Phys.org: Earth science

Around the world, we are already witnessing the detrimental effects of climate change, which we know will only become more severe. Extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall, tropical cyclones, and heat waves are projected to intensify, and this will negatively impact both human society and natural ecosystems.

Lightning-induced wildfires are severe natural disasters. However, because of the regionality and random nature of lightning, there is still an incomplete understanding within the scientific community regarding the characteristics of lightning that cause fires.

A team led by Prof. Liu Xueyan from the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a new plant-soil nitrogen isotope process model that quantifies the fractional contribution of three nitrogen forms (nitrate, ammonium, and dissolved organic nitrogen) to the total nitrogen in global terrestrial plants.

The lyrics of traditional Okinawan songs were found to record past climate and geological history of the Ryukyu Islands (21st-century Okinawa Prefecture, Japan), according to a new study by a University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Earth scientist and fellow Ryukyuan music practitioners. Their study was published today in Geoscience Communication and was selected as an Editor's Choice article by the journal's publisher.

Groundwater commonly contains methane, but the amount of this important greenhouse gas that can escape to surface waters or the atmosphere is highly uncertain. A team from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and University of Jena has shown that microbes in groundwater significantly reduce methane emissions, as revealed in a study published in PNAS.

Throughout most of Earth's geological history, its paleoclimate has remained hospitable to life—largely thanks to continental silicate weathering, which acts as a long-term planetary thermostat.

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides scientists with a powerful new tool for monitoring and predicting tectonic activity deep beneath the seafloor at mid-ocean ridges—vast underwater mountain chains that form where Earth's tectonic plates diverge.

Greenland is being twisted, compressed, and stretched. This happens due to plate tectonics and movements in the bedrock, caused by the large ice sheets on top melting and reducing pressure on the subsurface.

Earth's Ediacaran Period, roughly 630 to 540 million years ago, has always been something of a magnetic minefield for scientists.

For billions of years, Earth's continents have remained remarkably stable, forming the foundation for mountains, ecosystems and civilizations. But the secret to their stability has mystified scientists for more than a century. Now, a new study by researchers at Penn State and Columbia University provides the clearest evidence yet for how the landforms became and remained so stable—and the key ingredient is heat.

Deep inside caves, water dripping from the ceiling creates one of nature's most iconic formations: stalagmites. These pillars of calcite, ranging from centimeters to many meters in height, rise from the cave floor as drip after drip of mineral-rich water deposits a tiny layer of stone.

Accurately modeling gross primary productivity (GPP) and evapotranspiration (ET) in terrestrial ecosystems is essential for understanding and predicting the global carbon and water cycles. However, current models face considerable uncertainties and limitations when estimating these two core components.

An international research team led by the University of Bremen has investigated what influenced the expansion of the Patagonian ice sheet during the last ice age. The scientists found evidence that the advances and retreats of glaciers in South America over the past 120,000 years were primarily influenced by changes in summer solar radiation and the duration of the summers.

A new study has challenged the long-standing assumption that global warming will inevitably turn humid subtropical forests into carbon sources, revealing these ecosystems may instead continue accumulating soil carbon under moderate temperature rises. The study was published in One Earth on Oct. 6.

Magnetotelluric (MT) data, which contain measurements of electric and magnetic field variations at Earth's surface, provide insights into the electrical resistivity of Earth's crust and upper mantle. Changes in resistivity, or the ability to conduct an electrical current, can indicate the presence of geologic features such as igneous intrusions or sedimentary basins, meaning MT surveys can complement other kinds of geophysical surveys to help reveal Earth's subsurface. In addition, such surveys can play an important role in improving understanding of the risks space weather poses to human infrastructure.

How do volcanoes work? What happens beneath their surface? What causes the vibrations—known as tremor—that occur when magma or gases move upward through a volcano's conduits? Professor Dr. Miriam Christina Reiss, a volcano seismologist at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), and her team have located such tremor signals at the Oldoinyo Lengai volcano in Tanzania.

According to a study by the Department of Physics and the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), the Mar Menor saltwater lagoon in Murcia, Spain, the largest in Europe, contains sediments with levels of lead, arsenic, zinc, mercury, copper, and silver that exceed toxicity thresholds and values reported for similar coastal ecosystems worldwide. The findings are published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin.

Heat waves in the UK have led to unseasonable drying of vegetation bypassing natural ecological processes that limit the spread of wildfires, a new study has found.

Greenland is melting, the Alps are melting and the Himalayas are melting—yet in one vast mountain region, huge glaciers have remained stable, or even gained mass, in recent decades. Can it last?

A new fossil fuel site approved for development off Western Australia's coast is estimated to contribute 876 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions over the course of its lifetime, according to new research led by The Australian National University (ANU) in collaboration with the ARC Center of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st century.