Phys.org: Earth science

There is growing interest in the scientific community and private sector in biological approaches to marine carbon dioxide removal—strategies designed to enhance the ocean's natural ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. However, a study led by Megan Sullivan, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO), suggests that some proposals may overlook an important factor.

Changes in the Gulf Stream, a strong ocean current in the Atlantic, could serve as an early warning of the imminent collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The AMOC is a massive system of ocean currents that acts as a conveyor belt, moving heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic. The part of this system that flows along the east coast of the United States and then east toward Europe is the Gulf Stream. Scientists are concerned that if the AMOC were to collapse, it could trigger drastic climate shifts, especially in Europe, where temperatures could plummet.

How is carbon metabolized and processed in different ecosystems? In a study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, researchers led by Joely Maak, the study's first author and researcher in the Cluster of Excellence "The Ocean Floor—Earth's Uncharted Interface," examined the carbon cycle in a unique marine ecosystem.

When Saharan dust reaches the UK and Europe, as a huge country-sized cloud did over the past few days, it can transform the sky. Tiny particles drifting in the atmosphere scatter blue light while allowing reds and oranges to reach us intact, producing beautiful sunsets.

Evidence suggests that China's "cradle of civilization" experienced marked climate disasters and social upheavals during the mid-late Holocene (around 3,000 years ago). However, the direct causes and impacts of these ancient inland disasters were unclear. In a new study, published in Science Advances, a team of Chinese researchers points to intensified typhoon activities during this time as a main driving factor for disaster and social change, backing up their claims with archaeological evidence and AI and physics-based climate modeling.

Europe is struggling more and more with extreme heat in the summer. While climate change is the main reason for this increase, what specific physical mechanisms cause a heat wave? One important driver of weather conditions in Europe is the North Atlantic. For example, studies by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) have shown that heat build-up in the subtropical North Atlantic can lead to extremely hot summers in Europe several years later.

A research team from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed an innovative model to accurately assess the carbon sequestration capacity of global salt marshes, addressing a long-standing gap in blue carbon accounting.

Our planet plunged into one of the most dramatic climate states in its long history, approximately 720–635 million years ago. During a period geologists call Snowball Earth, ice sheets crept from the poles all the way to the tropics, covering the oceans and continents in a nearly global freeze.

To avoid the worst effects of climate change, many billions of metric tons of industrially generated carbon dioxide will have to be captured and stored away by the end of this century. One place to store such an enormous amount of greenhouse gas is in Earth itself. If carbon dioxide were pumped into the cracks and crevices of certain underground rocks, the fluid would react with the rocks and solidify carbon into minerals. In this way, carbon dioxide could potentially be locked in the rocks in stable form for millions of years without escaping back into the atmosphere.

Earth is not infinite. Pollution beyond certain levels threatens the climate and ecosystems. To prevent this, scientists have proposed planetary boundaries, defining the safe operating limits of the Earth system. A KAIST research team recalculated climate change and nitrogen pollution using the same standard and found that current carbon emissions already exceed the planet's sustainable limit by more than double.

Global warming has accelerated since 2015, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). After accounting for known natural influences on global temperature, the research team detected a statistically significant acceleration of the warming trend for the first time.

Forest damage in Europe caused by wildfires, storms and bark beetle outbreaks is projected to increase compared to recent decades under all analyzed climate scenarios, according to a new international study, published in Science, with contributions from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Much of our understanding of Earth's past is derived from stratigraphic records exposed in rock outcrops or recovered from drilled cores. These records span immense time intervals, from thousands to billions of years, and form the basis of geochronologies used to reconstruct geological, climatic, and environmental change. However, as a new study published in Communications Earth & Environment shows, these records are far from uniform.

In the face of climate change, permafrost peatland wildfires could play more of a role in the destructive cycle of global warming, University of Alberta research suggests.

Recent University of Toronto Ph.D. graduate Gabrielle Migliato Marega (CivMin) has developed an improved tool for estimating how much water from heavy rains ends up in sanitary sewers. The tool is particularly useful in areas where accurate data about sewer flow rates is difficult to find, such as in low- and middle-income countries, where many new sewer systems are being built.

Outdoor air pollution is estimated to contribute to more than 100,000 premature deaths in the United States each year, according to the National Weather Service. Accurate air quality forecasts—designed to protect public health, alerting communities to dangerous levels of pollutants linked to asthma attacks, heart disease and premature death—are critical for helping people limit exposure and for guiding regulatory action.

Earth experienced a period of intense, large-scale volcanism during the early Aptian. Around that time, it also experienced widespread ocean deoxygenation during the Oceanic Anoxic Event 1a (OAE1a) as well as the onset of a period of unusual stability in Earth's magnetic field, known as the Cretaceous Normal Superchron (CNS), which lasted about 38 million years.

Different regions of the United States are experiencing different patterns of warming climate, requiring region-specific adaptation, according to a study published in PLOS Climate by María Dolores Gadea Rivas of the University of Zaragoza, Spain and Jesús Gonzalo of University Carlos III, Spain.

People may be frustrated by the lack of detail when weather forecasters say, "There will be thunderstorms popping up, but we don't know where." Now a key finding in a study by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), published in the journal Nature, is set to improve the certainty about the location of upcoming storms on hot days.

In the ocean, a haze made from tiny bits of dead plants, animals, and microbes hangs in the upper reaches of the water. Each particle is just a fraction of a micrometer across, but together the carbon within these particles weighs about 700 billion tons—about as much as all the carbon in the atmosphere.