Phys.org: Earth science

The successful development of sustainable georesources for the energy transition is a key challenge for humankind in the 21st century. Hydrogen gas (H2) has great potential to replace current fossil fuels while simultaneously eliminating the associated emission of CO2 and other pollutants.

To achieve its net zero climate target by 2050, Switzerland must press forward with the energy transition—whether in electricity, heating or mobility. The permanent storage of CO2 is another important challenge. In particular, Switzerland must find a permanent solution for emissions that are difficult or impossible to avoid, such as those produced by waste incinerators.

More than half of Brazil's rivers are at risk of reduced flow due to water seeping into underground aquifers. This is the result of an analysis of 17,972 wells throughout the country. Of these, 55.4% had water levels below the surface of the nearest rivers. This difference in hydraulic level creates a gradient that favors the seepage of water from the river into the subsoil, which can turn rivers into water flow losers. The study, conducted by researchers from Brazil and abroad, was published in the journal Nature Communications.

The melting ice from glaciers worldwide is leading to an increased loss of regional freshwater resources. And it is causing global sea levels to rise at ever-greater rates. Since the year 2000, glaciers have been losing 273 billion tons of ice annually, according to estimates by an international research community led by researchers of the University of Zurich.

Gabrielle Kleber and Leonard Magerl, postdoctoral researchers at iC3, have discovered that Arctic glaciers are leaking significant amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Eddies are large, rotating currents that contribute to ocean mixing and transport of heat and salt in seawater. Importantly, eddies modify ocean circulation and can influence climate variability by interacting with larger, more dominant ocean currents, or mean flow.

Hurricanes are likely to become more frequent and more intense in both the Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans over the next decade, a new study has shown, spelling increased danger for coastal communities across North and Central America.

Accurate assessment of the land surface damage (such as small-scale fracturing and inelastic deformation) from two major earthquakes in 2023 can help scientists assess future earthquake hazards and therefore minimize risk to people and infrastructure. However, attaining precise extensive measurements in earthquake zones remains challenging.

Traces of organisms detected in sediments from 7.5 kilometers below the ocean surface reveal how organisms living in the deep sea are engineering their own environments. Analyses of sediment cores from the Pacific Ocean's Japan Trench, presented in Nature Communications, uncover evidence of burrowing and feeding activity of these deep-sea dwellers.

Literal groundbreaking research by Dr. Giorgio Arriga enhances our understanding of the long-term evolution of seismogenic (earthquake-related) faults in the Apennines of Central Italy. Arriga's study examines the development of fault systems over millions of years and their impact on present-day seismic hazards. His research included an investigation of faults in the L'Aquila Basin, a region severely affected by a major earthquake in 2009 that claimed over 300 lives, leading to a significant discovery.

Las Vegas locals began a project in the 1990s to protect a geological marvel at the edge of town. They made educational signs and were joined by politicians including late Sen. Harry Reid and then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, but the area was vandalized soon after.

Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent as a result of climate change. River floods such as those along the Ahr and Meuse valleys in 2021, the Central European floods of last September and the recent floods in Valencia, Spain, are caused by so-called cut-off lows. The Wegener Center at the University of Graz has now for the first time investigated how these storms could change with climate change.

Imagine a world filled only with daisies. Light-colored daisies reflect sunlight, cooling down the planet, while darker daisies absorb sunlight, warming it up. Together, these two types of daisies work to regulate the planet's temperature, making the world more habitable for all of them.

Militaries that have taken power in Africa's Sahel region—notably Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger—have put pressure on western mining firms for a fairer distribution of revenue from the lucrative mining sector.

Because trees can cool cities by providing shade and evaporating water into the atmosphere, greening city streets is an often-touted strategy for climate change adaptation. But trees provide benefits only if they're healthy, and physical variations in urban environments mean that not all trees have the same chance to thrive.

From late July to October 2022, residents of the Manu'a Islands in American Samoa felt the earth shake several times a day, raising concerns of an imminent volcanic eruption or tsunami.

The cool conditions which have allowed ice caps to form on Earth are rare events in the planet's history and require many complex processes working at once, according to new research.

El Niño and La Niña are climate phenomena that are generally associated with wetter and drier winter conditions in the Southwestern United States, respectively. In 2023, however, a La Niña year proved extremely wet in the Southwest instead of dry.

While most look for ways to avoid the steady rain falling from atmospheric rivers, some take advantage of the unwieldy weather patterns to improve forecasts and to help control, and ultimately modernize, the complex labyrinth of waterways hydrating California.

In the race to combat global climate change, much attention has been given to natural carbon sinks: those primarily terrestrial areas of the globe that absorb and sequester more carbon than they release. While scientists have long known that coastal salt marshes are just such a sink for "blue carbon," or carbon stored in the ocean and coastal ecosystems, it has been difficult to get an accurate estimate of just how much they store, and so most of the focus has been on terrestrial sinks such as forests and grasslands.