Phys.org: Earth science

The Dadiwan Culture, a key representative of China's Neolithic period in the Yellow River Basin and considered one of the origins of the Yangshao Culture, experienced a mysterious 500-year gap between its first and second phases, according to new research.

"Atmospheric rivers" are large-scale extreme weather systems that are making headlines more frequently. When viewed in satellite images, they appear just as described—like rivers in the sky. Though they are often reported in places like California, these weather systems have the potential to bring high heat and dump disastrous amounts of precipitation on areas throughout the mid and high latitudes.

Ice can dissolve iron minerals more effectively than liquid water, according to a new study from Umeå University. The discovery could help explain why many Arctic rivers are now turning rusty orange as permafrost thaws in a warming climate.

Earth's mantle is a restless, enigmatic engine that powers volcanism, recycles crust, and regulates the long-term evolution of the planet. But one of its most elusive characteristics—the redox state, or the balance of oxidized and reduced chemical species—remains difficult to measure directly.

Satellite observations have documented a pronounced decline in Antarctic sea ice extent since 2014, with especially sharp losses in recent years. Whether Antarctica's declining sea ice can recover hinges not only on how much carbon dioxide we emit, but also on how stratified the Southern Ocean is, according to new research published in Geophysical Research Letters.

A new study has made a counterintuitive discovery about how El Niño affects India's summer monsoon. Instead of reducing rainfall overall and causing widespread droughts, the periodic climatic phenomenon increases rainfall daily in the country's wettest regions.

Deep in the heart of Central Asia, the Kunlun Mountains form a vital barrier on the northern Tibetan Plateau. Their rainfall is a lifeline, feeding the oases and rivers of the arid Tarim Basin. While scientists have mapped the region's basic climate patterns, one question remained: what drives the large year-to-year swings in summer rainfall here?

Earthquakes don't just shake the ground, they can also shift rivers, damage stop banks and raise the risk of flooding for years afterward.

Buried deep in Greenland's ice sheet lies a puzzling chemical signature that has sparked intense scientific debate. A sharp spike in platinum concentrations, discovered in an ice core (a cylinder of ice drilled out of ice sheets and glaciers) and dated to around 12,800 years ago, has provided support for a hypothesis that Earth was struck by an exotic meteorite or comet at that time.

On May 12, 2025, Buddha Day, Buddhist monks and scientific researchers gathered to pay tribute to Yala Glacier in Nepal's Langtang Valley. The International Center for Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an international NGO housed in Kathmandu, collaborated with local Indigenous community leaders to organize this event to raise awareness of Yala's rapid retreat and highlight the risk across Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) glaciers. They invited community leaders, local university professors and international media to the tribute, which included a central ceremony held by spiritual leaders.

An international research team led by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel has discovered a globally unique system on the seabed off the coast of Papua New Guinea. During their expedition aboard the research vessel SONNE, they came across the "Karambusel" field, where hydrothermal vents and methane seeps occur immediately adjacent to one another.

Hidden beneath the biggest ice mass on Earth, hundreds of subglacial lakes form a crucial part of Antarctica's icy structure, affecting the movement and stability of glaciers, and consequentially influencing global sea level rise.

Earlier in 2025, UNSW Sydney Ph.D. candidate Christina Schmidt submitted her thesis—from the deck of Australia's multi-billion-dollar icebreaker, just off the East Antarctic coast.

As a late-summer monsoon spread across California in recent weeks, it delivered hundreds of thousands of lightning strikes—record numbers in August and the first week of September. Those sparked hundreds of wildfires and, for many hikers, sheer terror.

Between a third and half of all soil carbon on Earth is stored in peatlands, says Tom and Marie Patton Distinguished Professor Joel Kostka. These wetlands—formed from layers and layers of decaying plant matter—span from the Arctic to the tropics, supporting biodiversity and regulating global climate.

If it feels like headlines reporting 100 or 1,000-year floods and megafires seem more frequent these days, it's not your imagination.

As I walked out onto the frozen Arctic water off Utqiagvik, Alaska, for the first time, I was mesmerized by the icescape.

The water cycle has become increasingly erratic and extreme, swinging between deluge and drought, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It highlights the cascading impacts of too much or too little water on economies and society.

Streamflow drought—when substantially less water than usual moves through rivers—can seriously disrupt the welfare of nearby communities, agriculture, and economies. Synchronous drought, in which multiple river basins experience drought simultaneously, can be even more severe and far-reaching.

In May, a landslide above Blatten in the canton of Valais buried most of the village under a mass of ice, mud and rock, an event that has prompted in-depth research. At a recent conference in Innsbruck, UZH researcher Christian Huggel presented his findings on the link between the landslide and climate change.