Phys.org: Earth science

A research team led by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) scholars has discovered a significant slowdown in Arctic sea ice melting since 2012, with a decrease rate of 11.3% per decade to an insignificant downward trend of only −0.4% per decade.

Earth is taking in more energy than it releases back to space—a growing "energy imbalance" that is fueling global warming. A new study led by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science finds that recent changes in air pollution are not the main reason this imbalance has increased.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators have developed a new type of lidar—a laser-based remote-sensing instrument—that can observe cloud structures at the scale of a single centimeter. The scientists used this high-resolution lidar to directly observe fine cloud structures in the uppermost portion of laboratory-generated clouds. This capability for studying cloud tops with resolution that is 100 to 1,000 times higher than traditional atmospheric science lidars enables pairing with measurements in well-controlled chamber experiments in a way that has not been possible before.

With modern seismic tomography, Earth scientists have discovered that above Earth's core-mantle boundary (CMB), about 2,900 kilometers beneath our feet, there is a thin layer about 300 kilometers thick with remarkable structural complexity and compositional heterogeneity. Among these features are small-scale structures known as ultralow velocity zones (ULVZs) that have attracted intense scientific interest.

A new regional assessment shows that Southeast Asia is a major net source of greenhouse gases, with land-use change and rising fossil fuel use overwhelming natural carbon sinks, reservoirs that store carbon-containing chemical compounds for a long period.

Due to its thick, vast ice sheet, Antarctica appears to be a single, continuous landmass centered over the South Pole and spanning both hemispheres of the globe. The Western Hemisphere sector of the ice sheet is shaped like a hitchhiker's thumb—an apt metaphor, because the West Antarctic ice sheet is on the go.

Despite its tropical climate and floodplain location, Bangladesh—one of the world's most densely populated nations—seasonally does not have enough freshwater, especially in coastal areas. Shallow groundwater is often saline, a problem that may be exacerbated by rising sea levels.

Aviation's climate impact is partly due to contrails—condensation that a plane streaks across the sky when it flies through icy and humid layers of the atmosphere. Contrails trap heat that radiates from the planet's surface, and while the magnitude of this impact is uncertain, several studies suggest contrails may be responsible for about half of aviation's climate impact.

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.

Though ice sheet melting is widely talked of and debated, there is limited knowledge about what happens after the period of melting. Researchers dig into this "after" period and see how it relates to previous patterns.

An existing body of research indicates that climate change is making tropical cyclones wetter and more powerful. Now, a new study 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. The findings are published in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems.

A multinational scientific team led by UiT has uncovered the deepest known gas hydrate cold seep on the planet. The discovery was made during the Ocean Census Arctic Deep–EXTREME24 expedition and reveals a previously unknown ecosystem thriving at 3,640 meters on the Molloy Ridge in the Greenland Sea. The groundbreaking findings regarding the Freya Hydrate Mounds, which hold scientific significance and implications for Arctic governance and sustainable development, have recently been published in Nature Communications.

A 400-mile blanket of fog has socked in California's Central Valley for weeks. Scientists and meteorologists say the conditions for such persistent cloud cover are ripe: an early wet season, cold temperatures and a stable, unmoving high pressure system.

A swarm of at least a dozen earthquakes reaching up to magnitude 3.9 rattled San Ramon near San Francisco, the U.S. Geological Survey reports.

"Kablooey!" That's the word U.S. Geological Survey volcanic experts used to describe a muddy eruption at Black Diamond Pool in Yellowstone National Park on Saturday morning.

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.

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.