Phys.org: Earth science

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.

The Fraser River is unique among the world's great rivers—a huge, relatively natural, undammed, mountain river running through a dense urban area.

Askoa Ibisate, a geographer specializing in fluvial geomorphology, has analyzed how the disappearance of the Olloki dam affects sediment transport. Ibisate concluded that the volume of pebbles mobilized by the demolition has increased, and their journey has been extended. The results are particularly significant because the monitoring work has been ongoing for seven years and the authorities are provided with valuable information for predicting the consequences of dam demolition. The work is published in the journal Geomorphology.

Earthquakes occur along fault lines between continental plates, where one plate is diving beneath another. Pressure builds between each plate, called fault stress. When this stress builds enough to release, the plates slip and grind against each other, causing an earthquake.