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Publication date: Available online 11 December 2025

Source: Advances in Space Research

Author(s): Prajwol B. Subedi, Hamdi.A. Zurqani

Publication date: Available online 11 December 2025

Source: Advances in Space Research

Author(s): Sevilay TUFENKCI, Baris Baykant ALAGOZ

Publication date: Available online 11 December 2025

Source: Advances in Space Research

Author(s): Shijie Zhou, Zhen Yang, Kaicheng Zhang, Xiang Liu, Guoping Cai

Publication date: Available online 11 December 2025

Source: Advances in Space Research

Author(s): Shaofeng Bu, Wenming Xie, Xuchen Shen, Xiaodong Peng, Cheng Liu, Jingyi Ren

Wildfires may disappear from the landscape within weeks, but their hidden effects on the soil can persist for decades. An international research team led by the University of Göttingen, together with partners in Tübingen, Berlin and Chile, has shown how wildfires in humid temperate rainforests and Mediterranean woodlands of central Chile lead to very different pathways of soil recovery and ecosystem resilience. The study shows that soil structure and nutrients continue to change for more than a decade after a fire. The results are published in the journal Catena.

Several hundred volcanoes lie dormant beneath the Eifel in western Germany. They are typical examples of what is known as distributed volcanic fields. To better understand their formation and activity, researchers from the GFZ Helmholtz Center for Geosciences and partner institutions conducted Germany's largest seismological volcano experiment in this region between September 2022 and August 2023.

In recent years, the global climate has become increasingly extreme, with intensifying alternations of droughts and floods—particularly in ecologically vulnerable mid-latitude regions. But what is driving this hydroclimatic variability? Scientists have long debated the underlying mechanisms.

Butterflies are often considered bellwether species for climate change, and to retain the cooler climates they need for their life cycles, species around the world have been shifting their habitats and migratory patterns to higher latitudes and higher elevations.

But are the plants that butterflies depend on shifting their habitats in step?

New research has found that out of 24 Southeast Asian butterflies examined, 17 of them (71%) could experience a net loss in the habitat area they share with their host plants under a high-emissions climate change scenario. Some butterfly species may lose nearly 40% of shared habitat as they retreat to cooler climes.

Losing Ground

Like most species on Earth, butterflies have a preferred temperature range. As climate change warms the planet, many butterfly species have shifted their habitats, typically moving to cooler, higher elevations or higher latitudes. But wherever they go, butterflies still need plants that provide food and host their larvae (caterpillars). Some butterflies depend on a single host species, while others can rely on several.

Plants, too, have environmental needs, but whether the insects and the plants they need are shifting their habitats at the same speeds and in the same direction has been unclear.

To compare shifting species ranges, researchers simulated how tropical Asian butterflies and their host plants would each experience habitat migration in response to a high-emissions climate change scenario (SSP585). They selected 24 butterfly species whose ranges span from dense lowland rainforests to mountainous highlands. Some species have large ranges, and others have small ranges. Some depend on a single host plant, and others can use several.

“We wanted to choose the most representative butterfly species in tropical Asia,” said Jin Chen, lead researcher on the project and a doctoral student at the University of Helsinki. “We only used climate data as the predictive factors. We wanted to see, in the worst situation, what happens to them.”

“I don’t think there’s any situation [in which] a butterfly will prefer to go a warmer place.”

They found that 17 of the 24 butterfly species would experience a net decoupling from their host plants, with shared habitat area decreasing between 6% and 39%. As expected, the decoupling in lowland areas was primarily driven by butterflies fleeing to cooler, higher-elevation areas.

“I don’t think there’s any situation [in which] a butterfly will prefer to go a warmer place,” Chen said.

But the model also predicted significant habitat decoupling in those cooler, higher-elevation regions, which was unexpected. The loss of shared highland habitat was primarily driven by the host plants not being able to thrive there, and as a result, the butterflies had no support system when they arrived. Butterfly species that are pickier about their plants experienced the biggest coupled habitat losses.

“The hot spots of this decoupling are mostly in the mountain regions of tropical Asia, including Borneo and the boundary of Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia,” Chen said, as well as “the north of Myanmar close to the Himalayas.”

The model did predict that seven butterfly species would gain shared habitat with plants, with net gains of 1%–42%. Those gains were a result of several host plants expanding their ranges significantly in a warmer climate. The butterflies that relied on those plants had more options despite their own habitat shifts.

The team presented their results on 15 December at AGU’s Annual Meeting 2025 in New Orleans.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty in how butterflies are responding or will respond to climate change globally—and this is especially true in the tropics where data are generally sparse and species interactions complex,” said Timothy Bonebrake, a conservation scientist at the University of Hong Kong who was not involved with this research. “But yes, there is evidence that Asian species are shifting their distributions in response to warming and other environmental changes.”

“What role host plants play in such movements is less clear and needs further investigation,” he added. “So studies like this that model host and butterfly responses are a useful first step for understanding such impacts.”

Fluttering Away

“Modeling species interactions under global change can provide important perspectives for managers and conservation planners by emphasizing key linkages in the ecosystem,” Bonebrake said. “Indeed, for many butterfly species, host plant availability will be a key limiting factor that constrains distribution tracking. Research like this can help to identify which types of species might need attention or active intervention under rapid warming.”

Chen noted that because the team’s model used only climate change as a predictive factor, it might not have fully captured how plant ranges will change. Although temperature shifts, driven by climate change, are the most important factor for butterflies, plants also respond to land use changes, she said. Future modeling will include predicted land use change under different emissions scenarios and thus will provide more precise predictions about which butterfly species could thrive or falter.

“Hopefully, this ability will also give species an additional avenue for persisting in rapidly changing environments.”

Still, these initial models provide clues about which species are under more threat than others and can spark ideas about how humans can intervene to protect vulnerable pollinators. People living in cooler areas to which butterflies are fleeing can help support the insects by protecting their host plants from destructive land use and by planting more pollinator-friendly plants to support butterflies’ life cycles.

“We sometimes underestimate the ability of butterflies to switch host plants or otherwise alter their life histories to cope with climate change,” Bonebrake said. “When they do shift hosts, it introduces an additional element of complexity with respect to climate change projections. But hopefully, this ability will also give species an additional avenue for persisting in rapidly changing environments.”

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

Correction 19 December 2025: The photo caption has been corrected to identify the butterfly as Idea leuconoe, not Idea stolli.

Citation: Cartier, K. M. S. (2025), Climate change could drive butterflies and plants apart, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250481. Published on 19 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.

Source: AGU Advances

The low-latitude highlands region of southwestern China experienced two major climate events in recent years: a severe drought in 2009–2010 and an extreme heat wave in 2019. Though both sprang from similar large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, the events produced different responses, raising questions about how multiple stressors can push ecosystems toward contrasting outcomes.

Southwestern China’s highlands system offered scientists a chance to study the ways a sensitive ecosystem reacted to both a once-in-a-century drought and an exceptional heat wave. Pan et al. analyzed soil moisture, vegetation productivity, and temperature using remote sensing data and nonlinear structural equation modeling. They discovered a distinct “personality switch” in the way the ecosystem responded to the second event versus the first.

In 2010, when drought left the soil very dry, the ecosystem’s productivity was limited by the amount of available water. During that drought, plant growth slowed as vegetation operated in survival mode and restricted water to its roots. In 2019, when the soil was moistened by previous rains, water was not a limiting factor. Instead, the hot temperatures served as an energy source and caused plant growth to thrive.

Wetter antecedent conditions helped the ecosystem better weather the heat, the research showed. This concept of “hydrological memory” helps explain why the ecosystem reacted so differently to two extreme events. Such a nonlinear effect can be hard to capture in traditional modeling, so these findings have important implications for future modeling and climate change projections, the authors say. Untangling seemingly unpredictable ecosystem behaviors, they continue, could help improve understanding of our planet and its future. (AGU Advances, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV001973, 2025)

—Rebecca Owen (@beccapox.bsky.social), Science Writer

Citation: Owen, R. (2025), An ecosystem never forgets, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250472. Published on 19 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.

Source: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES)

An existing body of research indicates that climate change is making tropical cyclones wetter and more powerful.

Now, new research is indicating the same thing may be happening to the precursors of these storms: the wet weather systems that sometimes give rise to destructive hurricanes and often cause hazardous rain and flooding.

Tropical cyclones don’t spring into existence fully formed. Around 85% of Atlantic hurricanes, for instance, originate from African easterly waves, westward-moving disturbances of low pressure over Africa in which warm, humid air rises into the atmosphere from below and forms rain clouds. Despite these weather systems’ critical role as “seeds” for tropical cyclones, however, it’s not fully understood how climate change may affect their development.

Núñez Ocasio et al. recently investigated how African easterly waves might behave differently in the future because of climate change. To do this, Núñez Ocasio first developed a new regional weather model configuration that allowed for more realistic representation of possible rainfall extremes. Using this improved model, the team focused on the formation period of the wave that would become 2006’s Hurricane Helene and simulated how the storm might have played out differently in a warmer, more humid environment.

Under a scenario of high greenhouse gas emissions, the researchers found that by the end of the century, waves like the one that became Helene will grow significantly more intense, spinning faster and holding a greater amount of water vapor relative to their surroundings. At the same time, the waves will travel more slowly across Africa. Altogether, this means they will linger for longer periods while dumping heavier rain over affected areas, exacerbating the risk of extreme flooding.

Given that risk, the authors call for the use of high-resolution models like those in the present study to further research how African easterly waves will respond to climate change. Such studies may provide vulnerable communities with the information they need to prepare for extreme weather.

The authors also note that although forecasts with short lead times—the time between a weather forecast and the actual weather event—tend to offer higher accuracy, longer lead times may better account for the slower movement of future African easterly waves. (Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES), https://doi.org/10.1029/2025MS005146, 2025)

—Sean Cummings, Science Writer

Citation: Cummings, S. (2025), Warming may make tropical cyclone “seeds” riskier for Africa, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250468. Published on 19 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.

Trees contain valuable information about Earth's past, so much so that studying their rings may help fill in hidden gaps in Ohio's environmental history.

Camp Mystic in Texas flooded on July 4, killing 27 people, including 25 children. Over 200 millimeters (over seven inches) of rain fell over the area in 12 hours, and the Guadalupe River rose nearly 8 meters (26 feet) in just 45 minutes.

Mountain permafrost is warming and thawing worldwide due to climate change, with ground temperature being a key control of its mechanical stability. Heat conduction is the dominant mode of heat transfer in frozen ground, and thermal diffusivity governs the rate at which temperature changes propagate through the subsurface. Despite its relevance, there are few field-based estimates of thermal diffusivity.

SummaryWe present a probabilistic framework for evaluating earthquake forecasting models that use an alarm-based approach. In this approach, alarms are triggered by specific precursor signals. In a previous paper we compared such models and two ensemble models combining them in additive and multiplicative mode, with the ETAS (Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence) forecasting model, which is defined in a probability-based approach, by making the latter to issue an alarm when the expected rate exceeds a predefined threshold. In this work we compare the alarm-based models with the ETAS and with another probability-based model, EEPAS (Every Earthquake a Precursor According to Scale) previously applied to Italy, using the testing procedures developed for probability-based models within the Collaboratory Study for Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) initiative. To do that, for the four alarm-based models, we compute empirical probabilities (frequencies) of Mw ≥ 5.0 earthquakes in Italy, inside and outside alarm time intervals issued by such models from 1990 to 2011. We then compare pseudo-prospectively the forecasting ability of all six models, by applying the CSEP tests on the time interval from 2012 to 2023. We found that the evaluation method used has a strong impact on the ranking of model performance. Probabilistic models like ETAS and EEPAS tend to score better under the CSEP testing framework whereas alarm-based models generally outperform probability-based ones when assessed using alarm-based metrics.

An international assessment report has been released to provide definitive statements on the atmospheric impacts from a huge volcanic eruption in 2022.

An international research expedition involving Cornell has uncovered new details as to why a 2011 earthquake northeast of Japan behaved so unusually as it lifted the seafloor and produced a tsunami that devastated coastal communities along with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

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

Images and audio samples of an eight-foot tall resin sculpture created by singer and artist Jewel, emitting a soundscape informed by ocean data from NASA, were shown at AGU’s annual meeting in New Orleans on 16 December.

“The entire sculpture is entirely data,” Jewel said at a press event where she discussed the piece’s development. Jewel was joined by Chelle Gentemann, program scientist at NASA’s Office of the Chief Science Data Officer, and Kevin Murphy, NASA’s Chief Science Data Officer.

The sculpture and soundscape, together named Heart of the Ocean, will debut at the Venice Biennale in 2026 along with other works by Jewel.

Jewel worked closely with NASA to select data that would translate well into an art piece. The soundscape is constructed with tones, sounds, and a tempo informed by open-source NASA data on the Atlantic Ocean’s wave height, precipitation, salinity, currents, seismicity, and wildlife. Datapoints are translated into a “sound library” created by Jewel that then comes together to form music.

The soundscape “travels” to the deep ocean, slowing as ocean temperatures drop. Then, the piece quickens, and “ascends” to convey ocean surface data. Cloud cover and ocean current data inform how the soundscape moves from one ear to another, simulating a 3-dimensional experience.

 
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“I learned so much,” working with NASA, Jewel said. “It was an incredible intellectual exercise to take that data and not want to alter it,” but still transform it into meaningful music. “I felt I had to be really honest about the data … I wanted it to be pure. I wanted it to be nature, talking to you,” she said.

The soundscape changes in accordance with near real-time Atlantic Ocean conditions, as the data update every 12 minutes. “If it’s raining, the piece looks and sounds different. If it’s stormy, the piece is different. It’s a living instrument that the ocean gets to play in real time,” Jewel said. She particularly likes to experience the piece under full moon conditions.

Jewel hopes the piece raises awareness about the accessibility of NASA data. “It was only because of open data” that she was able to build the piece, she said. 

Gentemann, the NASA program scientist, said the experience was a valued opportunity to explore the artistic side of an otherwise very technically focused career.  

When asked for advice to scientists looking to collaborate with artists, Jewel said: “If there’s an artist that you’re inspired by or a storyteller that you’re inspired by, just reach out.”

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

These updates are made possible through information from the scientific community. Do you have a story about science or scientists? Send us a tip at eos@agu.org. 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.

New findings about ocean processes in the Antarctic show melting ice shelves and changes to sea ice could have catastrophic implications for the global climate.

Wildfires on Alaska's North Slope were more active this past century than at any time in the past 3,000 years, according to a study published in the journal Biogeosciences.

The future of the Amazon may rely on its past. According to new research, landscape interventions made by the forest’s pre-Columbian Indigenous inhabitants might still affect the forest’s ecological functions, including its capacity to store biomass, absorb carbon, and withstand climate change.

For centuries, academics believed that the Amazon forest’s poor soil and harsh environment were unsuitable for supporting large and complex prehistoric societies. Before the arrival of Europeans, it was thought, the Amazon was mostly untouched, occupied only by small, nomadic Indigenous groups.

But recent archaeological research, aided by remote sensing technologies such as satellites and lidar, has challenged this idea, revealing extensive pre-Columbian settlements and land modifications throughout the forest. The new findings support the view that Indigenous peoples have actively shaped the forest’s landscape for at least 13,000 years.

Landscape interventions by these early inhabitants included selectively planting and domesticating large forest areas, as well as creating fertile soils known as terra preta, or Amazonian dark earth, by composting organic matter. Some groups even built extensive settlements that left ground marks like mounds and ditches, called earthworks, which are still visible from the sky via satellite and lidar.

In 2023, geographer and remote sensing expert Vinicius Peripato from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and other researchers published a paper in Science that used lidar and mathematical models to estimate that as many as 24,000 pre-Columbian earthworks could still be hidden beneath the forest’s tree canopies.

Now, Peripato and colleagues have expanded their research to better understand the ecological effects of such large-scale land modifications by ancient forest inhabitants. In a study presented on 18 December at AGU’s Annual Meeting 2025, they used satellite and lidar imagery, along with mathematical models, to compare biomass levels both in areas of the forest where these pre-Columbian modifications were likely to be present and in places where they were not.

A forest reflects different wavelengths of light depending on the structure, density, and height of its vegetation. This property allows researchers to roughly calculate biomass levels in a forest, along with the amount of carbon the forest stores. To refine these estimates, the scientists also used vegetation maps, topographic models, and forest inventory data, providing a global picture of how much biomass the forest stores in 100-meter grids.

Researchers used lidar to image earthworks in Rio Branco in the Brazilian Amazon. From top to bottom, the layers represent the lidar point cloud colored by its height, followed by the terrain slope, hillshade, and elevation of an earthwork, all obtained after the digital removal of the forest. Credit: Vinicius Peripato A More Resilient Forest

Using this combination of methods, the researchers compared the biomass levels in dry and wet parts of the forest from 2010 to 2020. They discovered that within both dry and wet areas, areas with evidence of pre-Columbian management (or areas likely to have had such management based on their predictive models) contained significantly more biomass than untouched regions.

This was true even during extreme weather events, especially in dry areas. In 2010 and 2020, both years marked by severe droughts, researchers found that while the regional biomass average ranged from approximately 65 to 240 megatons per hectare in dry areas, managed portions of the forest in the same regions contained from 70 to 300 megatons of biomass per hectare—about 15%–22% above the regional average.

“The results reinforce the idea that pre-Columbian management practices left a lasting ecological legacy, capable of sustaining greater biomass even under the most severe droughts of the century.”

“The results reinforce the idea that pre-Columbian management practices left a lasting ecological legacy, capable of sustaining greater biomass even under the most severe droughts of the century,” Peripato said.

The researchers observed the same pattern in the forest’s wet regions, though it was more subtle. They found that wet areas contained between 80 and 295 megatons of biomass per hectare in 2010 and about 69–290 megatons per hectare in 2020, whereas the parts of the forest showing evidence of human occupation and landscape management held 72–309 megatons per hectare in 2010 and between 64 and 304 megatons per hectare in 2020—approximately 6% above the regional average.

Examples of managed areas included known archaeological sites, such as monumental earthworks, and more than 2,000 confirmed patches of terra preta.

According to Peripato, these sites provide conditions that make the forest’s vegetation healthier and better able to store more biomass and carbon. “The terra preta soils retain more water and nutrients than other soils, allowing the vegetation to grow more vigorously,” he explained. “In the case of earthworks, water can accumulate in the trenches and ditches left in the soil by the old settlements, also favoring the forest growth.”

The higher an ecosystem’s biomass, the greater its carbon stock is, and the more resilient it is. High biomass levels matter especially during droughts, as they help the forest to retain soil moisture, reducing erosion and the risk of forest fires.

“The managed areas of the forest have a much more fertile soil with a greater capacity to retain water,” said Peripato. “Therefore, these areas are much more apt to resist today’s climatic changes.”

A Legacy for the Future

The researchers argue that understanding the ecological impact of this legacy is crucial to developing effective conservation strategies for the forest. Jean Ometto, a senior researcher at INPE who focuses on the ecological impacts of climate change but was not involved with the study, agreed: “It is important to look at biomass distribution in these ancient sites because it can be a reference measurement for mitigation and adaptation projects, such as restoration and reforestation initiatives.” Ometto also serves as the international secretary with AGU’s Board of Directors.

Ometto, who is involved in a project using lidar to locate new archaeological sites in the forest, emphasized the importance of constructive engagement with local Indigenous populations who continue to live in the forest today and are descendants of the region’s early inhabitants.

“Lessons learned over millennia by these communities can be applied to protect the forest today, increase carbon stocks, and make it more resilient.”

These communities, he noted, still possess knowledge about how to interact sustainably with the forest. “Lessons learned over millennia by these communities can be applied to protect the forest today, increase carbon stocks, and make it more resilient,” he said.

Peripato also believes that the Indigenous legacy of landscape modifications may provide natural climate solutions by preserving biomass, biodiversity, and ecological stability despite modern challenges. He added that the scientific community should consider not only ancient modifications but also those currently promoted by Indigenous communities.

“Many Indigenous communities that live in the forest today still do landscape modifications that might be good for the ecosystem,” he said. “We have to try to understand these communities and how they see and manage the forest. I believe that they already have many of the answers.”

—Sofia Moutinho (@sofiamoutinho.bsky.social), Science Writer

Citation: Moutinho, S. (2025), How ancient Indigenous societies made today’s Amazon more resilient, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250478. Published on 18 December 2025. Text © 2025. 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.