EOS

body {background-color: #D2D1D5;} Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.

At a 20 February event in Kentucky, the Trump administration announced a final action to loosen pollution restrictions for coal-burning power plants, including limits on emissions of mercury, a hazardous neurotoxin.

The move was originally put forward in June, alongside a proposal to repeal federal limits on power plant carbon emissions.

The new rollback eliminates parts of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) finalized under the Biden administration. The 2024 updates strengthened limits on mercury and other hazardous air pollutant emissions from coal-burning power plants. 

As a result of the repeal, coal-burning power plants will be allowed to emit more than twice as much mercury as they currently do. Specifically, they will no longer need to adhere to the limit of 1.2 pounds of mercury per trillion British thermal units of heat input (lb/TBtu) and instead must comply with the previous mercury release limit (set during the Obama administration in 2012) of 4.0 lb/TBtu.

“Weakening critical clean air safeguards will harm public health.”

The repeal also relaxes limits on emissions of arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, and nickel from coal-burning power plants.

The announced rollback shows that the “EPA is letting the dirtiest, least efficient coal plants in the country off the hook,” Joseph Goffman, who worked as an administrator in the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation during the Biden administration, told The New York Times. 

In the final rule, the Trump EPA argued that the move will reduce “unwarranted compliance costs” for utilities operating coal-burning power plants. The agency estimated the change would save companies up to $670 million between 2028 and 2037, but did not explain how it arrived at that estimation. 

“The Trump E.P.A. is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lowering costs for families, ensuring clean air for ALL Americans and fulfilling the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment,” wrote Brigit Hirsch, an EPA spokesperson, in an email to The New York Times. 

 
Related

•  Trump EPA to Weaken Rule Limiting Harmful Mercury, Air Toxics From Coal Plants
•  E.P.A. Plans to Loosen Mercury Rules for Coal Plants, Documents Show
•  Read more about the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards  
•  Read the Final Repeal
•  Get Involved: AGU Science Policy Action Center

High levels of mercury exposure cause human health harms, including impairment to the nervous system, brain damage and developmental delays in children. Coal plants are responsible for nearly half of the United States’ mercury emissions, according to the EPA. The Biden administration’s EPA had predicted that its amendments to MATS would create health benefits worth $300 million over 10 years.

The repeal adds to a list of actions by the current EPA deregulating the coal industry.

The EPA’s action “will contribute to thousands of additional deaths, asthma attacks, and learning disabilities,” Matthew Davis, a former EPA scientist and policy expert at the League of Conservation Voters said in a statement. “Weakening critical clean air safeguards will harm public health.”

—Grace van Deelen (@gvd.bsky.social), Staff Writer

Correction, 20 February 2026: This article was updated to reflect information in the EPA’s final repeal.

These updates are made possible through information from the scientific community. Do you have a story about how changes in law or policy are affecting scientists or research? Send us a tip at eos@agu.org. Text © 2026. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface

Climate change reshapes landscapes by altering rainfall, the primary driver of erosion in coupled mountain–basin systems. Yet more rainfall does not necessarily translate into more erosion. Using a two-dimensional numerical model that integrates hillslope processes, river incision, and sedimentation, Luo et al. [2025] reveal a previously underappreciated phenomenon: erosion saturation. When the duration of climate variability exceeds the intrinsic response time of the landscape, the system reaches a state in which additional rainfall fails to amplify erosion. Instead, sedimentation increasingly regulates the system, dampening sediment flux despite continued climatic forcing.

By explicitly comparing the period of climate forcing (P) with the landscape response time (τ), the study introduces a simple and transferable framework for understanding how climatic signals are filtered before being archived in sedimentary records. This mechanism helps explain why some long-period climate oscillations, including those linked to Milankovitch cycles, may leave muted or phase-shifted signatures in downstream deposits. Importantly, erosion saturation is not limited to strictly periodic forcing and may also emerge under prolonged or stepwise climate changes.

These findings bridge a longstanding gap in source–sink research by emphasizing that mountains and basins function as a dynamically coupled system rather than independent sediment producers and receivers. The work also highlights the need to incorporate additional controls—such as spatially variable uplift and vegetation dynamics—into future models of landscape evolution under climate change.

Citation: Luo, T., Yuan, X., Guerit, L., & Shen, X. (2025). Erosion saturation of mountain-basin system in response to rainfall variation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 130, e2025JF008649. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JF008649

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­—Dongfeng Li, Associate Editor, JGR: Earth Surface

Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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Source: GeoHealth

West Nile virus is the most common mosquito-borne illness in the continental United States and can in rare cases lead to a much more serious disease with an approximately 10% fatality rate. West Nile virus neuroinvasive disease (WNND) has resulted in around 3,000 deaths since its introduction to the country in 1999, but to date no national forecast for the disease exists.

Harp et al. developed a climate-informed, regionally determined forecast method for WNND cases across the United States that outperforms current benchmarks. Key to their success was aggregating historically low county-level caseloads to the regional level, the authors say. Their work highlights key climatic factors and how their regional variation affects WNND rates.

Both mosquitoes and passerine birds (a group that includes more than half of all bird species) are vectors for West Nile virus, meaning caseloads are contingent on the environmental factors affecting these species. The authors picked the most relevant climatic factors as model inputs for each region. They found that drought and temperature are most strongly linked to WNND cases overall, and precipitation is linked in some regions. The central United States saw the most consistent correlation with drought and WNND cases, whereas the northern parts of the country saw the strongest link between WNND and warmer winter and spring temperatures.

The authors compared their climate-driven model with previous benchmark models, including a simple historical caseload model and an ensemble model from a 2022 competition. They found their model consistently outperformed others across regions. Nationally, a version of their model that included both primary and secondary climate factors (such as temperature and soil moisture) offered a prediction improvement of 21.8% over the historical model.

While the advancement represents a building block toward operational West Nile virus forecasts, the authors recommend that future work focus on enhancing county-level forecasting, which would provide authorities with more actionable information to prepare for fluctuations in WNND caseloads. Future WNND forecast models may also need to overcome the issue of climate data latency to offer real-time predictions, the authors say. One option could be to incorporate weather and climate forecasts into modeling, allowing disease forecasts to look further ahead. (GeoHealth, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GH001657, 2026)

—Nathaniel Scharping (@nathanielscharp), Science Writer

Citation: Scharping, N. (2026), New method could improve U.S. forecasting of West Nile virus, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260065. Published on 20 February 2026. Text © 2026. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

One way scientists search for Earth-like planets is the transit method, which involves observing a slight dimming in starlight when a planet passes in front of its star. Transits cause very small decreases in flux: A planet the size of Jupiter might block 1% of the light from a Sun-sized star, and an Earth-sized planet might block only 0.01%.

A study recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters suggests that an intriguing signal from the star HD 137010 comes from the transit of a planet about the size of Earth with a similar orbit. Astronomers detected the faint signal using data from NASA’s K2 mission.

HD 137010 is dimmer than the Sun, and the new planet candidate, HD 137010 b, likely lies near the outer edge of the star’s habitable zone. As a result of these factors, HD 137010 b receives far less energy from its star than the Earth receives from the Sun.

Detecting Single-Transit Events

HD 137010 b is the smallest potential planet to be detected from a single transit around a Sun-like star.

“Detecting single transit events is computationally difficult, so it’s sometimes actually easier for a human to pick out these events from the data—as was the case here,” Alexander Venner, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and lead author of the study, wrote in an email to Eos.

Data came from the K2 mission, which itself relied on the Kepler mission, NASA’s primary mission to find Earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars. After the Kepler spacecraft lost some functions, the K2 mission reused Kepler’s telescope to study brighter stars with high precision. Though each of K2’s observation campaigns lasted only about 80 days, too short to catch transiting planets with longer orbital periods, the mission still managed to discover planets from single-transit events.

“I knew there was something to it as soon as I saw it.”

The team noticed a 10-hour transit across the bright star HD 137010 in 2017. The telescope was precise enough to see the star clearly, even though its light dimmed only slightly, by 225 parts per million. Venner said some planetary scientists compare the effect to a moth passing in front of a lighthouse.

Still, Venner said the transit signal was significant enough that “I knew there was something to it as soon as I saw it.”

Even though Venner and the team were confident that the signal was significant, they still had to make sure the signal wasn’t a false alarm caused by background stars or quirks in the data.

To rule this out, the team carefully checked for any stars close to HD 137010. Radial velocity data, Hipparcos and Gaia astrometry, archival images, and high-resolution imaging showed no signs of stars falling within the K2 photometric aperture. Because only one transit was seen, astronomers can’t yet be certain it was caused by a planet, but the candidate was designated HD 137010 b.

Planetary Properties and Habitability

The new analysis suggests the radius of HD 137010 is about the same as Earth’s, and its orbital period is about 365 days. Using the planet’s orbit and the star’s brightness, the team estimated that HD 137010 b receives only about 0.3 times the amount of sunlight as Earth.

HD 137010 b is one of the coldest Earth-sized planets seen crossing a Sun-like star. Its surface may be as cold as −68°C (−90°F), even colder than Mars, which averages about −65°C (−85°F).

“Whether its surface is at all ‘Earth-like’ depends on the properties of its atmosphere, which we just can’t constrain from the current data,” Venner said. “A thick warming atmosphere might allow for a warm wet surface, but a thin atmosphere might result in a completely frozen surface colder than Mars.”

Future Prospects

This “represents a milestone in the search for worlds that might one day be considered truly Earth-like.”

“This is, indeed, an exciting result. It represents a milestone in the search for worlds that might one day be considered truly Earth-like,” Jon Jenkins, who served as the coinvestigator for data analysis on the original K2 mission but was not part of the research, wrote in an email to Eos.

“It will be extremely interesting if future observations give us information on the atmosphere or surface properties of HD 137010 b,” Venner said. “These scenarios could be distinguished if we’re able to observe the spectrum of HD 137010 b.”

—Pranjal Malewar (@PranjalMalewar), Science Writer

Citation: Malewar, P. (2026), This potential exoplanet is Earth sized but may be colder than Mars, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260062. Published on 19 February 2026. Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

To date, 42 landslides have been identified on Mauao (Mount Manganui) in New Zealand following the 22 January 2026 rainfall event.

The extreme rainfall event that affected parts of the North Island of New Zealand triggered two fatal landslides, of which the major failure at the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park on the flanks of Mauao was the most severe. In total, six people were killed in this failure, an unusually high total for a landslide in New Zealand.

As the clear up continues, work is underway to understand the scale of the problem on Mauao (Mount Managanui), the 232 m high lava dome that sits on the edge of the Bay of Plenty. Tauranga City council has a webpage providing updates on its ongoing work at Mauao, which includes an update published today. This highlights that 42 landslides have been identified on the walking tracks of Mauao, twelve of which are considered to be “severe” for which the impacts “generally involve high complexity, higher cost, longer timeframes, and often require staged or multi-disciplinary interventions.”

The Council has released this image showing some of the impacts:-

Landslides on Mauao following the 22 January 2026 rainfall event. Image from Tauranga City council.

This Planet Labs image, captured with their standard PlanetScope instrument on 15 January 2026, shows Mauao before the landslides:-

Satellite image of Mauao before the 22 January 2026 rainfall event. Image copyright Planet Labs, used with permission, captured on 15 January 2026.

And here is an image from five days after the 22 January 2026 event:-

Satellite image of Mauao after the 22 January 2026 rainfall event. Image copyright Planet Labs, used with permission, captured on 27 January 2026.

And here is a slider to allow the two images to be compared:-

Images by Planet Labs:- https://www.planet.com/

The fatal landslide occurred on the eastern side of Mauao just below the 3 o’clock position – this is clearly visible. But other landslides can be seen on the eastern side at the end of the beach and further to the north, and on the southwestern side too. In some cases, the impact of the landslides on the walking tracks is clear.

Resolving these landslides will be time consuming and expensive, yet another burden on a large country with a comparatively small population. Tom Robinson of the University of Canterbury has a very nice article about the impact of landslides on New Zealand, noting that they have claimed 1,800 lives over the last two centuries, twice the number killed by volcanoes and earthquakes combined. As extreme rainfall events increase in frequency and severity, the challenges for New Zealands are intensifying.

Acknowledgement

Many thanks to the wonderful people at Planet Labs for providing access to the satellite imagery.

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Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: AGU Advances

Inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) are recognized as central ethical commitments that strengthen science and expand its impact. However, their contribution to support continued innovation and the factual barriers and enablers are under-documented.

A new study from Naji and Reyes et al. [2026] addresses this gap. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with underrepresented and underserved Earth observation professionals and identified challenges and support they received during their career. Through these conversations, they identify barriers and enablers and discuss solutions. The authors present interesting quotes from the interviews that excellently convey the feelings and discouragement caused by the barriers and the enthusiasm and scientific benefit stimulated by successful enablers. The article provides an illuminating perspective on the real value of IDEA for the benefit of science and humanity.

Citation: Naji, N., Reyes, S. R., Crowley, M. A., Schenkein, S. F., González, M., Siwe, R., et al. (2026). Global perspectives on barriers and enablers to inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) in the field of Earth observation. AGU Advances, 7, e2025AV001858. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV001858

—Alberto Montanari, Editor-in-Chief, AGU Advances

Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.

Heading into the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympics, skiers and snowboarders were already adjusting to a ban on fluorinated waxes long prized for making their equipment faster. Last week, the Winter Games saw their first enforcement of that rule, which is aimed at protecting public health and the environment.

South Korean cross-country skiers Han Dasom and Lee Eui-jin were disqualified from the women’s sprint event on 10 February. That came one day after Japanese snowboarder Shiba Masaki was disqualified from the men’s parallel giant slalom. In all three cases, routine testing found banned compounds on their equipment.

The so-called “fluoro” waxes provide a “really ridiculous speed advantage.”

For decades, elite snow sports athletes have relied on waxes with fluorocarbons that are exceptional at repelling water and dirt. Former U.S. cross-country racer Nathan Schultz told Grist the so-called “fluoro” waxes provide a “really ridiculous speed advantage,” especially in warmer conditions like those experienced at these Games.

But these waxes also contained PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. This class of 15,000 so-called “forever chemicals” are notorious for never breaking down. Studies have linked exposure to PFAS to thyroid disease, developmental problems, and cancer, and research has found elevated levels in ski technicians who regularly handled the waxes. PFAS have also been detected in soil and water near ski venues, including wells drawing from aquifers in Park City, Utah, suggesting broader environmental contamination.

Amid growing concern over the environmental impacts and the risks to skiers, their technicians, and others, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, or FIS, called for a ban in 2019. The prohibition took effect in 2023, and applies to all events governed by the federation, including nordic, alpine and freestyle skiing, ski jumping, and snowboarding.

Officials test multiple points on each competitor’s equipment, using a technique known as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to detect fluoros. If a given spot on a ski or snowboard turns green, it passes. A red result indicates the presence of the banned substance. Three or more red spots leads to disqualification.

Representatives for the Japan team did respond to comment. A spokesperson for the Korea Ski Association initially told the South Korean news agency Newsis that the organization was “perplexed” by the results. “They tested negative in all previous international competitions with no prior issues,” they said. “We will consult experts from wax and ski manufacturers to investigate whether the issue lies with the wax or skis.”

In an emailed statement, the Korean Olympic Committee told Grist that fluoride was detected in what it believed to be fluoride-free waxes. “The Ski Association has purchased fluoride-free wax products, so it will protest,” wrote the spokesperson. The team will also replace the wax and check the skis again after cleaning to “prevent recurrence.”

It is unclear if a protest was ever officially filed or what the outcome was. The Korean team declined to elaborate and FIS did not immediately respond to Grist’s questions. But unlike some infractions, like those related to doping, discipline for unintentional fluoro use generally applies only to the event in question. The Korean athletes competed again Thursday in the 10-km freestyle event, finishing 73rd and 80th.

This time the results stood.

—Tik Root, Grist

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/accountability/the-olympics-just-saw-its-first-forever-chemical-disqualifications/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org.

The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides.

Of all the ground impacts induced by large earthquakes, liquefaction often feels to be the most neglected. The costs can be savage, and the long term implications wide ranging.

In this context, a very interesting paper (Valkaniotis et al. 2026) has been published in the journal Engineering Geology, which documents the liquefaction induced by the 29 March 2025 Mw=7.7 Mandalay earthquake in Myanmar. Given the challenges of fieldwork in this highly contested area, the work has been conducted medium resolution remote sensing.

It is an excellent study that demonstrates that liquefaction was extremely wide-ranging. The authors have documented 18,000 locations in which liquefaction has occurred, with the distribution being controlled by both proximity to the rupture (and not to the epicentre) and by the geology. The presence of thick deposits of Holocene fluvial materials, which occur widely in this area, allowed extensive liquefaction to occur.

One aspect that I found particularly interesting, and highly informative, is the comparison of the utility of satellite images with different resolutions for mapping liquefaction features. In particular, they show that 10 metre resolution Sentinel 2 images are useful for mapping liquefaction. So, I thought I’d take a look at the utility of Planet Labs imagery in this context.

One example that Valkaniotis et al. (2026) provide lies at [22.311, 96.012]. The Planet Labs image below shows this area as of 16 March 2025, a few days before the Mandalay earthquake:-

Satellite image of an area of Myanmar prior to the 2025 Mandalay earthquake. Image copyright Planet Labs, used with permission, collected on 16 March 2025.

And this is the same area on 31 March 2025, three days after the eartuqkae:-

Satellite image of an area of Myanmar after the 2025 Mandalay earthquake. Image copyright Planet Labs, used with permission, collected on 31 March 2025.

And here is a slider to compare the two images:-

Images by Planet Labs.

In the second image, there are hundreds of areas of exposed fluvial deposits (the light coloured patches) that are not present in the first image. These are the areas of liquefaction mapped by Valkaniotis et al. (2026). I think there may also be some locations in which lateral spreads are visible too, but this is less clear.

This is a fascinating finding, which will be very helpful in assessing post-seismic impacts in the future.

The extant of the liquefaction after the 2025 Mandalay earthquake is very interesting. At the end of the day, studies like this provide insight into the response of the ground to large earthquakes, and in turn this is intended to allow us to build resilience to these events. Valkaniotis et al. (2026) conclude their article as follows:-

“The 2025 Mandalay event serves as a reminder that liquefaction remains one of the most devastating secondary hazards associated with strong earthquakes, especially in densely populated floodplains with complex dynamic fluvial histories. The insights gained from this inventory can not only enhance national seismic resilience efforts in Myanmar but also contribute to the better understanding of liquefaction behavior in large strike-slip earthquakes worldwide.”

Quite.

Reference and acknowledgement

Valkaniotis, S. et al. 2026. Regional-scale inventory and initial analysis of liquefaction triggered by the 2025 Mw 7.7 Mandalay earthquake, Myanmar. Engineering Geology,
363. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2026.108543.

Many thanks to the wonderful people at Planet Labs for providing access to the satellite imagery.

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Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: AGU Advances

River terraces are archives of past environmental and climate change as they form when rivers erode into alluvial plains, leaving behind an elevated flat surface. A sequence of terraces can take tens to hundreds of thousands of years to develop, thus they potentially hold important information over the period of formation. This is the case for the extensive terraces in southern Patagonia.

Through mechanistic models of terrace formation, Ruby et al. [2026] both isolate and combine the key drivers of terrace formation and connect them with the observed terrace shapes. Some terrace shapes were shown to form only under a specific combination of model parameters. This opens a new quantitative way to reveal past tectonic, climatic, and environmental conditions and how these have changed using terraces.  

Citation: Ruby, A., McNab, F., Schildgen, T. F., Wickert, A. D., & Fernandes, V. M. (2026). How sediment supply, sea-level, and glacial isostatic oscillations drive alluvial river long-profile evolution and terrace formation. AGU Advances, 7, e2025AV002035. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV002035

—M. Bayani Cardenas, Editor, AGU Advances

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Drained peatlands in Finland can become carbon sinks within just 15 years of restoration, suggests a study published in Restoration Ecology. The findings are a stark contrast to another recent publication that suggests the switch from source to sink can take hundreds of years.

Finland will submit a biodiversity restoration plan to the European Commission this September, and what to do about the country’s 5 million hectares of drained peatland will likely be a hot topic. Teemu Tahvanainen, the author of the new study and a plant ecologist at the University of Eastern Finland (Itä-Suomen Yliopisto), said the upcoming deadline motivated him to add to the conversation.

Moreover, if the country is to one day achieve carbon neutrality, it “cannot neglect those areas,” said peatland ecologist Anke Günther from Universität Rostock, in Germany, who was not involved in the new paper.

Like a Forest with No Air

To understand why pristine peatlands are powerful carbon sinks, imagine a forest without any air between the trees, said Günther. That’s how densely the mosses that make up peat are packed together.

To understand why pristine peatlands are powerful carbon sinks, imagine a forest without any air between the trees, said Günther. That’s how densely the mosses that make up peat are packed together. In some places, peatlands can cover millions of hectares and be meters deep. All told, they contain massive amounts of plant matter and therefore massive amounts of carbon—about a third of the total carbon found on Earth.

Peatlands are waterlogged, which largely prevents the peat from decomposing, but also limits how well trees and other plants can grow. Forestry and agricultural companies, governments, and private landowners often dig trenches to drain off some of the water, making the land available for other uses. But draining peat exposes it to oxygen, which then allows microbes to break it down, releasing carbon dioxide.

Rewetting stops these carbon emissions, but it can also cause others, explained soil scientist Jens Leifeld from the Swiss federal research institute Agroscope, who was not involved in the new study. For example, any trees growing in a drained peatland will die upon rewetting, and their deaths will release carbon dioxide if the trees aren’t harvested. Moreover, rewetting shifts the peatland’s microbial population from aerobic microbes to anaerobic, increasing methane emissions. Studies have produced conflicting answers when asking how restoring peatlands affects carbon emissions. “There was no agreed opinion,” Leifeld said.

Increasing the Resolution

Tahvanainen modeled peatland restoration with greater temporal resolution than in previous studies. Rather than assume that parameters such as methane emissions and decomposition of forest litter will remain the same after rewetting, he predicted how these parameters will vary in the years and decades following.

His take-home message: Restoration can cool the climate in as little as a couple of decades. “I’m saying that it can, which sounds a little bit ambiguous on purpose,” he added. There are many variables his approach can’t account for, he said, such as how climate change will progress and the state of a peatland prior to restoration.

“The results make sense to me in a way that other studies didn’t always.”

“The results make sense to me in a way that other studies didn’t always,” said Günther. It seemed implausible to her that the carbon sequestered through a bit of tree growth would compensate for the vast amount of carbon released from draining a peatland.

But rewetting also has consequences the model doesn’t consider, Leifeld pointed out. For example, rewetting changes the color of the landscape in the winter, taking it from the dark color of a forest to the white color of open snow. Snow reflects more sunlight than trees, which cools Earth.

Only field studies can truly answer the question of how rewetting peatlands will affect their greenhouse gas emissions, said forest ecologist Paavo Ojanen from Natural Resources Institute Finland. These studies are ongoing, but they require following peatlands for years. Until they’re complete, “we don’t have the real measurements,” he said.

For now, Tahvanainen said his work adds nuance to studies reporting that peatland restoration won’t bring climate mitigation in the next hundred years. That’s “just way too strongly put,” he said.

—Saima May Sidik (@saimamay.bsky.social), Science Writer

Citation: Sidik, S. M. (2026), Restored peatlands could become carbon sinks within decades, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260060. Published on 17 February 2026. Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

A massive gully has been developing over the last two decades at Pondok Balik. It now covers an area of over 3 hectares.

In Indonesia, a massive and rapidly developing gully is causing considerable concern. Located at Pondok Balik in Central Aceh Regency, Aceh province, this feature has been developing since 2004. Reuters has an excellent gallery of images that is worth a view. There is a really good summary of the history of this gully on The Watchers website too.

There is some nice drone footage of this feature in this SindoNews report on Youtube:-

The location of this very large gully is [4.72374, 96.73117]. This is a Google Earth image of it, captured in June 2025:-

Google Earth image from June 2025 of the massive gully at Pondok Balik in Indonesia.

By comparison, here is an image from February 2015:-

Google Earth image from February 2015 2018 of the massive gully at Pondok Balik in Indonesia.

And here is a slider to compare the two, showing the raid development of the gully:-

Google Earth images

The gully is reportedly developing in loose volcanic materials, which are prone to rapid erosion when disturbed and saturated. In Indonesia, rainfall totals are high.

There are concerns about potential damage to the road seen in the image and to high voltage electricity pylons running through the area. It is proposed to seek to manage the hazard by reinforcing the soil and managing surface and subsurface water. This will not be straightforward or cheap.

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Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: AGU Advances

Coastal landscapes evolve under the combined influence of wave action, climatic variations, sea‑level change, and tectonic processes. Shoreline evolution is especially important along rocky coasts such as those of the western United States, where it shapes hazards to people and infrastructure and affects exposure to events like tsunamis. In this context, tectonically driven uplift plays a key role over both individual earthquake cycles and longer timescales associated with fault-system and topographic development.

Using a compilation of coastal change metrics and statistical analyses, Lopez and Masteller [2026] identify a tentative link between tectonics and shoreline change. On decadal timescales, uplift can slow coastline retreat, as might be expected. Over many earthquake cycles, however, higher long-term uplift associated with cumulative subduction-zone deformation appears to enhance shoreline retreat. These findings highlight some of the interactions between coastal and solid earth hazards. They also point toward future models that integrate similar constraints to improve our understanding of how earthquakes build topography and how sea level, coastal processes, and tectonics together modulate short‑ and long‑term coastal risk.

Citation: Lopez, C. G., & Masteller, C. C. (2026). Tectonics as a regulator of shoreline retreat and rocky coast evolution across timescales. AGU Advances, 7, e2025AV002065. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV002065

—Thorsten Becker, Editor, AGU Advances

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Six people were killed when intense rainfall triggered over 6,500 landslides

On 16 June 2024, an extreme rainfall event triggered a dense cluster of landslides and channelised debris flows in Wuping County, Fujian Province, China. This is one of many such events in recent years – anecdotally at least, these events are becoming more common and more severe.

Thus, I very much welcome a paper in the journal Landslides (Liao et al. 2026) that describes this event. The paper is not open access, but this link should allow you to read the full manuscript. The authors highlight the impact of the event – six people were killed (two of whom were never recovered) and hundreds of houses were damaged.

The cluster of landslides centres on the area around [24.94745, 116.29172]. This Planet Labs image, captured on 27 November 2024 after the event, shows some of the landslides triggered:-

Landslides triggered by the 16 June 2024 rainfall event in Wuping County, Fujian Province. Image copyright Planet Labs, used with permission, collected on 27 November 2024.

Note the presence of multiple shallow landslides that have combined to form channelised debris flows. In the centre of the image, by the marker, there is a small reservoir that has been almost entirely infilled by debris from the landslides.

In total, Liao et al. (2026) have mapped 6,526 landslide triggered by the rainfall event. The main initiating rainfall appears to have been a period between 14:00 and 18:00 on 16 June 2024, during which 161 mm was recorded, with a peak intensity of 55 mm per hour. Interestingly, though, the landslide density correlates with rainfall total prior to the main initiating event, rather than to the total rainfall. I wonder whether this indicates that the key parameter (the distribution of peak rainfall intensity, for example) is not being captured in the data?

Very helpfully, Liao et al. (2026) have investigated the mechanism of the landslides in some detail. They find that behaviour differed according to the bedrock lithology. In areas underlain by granite, failure occurred on the interface between the weathered and the unweathered materials, a common situation. In most cases, granitic landslides did not generate channelised debris flows.

On the other hand, in areas underlain by greywacke, failures also occurred in these interface areas, but channelised debris flows were more common. This may be related to the steeper local topography in the greywacke areas.

The paper by Liao et al. (2026) further helps us to understand these clusters of landslides and channelised debris flows, which are proving to be so very destructive. Expect more of these events in the coming months and beyond.

Reference and acknowledgement

Liao, Z., Wu, J., Ma, J. et al. 2026. Characteristics and initiation mechanism of clustered landslides triggered by an extreme rainfall in Wuping County, Fujian Province, China. Landslides. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-026-02712-1.

Many thanks to the wonderful people at Planet Labs for providing access to the satellite imagery.

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Scientists who work across disciplines often dread the question, “What is your field of expertise?” A geographer working in an environmental science department or a social scientist working in an ecology department might find it difficult to articulate how their research, knowledge, and professional networks fit within established fields to colleagues long accustomed to their institutions’ disciplinary expectations and norms.

Most academic structures are still largely organized around relatively narrow disciplinary perspectives, even as the world’s biggest challenges require interdisciplinary solutions.

These moments of discomfort may seem trivial, but they signal a systemic barrier for many scientists and for scientific innovation and problem-solving: Most academic structures are still largely organized around relatively narrow disciplinary perspectives, even as the world’s biggest challenges require interdisciplinary solutions. Addressing natural hazards, biodiversity loss, poverty, and food insecurity simultaneously, for example, depends on scientists collaborating across fields and engaging with partners in other sectors of society.

This issue is not just one of semantics, especially for younger scientists and others who regularly experience its effects. Departments incentivized to select against interdisciplinary science and the absence of clear institutional “homes” for interdisciplinary scientists can create challenges for hiring, evaluation, and promotion. It can also reduce researchers’ sense of professional belonging and increase their feelings of being an imposter, which can affect their ability to contribute and even lead to the loss of scientific talent to other career paths.

Experiences in the field of land system science reflect broader tensions with interdisciplinarity across academic science. Researchers studying land system science, as we do, often find that their work resists neat disciplinary labels. Because this field encompasses the many ways that people and nature interact across Earth’s land surface and how these interactions shape global challenges like biodiversity loss, it can be difficult to describe the field in terms of preexisting academic departments and to identify appropriate funding sources and publication venues.

Here we share experiences navigating tensions that have come with pursuing interdisciplinary science, and we describe how one global interdisciplinary science community, the Global Land Programme (GLP), became a home for our work. Communities such as the GLP not only bring people together but also help create new pathways for turning research into solutions.

Our experiences also suggest practical lessons and actionable steps—especially for early-career scholars—for finding or building supportive communities that span fields and sectors, foster belonging, spark scientific innovation, and connect science to society.

Perceived Deficiencies Versus Demonstrated Proficiencies

As interdisciplinary scientists working across institutions around the world, we’ve seen firsthand the tribulations of bridging silos. Colleagues have often questioned our scientific skills and seen us as outsiders. Some have asked whether our interdisciplinary doctoral degrees “count” as legitimate academic credentials or told us that our research “isn’t science.” Even after establishing our careers, we’ve heard comments such as “Your research doesn’t fit into this science foundation’s remit.”

These critiques can be especially harsh for researchers who already encounter structural barriers within scientific institutions [Liu et al., 2023; Bentley and Garrett, 2023; Woolston, 2021; Carrigan and Wylie, 2023]. Having other people—particularly colleagues around whom you work—define you by perceived deficiencies rather than demonstrated proficiencies is hardly constructive for advancing research into complex challenges.

The scientific literature reveals a disconnect between policy-level acceptance of interdisciplinarity and its practical adoption within academic and research institutions.

National- and international-level policies are increasingly encouraging interdisciplinary research. The European Union, for example, is adopting integrated One Health policy approaches that recognize the interconnections of human, animal, plant, and environmental health and require collaboration across previously distinct disciplines and sectors.

Yet the scientific literature reveals a disconnect between policy-level acceptance of interdisciplinarity and its practical adoption within academic and research institutions, showing that the barriers we’ve faced are widely shared [Andrews et al., 2020; Berkes et al., 2024]. Such obstacles include skepticism from peers, disciplinary prejudice, and funding and department structures that privilege individual, siloed fields. We often must frame research proposals as either social science or natural science, for example, because work that straddles or combines both rarely gets funded.

Unsupportive responses from funding agencies, departments, and colleagues can be demoralizing when added to the background stresses of academia. On the other hand, opportunities to commiserate and trade tips with others can be lifelines. Building communities of interdisciplinary scientists is thus essential, especially for younger scholars who often face the steepest barriers with disciplinary divides [Haider et al., 2018].

Discovering a Global Community

To thrive as an interdisciplinary scientist, one might need to “feel comfortable being uncomfortable” [Marx, 2022]. Achieving such confidence requires mentorship and peer relationships in community. In each of our cases, the GLP provided the professional and emotional support that we greatly needed to feel fulfilled in our careers.

As current or former members of the GLP’s Scientific Steering Committee, we are admittedly biased toward the program’s merits. Nonetheless, having come from different scientific backgrounds, career stages, and geographies, we believe that our collective experiences illustrate how global cross-disciplinary communities can cultivate a supportive culture and amplify the reach and impact of community members’ science.

The GLP emerged in the mid-2000s as a successor to earlier global change research projects focused on land use and land cover, with the goal of bringing together natural and social scientists to study land systems as coupled human-environment systems [de Bremond et al., 2019]. Since then, it has become the reference community for land system science, as well as a home for scientists whose work was falling through disciplinary cracks.

Speakers discuss the GLP’s Science Plan during the 5th Open Science Meeting in 2024. Credit: Ximena Fargas

The organization has been guided by a unifying programmatic framework—articulated in its Science Plan—that incorporates knowledge across disciplines to address pressing global challenges (e.g., biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and poverty). The Science Plan, reevaluated and updated every 5 years, offers a living, collaborative road map of interdisciplinary research priorities—a rarity in academia, where competition for resources and rewards often leaves scientists reluctant to share ideas.

This road map enables researchers to orient their work toward impactful cross-disciplinary research themes and projects. It also outlines the GLP’s core priorities and analytical perspectives, drawing on a range of viewpoints and knowledge, which can guide us to develop shared ideas of what is possible.

The Global Land Programme’s activities have built a culture of mutual respect that values ecological and cultural context and encourages engagement with a broad range of perspectives.

Over time, the collaborative spirit of the GLP’s members has resulted in a rich interdisciplinary community of land system scientists that provides a space for them to reflect on dimensions of academic life other than research (as exemplified, e.g., by this article). Besides offering a supportive professional environment, apart from the skepticism we often encounter in more discipline-specific settings, the GLP’s activities have built a culture of mutual respect that values ecological and cultural context and encourages engagement with a broad range of perspectives.

The GLP has also delivered tangible results for science and society. GLP scientists have advanced modeling of land use going back millennia, contributed to global biodiversity assessments (e.g., in support of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), codeveloped new visions for land systems, and made datasets that help track land use changes, such as deforestation, publicly available. The GLP also works to translate land system science into forms relevant for policy and practice. For example, GLP scientists authored “Ten Facts About Land Systems for Sustainability,” a framework intended to inform both research and policy understandings of sustainable land governance.

What began as a space for researchers from across disciplines to connect around land system challenges has become an engine for both scientific innovation and societal relevance. This success adds to our trust in the GLP’s approach to supporting researchers in the often-challenging space of interdisciplinary science.

If You Don’t Have a Community, Make One

For interdisciplinary scientists lacking a home, one path forward is to build a new community of researchers with shared interests.

We were fortunate to find the GLP early in our careers, as not all scientists have access to such communities. But the comfort and confidence that come with belonging should not—and need not—depend on luck. For interdisciplinary scientists lacking a home, one path forward is to build a new community of researchers with shared interests.

Establishing a community of practice within a broader existing organization or research community or even creating a new forum for social networking can provide a space that empowers scientists, including early-career researchers, to navigate interdisciplinary work by connecting with peers who share related interests and challenges.

Experiences from existing communities of practice suggest that these spaces tend to work best when they grow organically [Watkins et al., 2018]. Making it easy for people to join, observe, and participate at their own pace helps create welcoming entry points and encourages such growth. Allowing people to gradually step in, share perspectives, and assume roles and responsibilities strengthens the common dynamic that often develops in these communities, in which a core of more active members is surrounded by a larger group of less active, though still involved, members.

In practice, many scientific communities thrive by communicating through simple and familiar platforms, such as mailing lists, online forums and channels, and recurring online meetups, which lower barriers to participation across institutions and regions. Reaching out to existing societies or research networks—AGU or FLARE (Forests & Livelihoods: Assessment, Research, and Engagement), for example—for guidance on coordination or to help gain visibility or seed funding can also help burgeoning communities avoid reinventing the wheel.

Furthermore, mentorship from people who have built research communities from the ground up in adjacent fields can be valuable for advising groups on how to grow and address challenges. Knowledgeable mentors can also help groups understand how to sustain a community, an aspect that is often critical to long-term viability.

The GLP was initiated as researchers working on different issues related to land began to connect, forging collaborations that eventually grew into a global network, which itself now comprises a variety of smaller networks, including working groups and regional (nodal) offices. The recently created Early Career Network, launched through webinars and other online communications, is providing a space where young scholars are encouraged to create their own governance structures and articulate what they need in terms of capacity building from the larger community.

Members of the GLP’s Scientific Steering Committee visit an agave farm in Oaxaca in 2024. Credit: Rieley Auger

Growing the GLP has not always been an easy process, however. Sustaining the community has required continually maintaining support and funding from multiple institutions. To date, much of the growth has relied on volunteer work, with members of the GLP’s Scientific Steering Committee, working groups, and nodal offices providing unpaid service above and beyond their existing professional responsibilities. This arrangement of distributed labor underscores the importance of effective coordination for maintaining connections and momentum across the network.

The experiences of the GLP and other groups show that new interdisciplinary communities can start small and run largely on volunteer energy, which we recognize is not something all researchers—especially those early in their career—have to spare. If the communities can then reach a critical mass of participants, they may be able to secure institutional support and professional coordination to help them thrive over the long term.

Harnessing Interdisciplinarity

We came to realize that with our expertise, we can generate innovative ideas that advance science at the intersections between disciplines.

Earlier in our careers, we used to internalize criticisms about not belonging or excelling in any one discipline. Then we came to realize that with our expertise, we can generate innovative ideas that advance science at the intersections between disciplines. Indeed, people with interdisciplinary profiles can fill critical research gaps—and should be seen as assets, not liabilities. Many universities and funders understand this truth at the leadership level, but challenges remain in how interdisciplinarity is evaluated within departments and by hiring, promotion, and grant review panels.

To help move the needle, we actively characterize ourselves as interdisciplinary land system scientists in our tenure and promotion documents, preferring to own the position and emphasize its strengths, rather than to shy away from it. Individuals acting on their own, however, may have only limited influence. That is why building and sustaining communities is so important: They create the collective weight needed to demonstrate value, shift norms, and motivate institutional change.

Within community-building efforts, it is key to create space for participation from researchers with varied backgrounds and experiences. The GLP supports this approach through its distributed subnetworks, including working groups and regional nodes, and by convening international Open Science Meetings on different continents that bring together hundreds of scientists every few years. GLP members frequently present on the program’s work as well as strategies and approaches at other conferences, helping spread the word about the value of growing interdisciplinary communities.

As more researchers connect across disciplinary and geographic boundaries, the scientific enterprise will be better positioned to pursue sustainable solutions that address complex, urgent problems to secure livelihoods and food security for the global population and to safeguard our planet’s biodiversity and environmental health.

References

Andrews, E. J., et al. (2020), Supporting early career researchers: Insights from interdisciplinary marine scientists, ICES J. Mar. Sci., 77(2), 476–485, https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsz247.

Bentley, A., and R. Garrett (2023), Don’t get mad, get equal: Putting an end to misogyny in science, Nature, 619, 209–211, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02101-x.

Berkes, E., et al. (2024), Slow convergence: Career impediments to interdisciplinary biomedical research, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 121(32), e2402646121, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2402646121.

Carrigan, C., and C. D. Wylie (2023), Introduction: Caring for equitable relations in interdisciplinary collaborations, Catalyst Feminism Theory Technosci., 9(2), 1–16, https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v9i2.41070.

de Bremond, A., et al. (2019), What role for global change research networks in enabling transformative science for global sustainability? A Global Land Programme perspective, Curr. Opinion Environ. Sustainability, 38, 95–102, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2019.05.006.

Haider, L. J., et al. (2018), The undisciplinary journey: Early-career perspectives in sustainability science, Sustainability Sci., 13, 191–204, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0445-1.

Liu, M., et al. (2023), Female early-career scientists have conducted less interdisciplinary research in the past six decades: Evidence from doctoral theses, Humanit. Soc. Sci. Commun., 10(1), 918, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02392-5.

Marx, V. (2022), Cross-disciplinary ways to connect and blend, Nat. Methods, 19(10), 1149, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-022-01622-z.

Watkins, C., et al. (2018), Developing an interdisciplinary and cross‐sectoral community of practice in the domain of forests and livelihoods, Conserv. Biol., 32(1), 60–71, https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12982.

Woolston, C. (2021), Discrimination still plagues science, Nature, 600(7887), 177–179, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03043-y.

Author Information

Laura Vang Rasmussen (lr@ign.ku.dk), Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Rachael Garrett, Department of Geography and Conservation Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K.; A. Sofia Nanni, Instituto de Ecología Regional, Horco Molle, Yerba Buena, Argentina; also at Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina; Navin Ramankutty, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; and Ariane de Bremond, Global Land Programme, Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park

Citation: Rasmussen, L. V., R. Garrett, A. S. Nanni, N. Ramankutty, and A. de Bremond (2026), Creating communities to help interdisciplinary scientists thrive, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260058. Published on 13 February 2026. This article does not represent the opinion of AGU, Eos, or any of its affiliates. It is solely the opinion of the author(s). Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth

Quartz is widely thought to control the mechanical strength of Earth’s continental crust, but measuring its strength at high pressure and temperature has long been challenging.

Medina et al. [2026] deform polycrystalline α-quartz at crustal pressure and temperature conditions while directly monitoring stress inside the sample using in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction. Unlike traditional experiments that rely on external load measurements, this approach derives stress from lattice strain within the quartz itself, avoiding long-standing uncertainties related to friction corrections. The results show that quartz strength varies systematically with temperature, transitioning from lattice-resistance–controlled plasticity below 800 °C to dislocation creep at higher temperatures.

Remarkably, the new measurements are broadly consistent with classic deformation experiments despite the very different experimental techniques. The data also show little pressure dependence over the tested conditions, suggesting that temperature plays the dominant role in controlling quartz strength in much of the crust. These findings provide a more reliable experimental foundation for flow laws used to model crustal deformation, earthquakes, and mountain-building processes.

Citation: Medina, D. A. J., Kaboli, S., Patterson, B. M., & Burnley, P. C. (2026). Strength α-quartz: New results from high pressure in situ X-ray diffraction experiments. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 131, e2025JB032753. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JB032753

—Jun Tsuchiya, Editor, JGR: Solid Earth

Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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In NW India, rainfall in the 2025 monsoon was 27% above the long term average. Over 2,500 people were killed in India and Pakistan by landslides and floods as a result.

In India and Pakistan, the 2025 summer monsoon generated unusual amount of landslide activity. I described some of these events along the way, most notably in India. In Pakistan, it is much harder to get a good picture of the events that occur in the higher mountain areas.

A new open access paper (Sana et al. 2026) in the journal Landslides provides an initial commentary on these events. By their calculation, 1,528 people were killed in floods and landslides in India and 1,006 were killed in Pakistan.

The paper provides a description of some of the more serious events, which is in itself very helpful, but the most interesting aspect is the consideration of the underlying causes. Across all of India, the total monsoon rainfall was 10% above the long term average, but in Northwest India, which was most seriously impacted area, rainfall was 27% above the long term average. In addition, there was an unusually large number of shorter duration extreme rainfall events, which were primarily responsible for the landslides and floods. This graph, from Sana et al. (2026), provides the 2026 monsoon rainfall record for Mandi district in Himachal Pradesh, for example:-

Rainfall data for the monsoon months of June to August 2025 for Mandi district highlighting cloudburst events. Graph from Sana et al. (2026).

An example of these shorter rainfall events occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province between 14 and 25 August 2025, when a succession of cloudbursts triggered landslides and floods in Buner, Swat, Shangla, Mansehra and Dir districts, killing 504 people and leaving thousands more homeless.

But Sana et al. (2026) also remind us that rainfall alone is not the cause of these landslides and floods. Vulnerability has also increased dramatically – for example, there has been a sharp decline in forest cover across much of the area. There has also been growth in urban areas, often with poor planning control, meaning that much of the population is occupying more hazardous locations. And, as I have noted before, poor quality infrastructure development (especially road building) is driving instability across large swathes of hillslopes, rendering them vulnerable to the changed rainfall patterns.

I write on the morning after the decision by the frankly nonsensical decision by the Trump government to reverse the 2009 endangerment finding regarding greenhouse gases, an event that will be judged harshly by future generations. However, in the medium term, this will further exacerbate the issues of increasing rainfall intensities, which drive these horrific events.

It is really helpful that Sana et al. (2026) have provided this intial commentary and analysis of the 2025 monsoon landslides and floods. I will look forward to seeing more detailed analyses in due course.

Reference

Sana, E., Kritika & Kumar, A. 2026. Preliminary investigation of rainfall-induced landslides and related damages by the 2025 extreme monsoon in the Northwestern Himalayan region. Landslides. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-026-02703-2

Return to The Landslide Blog homepage Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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Bright streaks of material trickle down the slopes of many of Mercury’s craters, but scientists have struggled to understand how these geologically young features, called slope lineae, appeared on a seemingly dead world. Now, researchers have used machine learning to analyze more than 400 slope lineae in the hope of understanding the streaks’ origin.

The analysis of images from NASA’s decade-gone MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging) mission showed that lineae seem to stream from bright hollows on the sunward side of crater slopes and mainly appear on craters that punched through a thin volcanic crust to a volatile-rich layer beneath. The lineae, the team theorized, could have formed when that exposed layer heated up and released volatiles like sulfur to drip downslope.

“We have these modern data science approaches now—machine learning, deep learning—that help us look into all those old data sets and find completely new science discoveries in them,” said Valentin Bickel, a planetary geomorphologist at Universität Bern in Switzerland and lead researcher on the study.

Streaks and Stripes

MESSENGER orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015, and observations from those 4 years remain some of the best data we have on our solar system’s smallest planet.

The images revealed that although there is not a lot of geologic activity happening today, the planet remains chock-full of oddities.

One of those strange phenomena is the existence of slope lineae streaking down from the rims of many of Mercury’s craters. The higher-resolution MESSENGER images show that Mercury’s lineae are made of bright material and are geologically young, with crisply defined edges and no small craters superimposed on top. But planetary scientists had not conducted any systematic analysis of lineae before now, focusing instead on understanding the planet’s similarly bright, but more numerous, hollows.

“The first things we as geologists like to do is put things on a map.”

Bickel and his team sought to fill that knowledge gap. Their machine learning tool looked at more than 112,000 MESSENGER images with spatial resolutions finer than 150 meters (492 feet), identified 402 individual lineae, and cataloged their properties in a uniform way.

“The first things we as geologists like to do is put things on a map,” Bickel said.

Most of MESSENGER’s high-resolution images cover the northern hemisphere, Bickel explained, so most (93%) of the lineae the team cataloged were in the north. Ninety percent of lineae are located within craters. They are hundreds or thousands of meters long, are less than 20 meters (65 feet) tall, and are located on steeper-than-average crater slopes. Most lineae extend from young, bright hollows or hollow-like features.

But the most telling commonality among lineae is that they prefer the side of craters facing the equator, which is the side that receives the most sunlight.

The MESSENGER mission imaged slope lineae in Mercury’s craters on 1 August 2012 (left) and 19 October 2013 (right). Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie Institution of Washington

That trend led the researchers to their theory of how lineae form. An impact exposes Mercury’s shallow but volatile-rich bedrock layer. Insolation, or heat from the Sun, draws out volatile gases in those rocks, and those volatiles then slowly drip down the crater wall, leaving bright deposits behind.

“The fact that lineae are on slopes that are facing the Sun implies that insolation might play a role in activating the process,” Bickel said. “And whenever insolation is so prominent, that implies that volatile material is involved. And in Mercury’s case has to come from the subsurface.”

The team published these results in Communications Earth and Environment.

Making a More Complete Map

Susan Conway, a planetary geomorphologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Nantes, France, said planetary scientists have long accepted that Mercury’s hollows are produced by the loss of subsurface volatiles.

“Given that the slope lineae often originate at what appear to be hollows on the crater wall and have the same colour as them, the inference that slope lineae are also linked to volatile loss makes sense,” Conway wrote in an email.

Across the solar system, “slope lineae are pretty common,” added Conway, who was not involved with this research. “Several different kinds have been documented on Mars—slope streaks believed to be dust avalanches, recurring slope lineae whose formation is still debated and could be related to volatiles.” Granular flows on the Moon as well as lineae on Ceres and some icy moons in the outer solar system also resemble those on Mercury.

But a good 10% of Mercury’s known lineae don’t appear within craters, and conversely, there are plenty of craters with hollows that don’t have lineae. Other mechanisms are likely at work there, Bickel said.

“BepiColombo will image the whole surface at a resolution that would enable us to see most slope lineae.”

Thankfully, planetary scientists won’t have to wait long to test this theory. The BepiColombo spacecraft will arrive at Mercury in November and will begin science operations in early 2027. The joint mission from the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will image more of the planet’s surface than MESSENGER did and at a consistently higher spatial resolution.

Bickel and other Mercury scientists expect that BepiColombo will image more slope lineae across the planet, including smaller lineae, dimmer lineae, and lineae at southern latitudes. It will likely reimage some lineae-dense locations and reveal whether the streaks have changed in the 16 years since MESSENGER’s last images. And it may even capture repeat snapshots of a few locations, allowing scientists to see whether lineae change on short timescales.

“BepiColombo will image the whole surface at a resolution that would enable us to see most slope lineae,” Conway said. “We’ll get a complete picture of their spatial distribution, which will enable us to better test the volatile-driven hypothesis.”

—Kimberly M. S. Cartier (@astrokimcartier.bsky.social), Staff Writer

Citation: Cartier, K. M. S. (2026), Oozing gas could be making stripes in Mercury’s craters, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260052. Published on 12 February 2026. Text © 2026. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Fast ice, also called landfast sea ice, is a relatively short-lived ice that forms from frozen seawater and attaches like a “seatbelt” to larger ice sheets. It can create 50- to 200-kilometer-wide bands that last anywhere from a few weeks to a few decades and act as a site for valuable geochemical processes, breeding grounds for emperor penguins, and a protective buffer between caustic Antarctic winds and waters and inland bodies of ice.

In new research published in Nature Communications, scientists found that buried sediments can track the long-term growth of Antarctic fast ice—and that the ice’s freezing and thawing may be linked to cycles of solar activity. Given that this ice plays a significant role in protecting Antarctica’s larger ice sheets, the research could have major implications for understanding the ongoing impacts of climate change in Antarctica.

“Fast ice, especially in the summertime, is suffering the same fate as overall pack ice,” said Alex Fraser, a glaciologist at the University of Tasmania, who was not involved in the study. We’ve seen a “dramatic decrease” over the past decade, he said. “We’re down to around half of the ‘normal’ [amount].”

“To understand how humans are changing the planet, we first need to know how the planet changes on its own.”

Over the past several decades, the only way for scientists to track fast ice has been through satellite data, which can reveal the ice’s history over only the past 40 or so years. This narrow range has prohibited researchers from understanding the ice’s behavior prior to human-induced climate change.

“To understand how humans are changing the planet, we first need to know how the planet changes on its own,” said Mike Weber, a geoscientist at Universität Bonn in Germany and a coauthor of the study. The new work aimed to establish a “blueprint” for how fast ice behaves in the long term, allowing researchers to better understand how the ice contracts or expands when exposed to greenhouse gas emissions.

Sediment Secrets

To better understand fast ice history, the team turned to sediment cores from Victoria Land in eastern Antarctica. By scrutinizing laminated layers within the cores, the researchers were able to pinpoint key markers that correspond to ebbs and flows in fast ice going back 3,700 years.

The team found that lighter sediment layers formed during summer months marked by prolonged ice loss, whereas darker layers formed during regular seasonal thawing. They also found evidence that different species of small organisms called diatoms grew during summer months versus thawing periods, further enabling the science team to distinguish the cycles. By combining these and other data unearthed from the sediments, the researchers identified recurring periods of open-water and low-ice conditions pinned to solar cycles—called the Gleissberg and Suess-de Vries solar cycles—that occur approximately every 90 and 240 years, respectively.

The link to solar cycling was surprising at first, but the researchers suggested the explanation is straightforward: Solar activity can influence winds over the Southern Ocean, transporting warm air over the Victoria Land coast and leading to ice melt.

“Laminated sediments are always intriguing because you know they’re hiding a message.”

“Laminated sediments are always intriguing because you know they’re hiding a message,” said Tesi Tommaso, a biogeochemist at the National Research Council of Italy’s Institute of Polar Sciences and lead author of the study. “When we realized that over long timescales, this laminated pattern was linked to solar activity, it actually made perfect sense—it was super exciting.”

In future work, the team plans to dig up deeper sediment cores to push fast ice records back even further. The data would be “incredibly informative,” said Tommaso.

“We have finally developed a high-resolution ‘time machine’ for a critical but poorly understood part of Antarctica,” Weber said. “It’s a testament to how interconnected our atmosphere, ocean, and ice really are.”

—Taylor Mitchell Brown (@tmitchellbrown.bsky.social), Science Writer

Citation: Brown, T. M. (2026), Sediments offer an extended history of fast ice, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260054. Published on 12 February 2026. Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: Earth and Space Science

Atmospheric conditions over Antarctica affect global climate cycles, and are thus critical for climate assessment. However, studying atmospheric changes in Antarctica is quite challenging as they are driven by a variety of processes at local scale not easily captured by global models. Monitoring seasonal atmospheric pressure changes is one way to keep track of the evolving Antarctic atmosphere.

Because changes in stratospheric conditions influence the flux of cosmic rays reaching Earth’s surface, Santos et al. [2025] use measurements from a water-Cherenkov cosmic-ray detector, to monitor variations in the 100-hPa geopotential height (about 15 kilometers) over the Antarctic Peninsula. After conducting a thorough statistical analysis of the data, the authors develop a simple model linking surface pressure and cosmic ray count data, validating it against observed ERA5 100-hPa geopotential height reanalysis data. The model is especially accurate in (southern hemisphere) spring, but it performs well also at other times of the year.

With their model, the authors demonstrate that water-Cherenkov cosmic-ray detectors can be reliably used as proxies for atmospheric pressure changes, thus adding a new, simple, and effective tool to monitor and study lower stratospheric dynamics over Antarctica.

Citation: Santos, N. A., Gómez, N., Dasso, S., Gulisano, A. M., Rubinstein, L., Pereira, M., et al. (2025). Cosmic ray counting variability from water-Cherenkov detectors as a proxy of stratospheric conditions in Antarctica. Earth and Space Science, 12, e2025EA004298. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EA004298

  —Graziella Caprarelli, Editor-in-Chief, Earth and Space Science

Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Earth systems may be on the brink of long-term, irreversible destabilization, sending our planet on a “hothouse Earth” trajectory, a scenario in which long-term temperatures remain about 5°C (9°F) higher than preindustrial temperatures, according to a new paper.

In the paper, published in One Earth, scientists argue that uncertainties in climate projections mean Earth system components could be at a higher risk than we think of reaching crucial tipping points such as the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and the thawing of the world’s permafrost—points of destabilization that, once breached, are irreversible.

“As we move to higher temperatures, we go into higher risk zones,” said Nico Wunderling, a coauthor of the new paper and a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Goethe University Frankfurt, both in Germany. Scientists know higher temperatures will activate interactions between tipping elements, he said.

The new paper “strongly builds” on a 2018 perspective paper linking the possibility of hothouse Earth to tipping points, said Swinda Falkena, a climate scientist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands who was not involved in either publication.

Uncertain Earth Systems

Scientists use climate models—simulations of Earth systems—to project how rising emissions may impact global temperatures, weather patterns, ice sheets, ocean circulation, and more.

But those models are never perfect representations of our planet. Climate models contain uncertainties regarding the sensitivity of Earth systems to increased levels of carbon dioxide and the role of climate feedbacks, including land and ocean carbon sinks. Simulations have particular trouble modeling potential tipping points, such as weakening ocean circulation and the dieback of the Amazon rainforest, and the interactions between them, Wunderling said.

These uncertainties mean it’s virtually impossible to reliably estimate the timing of some tipping points and that some Earth system components could be closer to tipping points than scientists thought.

In recent years, scientists have noticed that the rate of climate change has outpaced some projections. In 2024, for instance, global temperatures briefly reached 1.5°C (2.7°F) above preindustrial levels, surpassing the Paris Agreement target and indicating that Earth is virtually certain to consistently break this limit in the long term. In another example of real climate change outpacing models, exceptionally high temperatures in 2023, 2024, and 2025 led experts at Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit climate research organization, to suggest scientists may need to rethink their analyses of Earth’s warming rate.

“Warming now seems to have accelerated, which is not something we expected,” Falkena said. “That gets us to think, ‘Okay, is there something we’re missing?’”

The paper identifies 16 Earth system components (such as ice sheets, permafrost, and rainforests) that could reach tipping points, 10 of which could accelerate global heating if triggered. These 10 tipping points include the collapse of major ice sheets, the collapse of Arctic sea ice, the loss of mountain glaciers, the abrupt thaw of boreal permafrost, and the dieback of the Amazon rainforest.

The authors point out that these tipping elements are linked and even interact with each other to create feedback loops. For example, melting ice sheets would reduce Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight, amplifying warming. Melting ice sheets could also weaken the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC (an ocean current key to regulating Earth’s temperature), which could cause the conversion of Amazon rainforest (a critical carbon sink) into dry savanna.

A Hothouse Trajectory

The higher Earth’s temperature rises, “the more likely it is to trigger self-amplifying feedbacks.”

If enough of these tipping points are reached, Earth’s climate could be steered toward a hothouse Earth scenario, the authors write. And although there is “no precise answer” to the question of whether humanity is at risk of triggering hothouse Earth, Wunderling said the 1.5°C (2.7°F) limit set by the Paris Agreement was made with tipping point thresholds in mind.

If Earth’s temperature exceeds preindustrial levels by 2°C (3.6°F), then “we certainly run into a high-risk zone for tipping elements,” Wunderling said. The higher Earth’s temperature rises, “the more likely it is to trigger self-amplifying feedbacks.”

One 2024 modeling study showed that Earth had a high risk of breaching at least one of four climate tipping elements—the Greenland Ice Sheet collapse, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse, the AMOC collapse, and a dieback of the Amazon rainforest—if temperatures do not return to below the 1.5°C (2.7°F) mark. (Scientists say the prospect of lowering Earth’s temperatures with new policies or technology after exceeding this mark is slim.)

Falkena said the likelihood of a hothouse Earth trajectory is low, but the fact that such a severe scenario is plausible at all means it’s something worth the world’s concern. As models improve, scientists will be able to better quantify the risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory.

“While averting the hothouse trajectory won’t be easy, it’s much more achievable than trying to backtrack once we’re on it.”

“While averting the hothouse trajectory won’t be easy, it’s much more achievable than trying to backtrack once we’re on it,” said Christopher Wolf, a research scientist at Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates, a former postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University, and a coauthor of the new study, in a press release.

The world hasn’t sufficiently cut down on emissions, though: Earth is on track to warm by about 2.8°C (5.04°F) by 2100. In 2025, global carbon emissions rose by 1.1% compared to 2024 levels, and in the United States, total emissions rose by 2.4%. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is likely higher than it has been in at least 2 million years, and average global temperatures are likely warmer than at any point in the past 125,000 years, according to the authors.

The uncertainty about when tipping points may be breached, combined with ever-higher global temperatures, should be taken as a reason for urgent action to combat or mitigate climate change, the authors write.

“In order to avoid high-end climate risks, it is necessary to go down to net zero, to mitigate as quickly as we can,” Wunderling said.

—Grace van Deelen (@gvd.bsky.social), Staff Writer

Citation: van Deelen, G. (2026), Earth’s climate may go from greenhouse to hothouse, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260057. Published on 11 February 2026. Text © 2026. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.