort, some say hope is springing from an unlikely place: the state of Pennsylvania.

Melting ice sheets are slowing the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the world's strongest ocean current, researchers have found. This melting has implications for global climate indicators, including sea level rise, ocean warming and viability of marine ecosystems.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)—a major transporter of heat to the north Atlantic and northwestern Europe—is unlikely to collapse this century, according to new research.

An international team of Earth and life scientists, hydrologists, chemists, and physicists, has found evidence showing that the Los Chocoyos supereruption occurred approximately 79,500 years ago and that the planet bounced back from its chilling effects within decades.

A new study has revealed that two continent-sized regions in Earth's deep mantle have distinctive histories and resulting chemical composition, in contrast to the common assumption that they are the same. The findings are available to read in the journal Scientific Reports. The study was led by researchers at Cardiff University, the University of Oxford, the University of Bristol, and the University of Michigan.

Heat waves have gotten hotter in the Northern Hemisphere in recent decades. Home to about 90% of the world's population, with the largest fraction living in the mid-latitudes, more frequent and more severe heat waves and droughts have occurred in the Northern Hemisphere—in Europe in 2003, 2010 and 2019, in North America during 2018 and 2021, and in eastern China in 2013 and 2022.

A study led by UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science & Technology (SMAST) Ph.D. student Siddhant Kerhalkar sheds new light on the recovery of ocean thermal structures following cyclone passage—an area of oceanography that has remained largely unexplored due to the scarcity of direct shipboard observations. This research enhances our understanding of how the ocean recovers after cyclones, which is essential for improving climate models and predicting extreme weather events.

A new downscaling method has been developed to generate high-resolution surface soil moisture (SSM) data for mountainous regions. By integrating land surface temperature (LST) and vegetation index (VI) data, this innovative technique enhances the spatial resolution of coarse satellite-based SSM products, correcting for topographic effects and providing accurate, seamless SSM maps. This advancement is poised to revolutionize hydrological studies, drought monitoring, and climate change research.

Beginning around 2.5 million years ago, Earth entered an era marked by successive ice ages and interglacial periods, emerging from the last glaciation around 11,700 years ago. A new analysis suggests the onset of the next ice age could be expected in 10,000 years' time.

Researchers led by Prof. Li Nuo from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a method to simulate the concentrations of unmeasured geochemical elements in rock and stream sediment samples.

The coastline of Southeast Greenland is uplifting more rapidly than other parts of the island. This is caused by weak rocks beneath this part of Greenland, combined with the melting of the ice sheet, according to researchers.