Phys.org: Earth science

By evaluating historical climate records, observational and projection data, an international team of researchers found a "pushing and triggering" mechanism that has driven the Arctic climate system to a new state, which will likely see consistently increased frequency and intensity of extreme events across all system components—the atmosphere, ocean and cryosphere—this century.

In some parts of Earth's interior, seismic waves travel at different speeds depending on the direction in which they are moving through the layers of rock in Earth's interior. This property is known as seismic anisotropy, and it can offer important information about how the silicate rock of the mantle—particularly at the mantle's lowermost depths—deforms. In contrast, areas through which seismic waves travel at the same speed regardless of direction are considered isotropic.

In a remote cave in northern Greenland, a research team led by geologists Gina Moseley, Gabriella Koltai, and Jonathan Baker from the University of Innsbruck has discovered evidence of a significantly warmer Arctic. The cave deposits show that the region was free of permafrost millions of years ago and responded sensitively to rising temperatures.

About 15% of Italy's energy is produced by its nearly 5,000 hydroelectric power plants. In the Valle dei Laghi region, water flowing from the surrounding mountains supports local agriculture and the Santa Massenza hydroelectric plant, which powers the entire Trentino province. But as climate change accelerates, this delicate equilibrium is shifting.

Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) have analyzed signals generated by the vibrations of traffic along the Federal Highway to learn more about the seismic nature of Lake George, situated north-east of Canberra.

Once considered a fringe idea, the prospect of offsetting global warming by releasing massive quantities of sunlight-reflecting particles into Earth's atmosphere is now a matter of serious scientific consideration. Hundreds of studies have modeled how this form of solar geoengineering, known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), might work.

Gully washer. Duck drownder. Toad strangler. Cob floater. Sod soaker. Whatever their names, summer in the Midwest isn't summer without strong, sudden storms with towering clouds. While the Indian subcontinent is famous for its monsoon season, what many people don't know is that the midwestern United States has its own monsoon season, very nearly as strong.

For years, we believed the Himalayas were a climatic sanctuary—untouched, pristine, and resilient to the turbulence of modernization. But what happens when mountain cities begin to mimic the dynamics of megacities in the plains?

Burning fossil fuels has elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, causing massive changes in the global climate including extreme temperatures and weather events here in the Midwest. Meanwhile, human activities have increased the amount of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus in grasslands and forests. These are the elements in fertilizer that make lawns greener and farmland more productive.

The ocean has helped mitigate global warming by absorbing about a quarter of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, along with more than 90% of the excess heat those emissions generate.

When farmland is abandoned and allowed to return to nature, forests and grasslands naturally regrow and absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—helping fight climate change.

Imagine you're walking along a beach, talking to your friend, enjoying the sunshine. Time goes by and it's time to head back. But as you approach the headland you had walked around previously, you realize that's not possible anymore: the tide has come in and there is no path around it now. You're trapped in a bay with the tide continuing to submerge the beach.

A new review led by the MARUM—Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen—highlights how hydrothermal vents on the seafloor shape iron availability and influence the global oceanic element cycles. The review study, titled "Iron's Irony," has been published in Communications Earth & Environment.

Ten years ago, close to 200 nations signed the Paris Agreement, an international treaty designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions and curtail global warming. Under the treaty, most nations made a 15-year promise to reduce emissions.

Tropical inland waters don't produce as many greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as previously estimated, according to the results of an international research collaboration led by Charles Darwin University (CDU).

Climate models suggest that climate change could reduce the Southern Ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2). However, observational data actually shows that this ability has seen no significant decline in recent decades.

Ocean color satellites provide essential insights into water quality and ecosystem dynamics by estimating chlorophyll, suspended matter, and dissolved organic material. Atmospheric correction, the process of removing scattering and absorption from satellite signals, is central to these analyses.

Accurate land cover mapping underpins biodiversity protection, climate adaptation, and sustainable land use. Despite advances in remote sensing, satellite-only approaches remain limited by cloud cover, revisit intervals, and the lack of ground-truth data. Dynamic products such as Dynamic World have improved timeliness but still struggle to capture sudden transitions or validate their results.

Rocks store information from long ago. For instance, their composition can reveal the environmental conditions during their formation. This makes them extremely important in climate research. This led a research team at the University of Göttingen and the GFZ Helmholtz Center for Geosciences to investigate the following: do "cherts"—sedimentary rocks that form when silica-rich sediment mud is buried hundreds of meters deep—reveal anything about the climate of the past?

A study led by University of Arizona researchers shows that decades of groundwater pumping by humans has depleted Tucson-area aquifers far more than natural climate variation. Published in the journal Water Resources Research, the study provides the first multi-millennial reconstruction for the region that places human impacts on groundwater into long-term context.