EOS

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

Of course, allow me to start by wishing all my readers a Happy 2026. I suspect that we are in for quite a landslide journey again this year.

In late November, a very interesting open access paper (Darrow and Jacobs 2025) was published on the journal Landslides. This piece of work sought to understand the patterns of landslides in Alaska over a century through the creation of a database compiled from “a combination of 24 digital newspapers and online media sources, including historic digitised Alaskan newspapers”. Such a study is an epic amount of work, but yields fantastic data. This study is no exception.

What is of particular interest here is that Alaska suffers from a range of landslide hazards, and suffers significant losses from them, and it is an environment in which climate change is clearly occurring, with warming at a rate that is higher than the global average. Previous studies have shown that this is having a measurable impact on landslides in the mountains of Alaska.

In total, Darrow and Jacobs (2025) have identified 281 landslides since 1883 in Alaska, with the occurrence showing a strong seasonal pattern associated primarily with seasonal patterns of rainfall. The headline from the paper is summarised in this graphic from the paper:-

The recorded incidence of landslides in Alaska by decade, from Darrow and Jacobs (2025).

The data shows a dramatic increase in landslides in recent decades, and in particular in the last two decades or so. Of course, care is needed to ensure that this is not an artefact of the reporting of landslides, but Darrow and Jacobs (2025) explored this issue in detail, concluding that the signal is real. Fortunately, the number of fatalities caused by landslides in Alaska is small, and there is no significant trend in terms of fatal landslides.

So what lies behind this change? Darrow and Jacobs (2025) show that the increase in occurrence of landslides in Alaska is associated with a marked increase in in average annual air temperature that ranges between 1.2 C and 3.4 C, and an associated increase in precipitation that ranges from 3% to 27%, over the 50 years.

Of course, warming is not going to stop in Alaska in the next few decades, so the likely direction of travel in terms of landslides there is clear. There is recognition in Alaska that greater attention will be needed on landslides.

But more widely, this is further quantitative evidence that the climate is having a big impact on landslide hazard. It is remarkable how the evidence just keeps accumulating.

Reference

Darrow, M.M. and Jacobs, A. 2025. Read all about it! A review of more than a century of Alaskan landslides as recorded in periodicals. Landslides. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-025-02663-z.

Return to The Landslide Blog homepage 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.

Source: AGU Advances

In 2023, Earth experienced its warmest year since 1850, with heat waves stretching across oceans and land alike. East Asia, for example, experienced scorching temperatures and high humidity throughout the summer months. Humid-heat extremes like those seen that year can trigger heat-related illnesses and mortality at higher-than-average rates.

As on land, the ocean around East Asia also experienced unprecedented warming in 2023. Sea surface temperatures (SST) in the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension region reached record highs, persisting through much of the year. Researchers know that marine heat waves can influence land heat waves, but the details of these connections remain unclear.

Okajima et al. modeled regional land-sea interactions to better understand the effects of the unprecedented 2023 marine heat wave on conditions on land in East Asia. The team focused on the peak hot and humid months of July, August, and September, using hourly data on atmospheric conditions, including temperature, humidity, wind velocity, and atmospheric pressure, as well as SST data from satellites and in situ sensors.

The modeling suggested that the 2023 marine heat wave greatly exacerbated the East Asian heat wave, particularly in Japan, by affecting atmospheric circulation and altering the usual radiative effects of clouds and water vapor. The team said the influence of the marine heat wave explains roughly 20% to 50% of the increase in the intensity and duration of hot and humid conditions observed on land in East Asia in summer 2023.

The scientists note that this research provides valuable insights that could help improve long-range weather predictions. Such predictions may help communities prepare for health risks, particularly in Asia, which the World Meteorological Organization reported earlier this year is warming twice as fast as the global average. (AGU Advances, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV001673, 2025)

—Sarah Derouin (@sarahderouin.com), Science Writer

Citation: Derouin, S. (2025), Marine heat waves can exacerbate heat and humidity over land, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260009. Published on 2 January 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.

What Corals Can Tell Us about Climate

Coral reefs are proxies for past climates, as well as archives for the future. Beneath their dazzling colors and displays are “rocklike skeletal structures containing annual bands, similar to tree rings.” And like tree rings, coral cores offer valuable insights “into past environmental conditions because coral growth can respond sensitively to climate variability.”

That accessible explanation comes from scientist-authors Avi Strange, Oliwia Jasnos, Lauren T. Toth, Nancy G. Prouty, and Thomas M. DeCarlo, as they introduce readers to CoralCT, an innovative repository of coral images taken with X-ray and computed tomography technology. The result is “A Coral Core Archive Designed for Transparency and Accessibility”—and a resource documenting years, centuries, and sometimes millennia of climate change and ecosystem adaptation.

The CoralCT archive contains images from around the world—the Great Barrier Reef, the Caribbean, the Red Sea. The scientists studying how “Coral Cores Pinpoint the Onset of Industrial Deforestation” have a more narrow focus: just three reefs in the South China Sea off Malaysian Borneo. The changing ocean chemistry preserved by these coral cores serves as a record of excess erosion, a known consequence of deforestation.

Rapidly rising sea levels, increasing ocean temperatures, and acidifying waters are threatening coral reefs and their contribution to the climate record. As the ocean becomes increasingly inhospitable, researchers are turning to both geoengineering and cryopreservation to save hundreds of coral species. Some researchers are exploring the prospects for stratospheric aerosol injection to help save corals from bleaching, while others have established a cooperative cryobank network for the Coral Triangle.

This month’s thematic collection shares how coral reefs are more than just pretty polyps. They are vital resources for scientists studying the history of Earth’s climate and documenting its present state.

—Caryl-Sue Micalizio, Editor in Chief

Citation: Micalizio, C.-S. (2026), Preserving corals to study the past and document the present, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260008. Published on 1 January 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.

It’s been a trying year for science and scientists, and I’m proud of the way Eos is meeting the moment with a new blog, Research & Developments (R&D), dedicated to quickly relaying content and context for science news. Anchoring R&D coverage is our Science Policy Tracker, updated multiple times a day with late-breaking stories from around the world. Bookmark it!
—Caryl-Sue Micalizio, Editor in Chief

Crowds Stand Up for Science Across the United States. In March, Eos reporters and editors documented huge Stand Up for Science rallies across the country. The resulting story conveys the inspiring passion, anger, hope, and resilience of scientists who faced monumental challenges this year.
—Grace van Deelen, Staff Writer

I struggled to narrow down my favorite science stories of 2025, but there were two standouts. The first is an Eos article written by Katherine Bourzac about air pollution, environmental racism, and the difficulties that come with measuring and regulating odors. The second is a short documentary from The New York Times featuring unbelievably crisp audio of a melting glacier. I also enjoyed these two articles about health risks associated with access to air-conditioning and climate doulas.
—Anaise Aristide, Senior Production and Analytics Specialist

This year started out with two devastating fires that swept through the L.A. area, displacing thousands of people and causing millions of dollars in damage. The area is home to scientists of all disciplines, many of whom sprang into action to understand the impacts of the fires even as themselves and their families were affected. Eos spoke with these scientists about the fires’ impact on air, land, sea, and the people in a four-part series, highlighting the strength and resilience of the science community in the face of disaster.
—Kimberly M. S. Cartier, Senior Science Reporter

When Disaster Science Strikes Close to Home. Amid Eos’s team coverage of science done in the aftermath of the January 2025 Los Angeles fire, I was inspired by Kimberley Cartier’s coverage of the local scientists who jumped in to lend a hand with data collection. The work these researchers did must’ve had physical and emotional tolls—and understandably, it wasn’t always appreciated in the moment by residents who’d just lost their homes—but it was an important supplement to agency efforts to document the fires’ myriad effects on public and environmental health and to communicate those effects to local communities.
—Timothy Oleson, Senior Science Editor

Video Shows Pulsing and Curving Fault Behavior. This article wins 2025 for its sheer coolness. By pure chance, a security camera captured video of the Myanmar earthquake (which I may have replayed more than a dozen times). This visually confirmed the curvature of fault slip and that earthquakes propagate in pulses. The story includes a word that was new to me—always a plus: slickenline. The scientists’ analysis of the video showed that these scratch marks relate to the direction an earthquake traveled, with implications for future hazards if an earthquake tends to rupture in one direction.
—Faith Ishii, Assistant Director, Operations

33.8 Million People in the United States Live on Sinking Land. This article by our colleague Grace van Deelen was both fascinating and dismaying. I mean, most of us knew that New Orleans and Venice were sinking. But New York is sinking! Denver is sinking! Houston is sinking! Because much of this subsidence is linked to human activities like infrastructure building and groundwater pumping, Grace’s coverage is an important way to raise awareness of this issue and of what can be done about it.
—Emily Gardner, Associate Editor

A Major Miner Problem. A difficult conundrum faces part of the geophysics workforce. As the realities of climate change have led to scientists withdrawing from the mining industry, it turns out we need experts in this field more than ever if we are to find the critical minerals for renewable energy in a way that can meaningfully supplant our reliance on oil and gas.
—Heather Goss, Publisher and Senior Director of Strategic Communications and Marketing

Sunspot Drawings Illuminate 400 Years of Solar Activity. I found the project to combine centuries-old data with modern technology for the benefit of present-day researchers fascinating, and I loved that historians were given credit as “detectives” and “real heroes” who “went from archives to basements and traveled all over the world and talked with people, convinced them to let them in, allowed them to take pictures.”
—Tshawna Byerly, Copy Editor

Scientists Discover an Ancient Landscape – in Our Own Backyard. I loved learning about the identification of ancient grasslands and meadow in Virginia.
—Lexi Shultz, Vice President of Science Policy & Government Relations

An Upgraded Alvin Puts New Ocean Depths Within Reach. The mysteries and oddities of the deep ocean are a never-ending source of amazement to me. So I loved learning about how the upgraded capabilities of the long-serving and extraordinarily productive Alvin submersible now put roughly 99% of the seafloor within scientists’ reach.
—Timothy Oleson, Senior Science Editor

The Doomsday Glacier Is Getting Closer and Closer to Irreversible Collapse. Our collective attention continues to zero in on the Thwaites Glacier. A new feature story in Wired covers research in JGR Earth Surface on the 20-year evolution of fractures near the glacier’s “pinning point” keeping it anchored to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Eos has long covered research on this important climate signal, nicknamed the “Doomsday Glacier,” including the National Science Foundation’s decision earlier this year to decommission the Nathaniel B. Palmer, the United States’ only Antarctic research vessel–icebreaker.
—Heather Goss, Publisher and Senior Director of Strategic Communications and Marketing

What If Our Ancestors Didn’t Feel Anything Like We Do? This is a feature in The Atlantic about a field that blends history, psychology, and neuroscience to try to determine whether emotions—like anger or disgust or love—actually felt the same to our ancestors. It’s a fascinating idea that’s well worth the read.
—Grace van Deelen, Staff Writer

The Truth About Testosterone. The Science Writers Association of the Rocky Mountains launched its inaugural science writing awards this year. I enjoyed this piece by Stephanie Pappas for Scientific American, which received an honorable mention. Deep, scientific dives into the health trends hawked by TikTokers and podcasters are almost always important, and I found this account particularly engrossing.
—Emily Gardner, Associate Editor

Small Satellites, Big Futures. This feature by Eos senior science reporter Kim Cartier spotlights several programs in which high school and college students can gain hands-on experience designing, building, and launching cubesats. Full of great quotations and photos, this article about encouraging and building up the next generation was a bright spot in a year full of bad news about science funding and programs.
— Faith Ishii, Assistant Director, Operations

Awesome turnout in support of @ncar-ucar.bsky.social at #AGU25. Take a look at how many people use our products!

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— Sam Rabin (@samsrabin.bsky.social) December 18, 2025 at 2:35 PM

It was gratifying to see virtually the entire scientific community rally behind the National Center for Atmospheric Research, much of it documented in the #SaveNCAR tag. Sometimes it’s easy to forget we’re all in this together, but we are.
—Caryl-Sue Micalizio, Editor in Chief

Because it is fun, I am going to include The Batman Effect: “In the control condition, a female experimenter, appearing pregnant, boarded the train with an observer. In the experimental condition, an additional experimenter dressed as Batman entered from another door. Passengers were significantly more likely to offer their seat when Batman was present (67.21% vs. 37.66%, OR = 3.393, p < 0.001). Notably, 44% of those who offered their seat in the experimental condition reported not seeing Batman. These findings suggest that unexpected events can promote prosociality, even without conscious awareness, with implications for encouraging kindness in public settings.” Science!
—Liz Crocker, Director, Thriving Earth Exchange

Penguin poop!
—Joshua Weinberg, Vice President, Strategic Communications and Marketing

—AGU

Citation: AGU (2025), Our favorite science stories of 2025, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250487. Published on 31 December 2025. Text © 2025. 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.