Phys.org: Earth science

SeaCast is an innovative high-resolution forecasting system for the Mediterranean that harnesses AI to deliver faster and more energy-efficient predictions than traditional models. Unlike existing global AI models, which operate at lower resolutions and primarily rely on ocean data, SeaCast integrates both ocean and atmospheric variables, capturing complex regional dynamics. A paper describing the system is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Human-driven climate change intensified rainfall that triggered Spain's deadliest natural disaster in a generation when flash floods hit the Valencia region in 2024, a new study showed on Tuesday.

On a cool spring morning in a northern forest, the ground feels soft underfoot. Mist hangs between the trunks, and the air smells of wet leaves and old humus; the slow alchemy that keeps a forest alive. Beneath the surface, billions of microbes break down organic matter and hair-thin roots exhale, releasing steady pulses of carbon dioxide. This process, known as soil respiration, is one of the largest carbon fluxes on the planet, usually so stable it feels almost like a steady heartbeat.

Deep inside the Greenland ice sheet are giant swirling plume-like structures. These have puzzled scientists for over a decade, but UiB researchers now believe they have cracked the mystery by applying the same mathematics used to understand how continents drift apart.

New research from the University of Copenhagen suggests that volcanic eruptions during the Ice Age may have triggered sudden climate change by disrupting the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), causing temperatures to fluctuate between hot and cold for thousands of years. The study contributes missing pieces to our understanding of what could cause Northern Europe's radiator to shut down.

An international team featuring faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York has drilled the longest ever sediment core from under an ice sheet, providing a record stretching back millions of years that will help climate scientists forecast the fate of the ice sheet in our warming world.

Tropical forests help to generate vast amounts of rainfall each year, adding weight to arguments for protecting them as water and climate pressures increase, say researchers. A new study led by the University of Leeds has put a monetary value on one of forests' least recognized services as a source of rainfall to surrounding regions, finding that each hectare generates 2.4 million liters of rain each year—enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

The Amazon rainforest is of crucial importance to the Earth's ecosystem, given its capacity to store substantial amounts of carbon in its vegetation. In 2023, the region experienced unusually high temperatures, reaching 1.5°C above the 1991–2020 average, accompanied by unusual levels of atmospheric dryness from September to November. These conditions were caused by warmer water temperatures in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that resulted in diminished moisture transport from the Atlantic to South America, and led to drought in the second half of 2023. An international research team, led by Santiago Botia at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, studied how these extreme conditions affected the Amazon rainforest's ability to absorb and store carbon.

By 2050, offshore wind power capacity in the North Sea is set to increase more than tenfold. Researchers at the Helmholtz Center Hereon have analyzed the long-term overall impact of this large number of wind farms on the hydrodynamics of the North Sea for the first time. They found that the current pattern could change on a large scale. The study highlights approaches for minimizing potential risks to the environment at an early stage. The work was recently published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

It's one of the latest technologies for sequestering carbon: crush silicate rocks, add to crop soil, and let the rock dust naturally react with carbon dioxide. The reactions bind carbon into stable mineral forms that can persist for millennia, while also enriching the soil with nutrients, boosting crop yields and increasing farmer profits.

Deforestation in the Amazon is causing significant regional changes in climate compared to areas with forest cover above 80%. The loss of vegetation leads to an increase in surface temperature, a decrease in evapotranspiration, and a reduction in precipitation during the dry season and in the number of rainy days.

Gravity feels reliable—stable and consistent enough to count on. But reality is far stranger than our intuition. In truth, the strength of gravity varies over Earth's surface. And it is weakest beneath the frozen continent of Antarctica after accounting for Earth's rotation.

Extreme rainfall is reshaping coastal waters along South Korea's shoreline, flushing nutrients from land into the sea and fueling the growth of algal blooms. A new multi-year study, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, tracked water quality in and around a major river estuary and shows how intense downpours can shift where and when these blooms appear, with consequences for marine ecosystems and coastal communities.

The Mediterranean Sea is rapidly changing under ongoing climate change. In the eastern basin, tropicalization is already well documented and driven by a combination of strong warming and the influx of tropical species through the Suez Canal. In contrast, the western Mediterranean has, until now, shown fewer such signals. However, a recent study demonstrates that the expansion of microscopic warm-water species provides a clear and early indication of tropicalization impacts on marine ecosystems.

The southern Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia is becoming less salty at an astonishing rate, largely due to climate change, new research shows.

A new study shows that during the last two deglaciations, i.e., the transition from an ice age to the warm interglacial periods, meltwater from the Antarctic ice sheet intensified stratification in the Southern Ocean. The results highlight the key role of the Antarctic ice sheet on ocean circulation and the regulation of the global climate. The study was led by François Fripiat, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and was conducted in collaboration with researchers from Princeton University and the Alfred Wegener Institute. It is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet, with average temperatures increasing by about 4°C in the last four decades. A new study, led by the University of Exeter, shows peatlands have expanded since 1950, with some peatland edges moving by more than a meter a year. The work has been published in Global Change Biology.

A new collaborative study, led by University of Utah Professor of atmospheric sciences Kevin Perry, provides policymakers, agency leaders, and the public with the most comprehensive assessment to date of potential dust control options for the Great Salt Lake, as declining water levels continue to expose vast areas of lakebed to wind erosion.

Researchers from the Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, have developed a high-resolution daily atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) dataset covering China from 2016 to 2020. The dataset offers new insights into the spatiotemporal variations of column-averaged dry-air CO2 mole fraction (XCO2). The work is published in the journal Scientific Data.

Minerals form the building blocks of almost everything on Earth. They are made up of crystals—regular, repeating atomic structures that fit together like a three-dimensional pattern. When minerals deform, their normally ordered crystal lattices develop linear imperfections known as dislocations. These are small breaks or shifts in the atomic arrangement that allow crystals to change shape under stress. Some deformed crystals contain large numbers of dislocations, while in others they are sparse and searching for them is like looking for a needle in a haystack.