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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.

As the midpoint of the year approaches, several climate records have already been broken. Arctic winter sea ice extent reached a record low. Several countries saw record-breaking winter heat waves. And more than 150 million hectares have already burned globally in wildfires. 

The increasingly likely emergence of an El Niño this summer will likely continue the year’s record-breaking weather trends and could lead to “an unprecedented year of global fire,” according to a statement from World Weather Attribution, a climate research collaboration. 

“In modern human history, we’ve never experienced a strong or very strong El Niño event amid pre-existing conditions that were this warm globally.”

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center predicts there is a 61% chance of El Niño—a natural climate pattern that involves warming waters in the Pacific Ocean—emerging by July 2026 and persisting through the end of the year. El Niño typically temporarily boosts global temperatures. 

At a press briefing on 11 May hosted by World Weather Attribution, climate scientists outlined the potential risks of this emerging El Niño against the backdrop of human-caused climate change, including intensifying wildfire seasons, extreme heat waves, and worsening droughts.

In the press briefing, Frederike Otto, a climate scientist at World Weather Attribution and Imperial College London, emphasized that climate change will likely play a larger role in the rest of this year’s extreme weather events than El Niño will, pointing to more than 100 analyses done by World Weather Attribution that have controlled for the effects of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the broader climate phenomenon that produces El Niño and its sister condition, La Niña. 

 
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•  Read About the 2024 El Niño: Record-Breaking Temperatures Likely as El Niño Persists
 

“We find that human-induced climate change has a much greater influence on the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather events than ENSO,” she said. 

Still, El Niño could push average global temperatures to extremes. The effects of El Niño will “be amplified considerably by the now nearly 1.5°C [(2.7°F)] of global warming experienced as of 2026,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles and the California Institute for Water Resources, said in a statement. “In modern human history, we’ve never experienced a strong or very strong El Niño event amid pre-existing conditions that were this warm globally.”

The global fire season has “got off to a very fast start,” particularly in the African savanna, Southeast Asia, and northeastern China, Theodore Keeping, who studies extreme weather and wildfires at Imperial College London and World Weather Attribution, said in the briefing. Though El Niño may have mixed effects on the U.S. wildfire season, much of the U.S. is expected to face elevated wildfire risk, and a strong El Niño could worsen wildfires elsewhere in the world, particularly in the Amazon rainforest and Australia, Keeping said. 

More than 150 million hectares have burned in wildfires so far this year. Credit: Our World in Data, CC BY

“This rapid start [to the wildfire season], in combination with the forecast El Niño, means that we’re looking at a particularly severe year materializing,” Keeping said. “The likelihood of harmful, extreme fires potentially could be the highest we’ve seen in recent history.”

—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 © 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.

Isotope analysis of gas from geothermal springs in Zambia could show that a new continental rift is forming, scientists say. Unexpectedly high helium isotope ratios indicate that a weakness in Earth's crust has broken through to reach the mantle beneath. This rift could eventually become a new tectonic plate boundary. In the meantime, opportunities for geothermal energy could boost local economies.

SummaryThe collision between the European plate and the Adria microplate during the Cenozoic led to the formation and uplift of key mountain belts, including the Alps, Apennines, and Dinarides. This convergence also resulted in a highly complex assemblage of tectonic units, each characterized by distinct geological and geophysical properties within the accreted crustal domains. A comprehensive understanding of the geodynamic evolution of this region requires integrated imaging of both the crust and upper mantle. To achieve this goal, we apply Teleseismic Full Waveform Inversion (TFWI) to P-wave seismic data recorded by permanent European broadband stations, supplemented by the dense temporary deployments of the AlpArray initiative, SWATH-D, and CIFALPS-2 projects. Leveraging this unprecedented seismological coverage, our study aims to design a suitable TFWI workflow to develop a multiparameter model defined by P- and S-wave velocities and density of the Alpine orogen down to 500-km depth. The critical importance of high-quality data for ensuring the reliability of TFWI results first prompts us to develop a semi-automated workflow for data selection and quality control, from which we select 84 teleseismic events for inversion. The seismograms were filtered within the 5-to-25-s period band, and a 30-s time window from the first arrival was used for inversion. Other critical aspects are the assessment of the resolution power of TFWI provided by the field acquisition geometry, as well as potential sources of artefacts. We review the key theoretical factors controlling resolution and imaging artefacts, and further illustrate these issues with numerical experiments designed with the field acquisition geometry to provide the necessary guidelines for sound geological interpretation of the TFWI models. The reconstructed TFWI models effectively capture key crustal features, including low-velocity sedimentary basins, high-velocity anomalies like the Ivrea Body, deep mountain roots beneath the Alpine and Apennine chains, and the signature of the continental subduction. The TFWI models also reveal small-scale anomalies previously identified by local tomography studies. Then, we extend the analysis at upper-mantle depths by comparing the footprint of the subducting slabs in the P and S velocity TFWI models with previous ones obtained by surface wave tomography and teleseismic body-wave traveltime tomography. These comparative analyses highlight the incomparable power of TFWI to resolve multiparameter models of the Earth’s interior from the surface down to the upper mantle. From this first critical analysis of the TFWI results, a comprehensive geological survey of the reconstructed structures will be presented in a companion paper.

SummaryThe complexity of earthquake rupture dynamics and the diversity of observed seismic behaviors are fundamentally governed by the frictional properties of faults and their response to tectonic stress. Grounded in the rate-and-state constitutive law derived from laboratory experiments on rock friction at slow slip velocities, we employ a fully dynamic model to investigate how frictional conditions give rise to a diverse range of rupture modes and influence their propagation dynamics. Under uniform background stress and nucleation conditions, the rupture type, whether supershear, sub‑Rayleigh, self‑arresting or slow self‑arresting rupture (SSAR), is governed by the relative contributions of the direct effect and the evolution effect, expressed as $R = 1 - \frac{a}{b}$, together with the normalized characteristic slip distance D. Their respective regimes are summarized in a phase diagram. We demonstrate that the friction parameters R and D significantly influence the rupture process, with R primarily enhancing stress release and slip during rupture, while D predominantly controls the rupture speed. For varying values of R, there exists an optimal intermediate D that maximizes rupture velocity. Furthermore, simulations suggest that when frictional parameters approach the boundaries between different rupture types regimes, the earthquake may not be confined to a single mode. Instead, a single rupture event can exhibit complex, continuous, yet rapid transitions between distinct types under a single triggering without interruption. These transitions can occur smoothly among various rupture types, including transitions from SSAR to sub-Rayleigh rupture and subsequently to supershear rupture. This study indicates the key role of frictional properties in governing rupture dynamics, offering new perspectives on the inherent complexity of earthquake processes.

SummaryThe Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission continues the legacy of satellite gravimetry in monitoring Earth’s mass redistribution. Equipped with dual-frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and a K-Band Ranging (KBR) system, it enables precise orbit determination and high-resolution gravity field recovery. While integer ambiguity resolution (IAR) has proven effective for GPS-based orbit determination, its impact on time-variable gravity field recovery remains unclear. Here we develop a dynamic framework that jointly estimates GRACE-FO satellite orbits and monthly gravity fields by integrating GPS and KBR observations, in which single-differenced integer ambiguities are fixed and constrained into the normal equations as pseudo-observations with micrometer-level constraint precision. Using GRACE-FO onboard data from July to December 2019, we compare ambiguity-fixed and ambiguity-float solutions in terms of post-fit residuals, orbit accuracy, and gravity field quality. IAR improves three-dimensional orbit precision to ∼1.2 cm RMS, with along- and cross-track components enhanced by up to 52 per cent and 71 per cent, respectively. Satellite Laser Ranging validation confirms ∼1.2 cm agreement. Gravity field solutions from float ambiguities agree closely with official Science Data System (SDS) RL06.1 models up to degree 96, whereas IAR-based solutions maintain consistency only to about degree 40 and exhibit irregular oscillations beyond this range, particularly near orbital resonance conditions around order 45. At higher degrees, these oscillations are accompanied by intensified north–south striping in equivalent water height maps. Covariance diagnostics reveal increased off-diagonal correlations between spherical harmonic coefficients under IAR, indicating weakened spectral orthogonality and potential leakage of high-degree noise. These results indicate that ambiguity-fixed gravity solutions do not consistently outperform float-based solutions beyond spherical harmonic degree 40 in the near-polar orbiting GRACE-FO constellation.

Researchers have cautioned that well-intended suggested changes to carbon markets risk worsening climate impacts if core safeguards are weakened. Climate change, biodiversity loss and human rights are deeply interconnected challenges, often sharing solutions that can deliver shared benefits.

Even as temperatures rise on Earth's surface and in the lower atmosphere, the planet's upper atmosphere has cooled dramatically. This paradoxical pattern is a well-known sign of humanity's climate impacts—but until now, the underlying physics has remained a mystery.

Under the lead of the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW), climate simulations were used to investigate how 19 inland seas, including the Baltic Sea, are responding to climate change. The researchers found that they have been warming faster than the global ocean since the 2000s. Projections show that marine heat waves will affect around 60% of these seas on an average annual basis as early as the middle of the 21st century. Without adherence to the Paris Agreement targets, up to 90% of these seas would be affected by heat waves. The study contributes to climate change management practices and was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

For decades, Antarctica seemed to defy global warming. Since satellites began monitoring the poles in the late 1970s, the seasonal growth and retreat of Antarctic sea ice—frozen seawater that expands around the continent each winter—appeared remarkably resilient. It was often described as the "heartbeat of the planet."

As seismic waves travel through Earth, they gradually lose energy, a process called attenuation. That energy loss doesn't happen uniformly—some features in the crust sap far more energy from seismic waves than others. Researchers can map underground features by watching where seismic waves lose more or less energy. The Southern Array for the Lithosphere and Uplift of Taiwan Experiment (SALUTE) is doing just that, providing information that could lead to improved seismic hazard planning in the country.

Accurate experiments on how ocean warming affects marine life are vital to ensure we can best prepare for the future, protect our food sources, and help safeguard ocean ecosystems. But some of these experiments may miss how species actually respond to rising temperatures. According to a meta-analysis published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, the way these changes are studied may not match the reality of our warming seas.

An international team of researchers' analysis of minerals from the Pilbara region of Western Australia has given new insight into how ancient continents on Earth formed as far back as 3.5 billion years ago. Professor Tony Kemp, from The University of Western Australia's School of Earth and Oceans, was a co-author of the study published in Science Advances, which was led by researchers at Nanjing University in China.

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A warm, dry spring has set the stage for above-average significant wildland fire risk across much of the southern and western United States this summer, and no part of the United States will have below-average fire potential through the end of August.

“It’s not necessarily a foregone conclusion that we’re going to have a really busy season, but everything is pointing that way.”

These predictions are part of a 4-month outlook produced monthly by the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), a group of wildland fire experts from eight federal agencies that coordinates wildland fire resources across the country.

The most recent outlook, published 1 May, projects the likelihood of significant fires (defined as those that require an NIFC response) from May to August using long-term forecasts from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, current precipitation and drought conditions, and an assessment of the fuels available in different regions (like grasses, brush, and timber).

This year, 1,848,210 acres across the country have already burned—nearly twice the annual average over the past 10 years.

“It’s not necessarily a foregone conclusion that we’re going to have a really busy season, but everything is pointing that way,” said Jim Wallmann, a meteorologist for the U.S. Forest Service at the NIFC and one of the outlook’s authors.

Significant wildland fire potential will be elevated across much of the West and Southeast this summer. Click image for larger version. Credit: National Interagency Coordination Center, Public Domain Drought in the West

In the West, wildfire season typically peaks in late summer. This most recent outlook predicts an above-average significant fire potential for much of the West as the season peaks.

In May, the above-average risk is concentrated in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, though that risk fades to normal by August as the Southwest’s monsoon season begins. In June, the above-average risk extends to western Colorado and parts of the Pacific Northwest. In July and August, that risk covers much of the Northwest, including Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Northern California.

Above-average spring temperatures and a far-below-normal snowpack across the West are contributing to the elevated risk in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Northern California, in particular. Many river basins across the West contain less than 20% of their normal amount of snow, and some are already snow-free at all observed locations due to melting caused by warm temperatures in March.

As of May, many river basins in the West have a snow water equivalent—the amount of water held in their current snowpack—that is less than 50% (in red) of the 1991–2020 average level. Credit: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Public Domain

“The snowpack being lower this time of year, and melting out, affects the soil moisture throughout the rest of the summer, which then affects the fuel moistures,” said Craig Clements, a meteorologist at San Jose State University’s Fire Weather Research Laboratory who was not involved in the outlook. Early snowmelt also uncovers fuels, like pine needles and leaf litter, that would typically be under snow, exposing them to the air to dry and catch fire.

Southern California and the Sierra Nevada mountain range, though, remain at an average significant fire risk throughout the summer, as a result of higher-than-average precipitation earlier in the year.

The Southeast and Beyond

Fire risk will also be elevated in the Southeast this summer. Florida, for example, remains at an above-average significant fire potential through the end of August. Southern Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and the eastern halves of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina will also have above-average significant fire potential.

The above-average risk is fueled, in part, by a worsening drought affecting the Southeast alongside the drought in the West. As of 1 May, nearly 63% of the country was experiencing drought, and 19% of the country was experiencing extreme or exceptional drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts a persistent drought for most of the West and much of the Southeast this summer. Credit: NOAA/National Weather Service/Climate Prediction Center, Public Domain

The Midwest and the Northeast will remain at an average significant fire potential from May to August, though northwestern Minnesota faces an above-average potential in May.

No place in the United States is projected to have a below-average significant fire potential through the end of August.

Preparing Amid Uncertainty

A developing El Niño—a climate phenomenon that affects heat storage in the ocean—could alter the fire risk projections. Scientists expect that a strong El Niño could lead to a below-normal hurricane season, worsening drought in the Southeast. In the Pacific, a strong El Niño could intensify the hurricane season, which may lower wildfire risk.

However, a stronger El Niño could drive more lightning strikes in the Sierra Nevada, which could increase fire risk there, Clements said. In 2020, for example—a strong El Niño year—Hurricane Elida in the Pacific contributed to a lightning outbreak that supercharged wildfires in the West.

“We’re still not sure exactly how [El Niño] is going to impact the season.”

“We’re still not sure exactly how [El Niño] is going to impact the season,” Wallmann said. As late summer approaches, meteorologists will better understand how El Niño will develop and affect wildfire risk.

Weather patterns can change, and day-to-day conditions still play a role in fire occurrence. “If the weather shifts, or we get a really big heat wave, it can modify [the forecast]. Or if it remains relatively moderate, that might lessen the fire danger,” Clements said. “We’ll just have to see how the weather plays out.”

Wallmann and Clements emphasized that those living in areas with elevated fire risk should be aware of their surroundings and think ahead about where they might go for safety should a wildfire occur. “Having that situational awareness ahead of time can help you make better decisions,” Wallmann said.

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

Citation: van Deelen, G. (2026), Most of the U.S. West will face above-normal wildfire risk this summer, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260145. Published on 11 May 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.

Source: Geophysical Research Letters

As seismic waves travel through Earth, they gradually lose energy, a process called attenuation. That energy loss doesn’t happen uniformly—some features in the crust sap far more energy from seismic waves than others. Researchers can map underground features by watching where seismic waves lose more or less energy. The Southern Array for the Lithosphere and Uplift of Taiwan Experiment (SALUTE) is doing just that, providing information that could lead to improved seismic hazard planning in the country.

Lin et al. report attenuation results from SALUTE focused on the convergence between the Eurasian plate and the Luzon Arc, an understudied, geologically dynamic area where Earth’s crust is deforming. Using the overall attenuation rate and relative attenuation rates of P and S seismic waves, the authors imaged active faults, identified distinct lithologies, and better resolved the Luzon forearc block that sits just offshore of Taiwan.

The authors used data from the SALUTE high-density seismographic network, spanning December 2020 to December 2023, to construct both 2D and 3D attenuation models. They found clear changes in attenuation associated with major faults, as well as areas of high attenuation associated with fluid-rich, ductile zones in the lower crust that cause tectonic tremors. Their attenuation imaging additionally revealed that the Luzon forearc block, which had been poorly imaged in the past, dips northward and narrows as it nears the convergence zone.

The authors say their results agree well with previous velocity-based seismic imaging studies and show that attenuation can image features, such as transition zones, that were previously difficult to capture. Their data could also be useful for better understanding seismic hazard throughout the region, they note. (Geophysical Research Letters, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL121583, 2026)

—Nathaniel Scharping (@nathanielscharp), Science Writer

Citation: Scharping, N. (2026), Seismic attenuation techniques reveal what lies beneath Taiwan, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260150. Published on 11 May 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.

Author(s): Tianyi Liang, Dong Wu, Lifeng Wang, Lianqiang Shan, Zongqiang Yuan, Hongbo Cai, Yuqiu Gu, Zhengmao Sheng, and Xiantu He

In indirect-drive inertial confinement fusion (ICF), a hohlraum serves the purpose of converting laser energy into thermal x-ray energy. This process involves the interaction of low-density ablated plasmas, which can give rise to weakly collisional shocks characterized by the Knudsen number Kn on th…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 055206] Published Mon May 11, 2026

Author(s): E. Illarionov, V. Kisielius, R. Stepanov, and K. M. Kuzanyan

Physical models aimed to reproduce basic features of the solar sunspot cycle are typically based on the solar dynamo mechanism. Usually qualitative arguments are used to define parameters of the model, among which a challenging component is the nonlinear form of quenching of the α effect governing r…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, L053202] Published Mon May 11, 2026

Researchers have made the ground shake in southern Switzerland, triggering thousands of tiny earthquakes in a monitored setting, as they seek to discover seismicity insights that could reduce risks.

Publication date: Available online 5 May 2026

Source: Advances in Space Research

Author(s): Venkatesh Kavutarapu, Michael Pezzopane

On the evening of Aug. 9, 2025, passengers on the Hanse Explorer finished taking selfies and videos of the South Sawyer Glacier, and the ship headed back down the fjord. Twelve hours later, a landslide from the adjacent mountain unexpectedly collapsed into the fjord, initiating the second-highest tsunami in recorded history.

A key Atlantic Ocean current system that helps regulate the planet's climate could weaken more than expected by 2100, with potentially devastating consequences worldwide, a new study has found.