Phys.org: Earth science

Almost a quarter of the glaciers in one of the world's last pristine ecosystems have melted from climate change, according to new research from Monash University.

If your home was destroyed by a sudden disaster that you couldn't control, you would hope that at the very least, your insurance would cover your losses. However, disaster risk financing systems are struggling to keep pace with growing economic losses. Natural catastrophic (NatCat) events are becoming increasingly costly, and recent global warming could potentially worsen the situation.

NASA has a long record of monitoring Earth's sea surface height, information critical not only for tracking how the ocean changes over time but also for hurricane forecasting. These extreme storms can cost the United States billions of dollars each year, wreaking havoc on lives and property. Meteorologists have worked to improve forecasts for a hurricane's path, or track, as well as its intensity, measured as surface wind speed. Sentinel-6B, the U.S.-European satellite launching later this year, will help in that effort.

Forests play a central role in the global carbon cycle as trees store carbon in their trunks, branches, roots and leaves. However, climate change and human activities can change the ability of forests to absorb carbon and the annual changes in these carbon stocks are highly variable in space and time around the globe. That's why having continuous observations of the evolution of forest biomass over a long period is important for monitoring this essential climate variable.

After a massive earthquake off the coast of Kamchatka, a peninsula in the far east of Russia, on July 30, 2025, the world watched as the resultant tsunami spread from the epicenter and across the Pacific Ocean at the speed of a jet plane.

Forests cover about 40% of the EU's land area. Between 1990 and 2022, they absorbed around 10% of the continent's man-made carbon emissions. However, the carbon dioxide absorption capacity of forests, also known as carbon sinks, is becoming increasingly weaker.

Terrestrial plants drove an increase in global photosynthesis between 2003 and 2021, a trend partially offset by a weak decline in photosynthesis—the process of using sunlight to make food—among marine algae, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change.

A new study shows that natural dust particles swirling in from faraway deserts can trigger freezing of clouds in Earth's Northern Hemisphere. This subtle mechanism influences how much sunlight clouds reflect and how they produce rain and snow—with major implications for climate projections.

Around 800 million years ago, during the Tonian period, the Yangtze Block in South China experienced significant tectonic activity, in which the ancient supercontinent Rodinia broke off from the area that is now South China. This created the Yangtze Block plate, which then collided with the China Ocean Plate, causing an area of subduction—where the oceanic plate slides under the lighter continental plate. This process is known to result in the creation of a string of volcanoes on the surface.

Algal growth is accelerating in lakes across Canada, including those far from human development, and a new study shows that climate change is the primary driver.

Every day, as the sun sets, billions of small animals make their way from the depths of the ocean to the surface to feed. As the next day begins, these zooplankton swim back down. It's the largest synchronous migration on the planet, responsible for carrying vast amounts of carbon from the ocean surface to the deep.

It was a single lightning flash that streaked across the Great Plains for 515 miles, from eastern Texas nearly all the way to Kansas City, setting a new world record.

A new study using data collected by NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite established a novel method to determine how productive plants are worldwide. The findings were published in IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters.

The Gulf of Maine—home to commercial fisheries for oysters, clams and mussels—has unexpectedly avoided an increase in seawater acidity, helping to preserve the health of its fisheries.

The earthquake near the east coast of the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia on July 30, 2025 generated tsunami waves that have reached Hawaii and coastal areas of the US mainland. The earthquake's magnitude of 8.8 is significant, potentially making it one of the largest quakes ever recorded.

Africa is a source of uncertainty in carbon cycle calculations. By some estimates, the continent's landscapes emit 2.1 billion tons more carbon dioxide than they take up each year—about equal to 1.5 times the annual emissions from coal-fired power plants. But other estimates are almost the complete opposite, suggesting that the continent's copious plant matter takes up 2.0 billion more tons of carbon dioxide per year than it releases.

In a world affected by climate change, the Southern Ocean plays an outsized role. It absorbs up to 40% of the human-caused emissions taken up by the oceans while also being home to some of the world's most vulnerable ecosystems.

A lot of the climate-altering carbon pollution humans release into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels gets drawn into the Earth's oceans and landscapes through natural processes, mostly through photosynthesis, as plants turn atmospheric carbon dioxide into biomass.

Some of the rainiest places on Earth could see their annual precipitation nearly halved if climate change continues to alter the way ocean water moves around the globe.

Today at about 11:30am local time, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck off the coast of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula in the country's far east.