Phys.org: Earth science

A research team led by Prof. Chen Chilai from Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences, amplified the detection sensitivity of dissolved methane in water by over 500 times, surpassing 500-fold enhancement, thus reaching baseline methane detection levels in oceans and lakes.

As the modern Great Barrier Reef emerged after the last ice age, it had to cope with multiple environmental stresses—rising sea levels, increased sediment from a flooding coastline, ocean turbulence and likely warming oceans.

In a recent study published in Science China Earth Sciences, researchers from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have unveiled new advances in the carbon capture capabilities of China's cement industry and its potential contribution to carbon neutrality.

Environmentalists rejoiced when China announced its commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, but the decarbonization of China—which emits 27% of global carbon dioxide and a third of the world's greenhouse gases—may come with hidden costs and hard environmental choices, according to new research.

Category 4 Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida's Lee County on Sept. 28 2022, battering the region with wind speeds of 155 miles per hour and storm surge up to 13 feet—the highest storm surge documented in Southwest Florida in the past 150 years.

A study led by NASA researchers provides new estimates of how much water courses through Earth's rivers, the rates at which it's flowing into the ocean, and how much both of those figures have fluctuated over time—crucial information for understanding the planet's water cycle and managing its freshwater supplies.

The impact of human activities—such as greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation—on Earth's surface have been well-studied. Now, hydrology researchers from the University of Arizona have investigated how humans impact Earth's deep subsurface, a zone that lies hundreds of meters to several kilometers beneath the planet's surface.

Climate change is significantly altering bioclimatic environments in China's dry–wet transition zones, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Hydrology.

Landslides are one of the most destructive natural disasters on the planet, causing billions of dollars of damage and devastating loss of life every year. By introducing a new paradigm for studying landslide shapes and failure types, a global team of researchers has provided help for those who work to predict landslides and risk evaluations.

Water erosion is the most active process controlling soil formation and evolution, which can affect the redistribution of carbon between terrestrial, aquatic, and atmospheric ecosystems. Erosion-induced organic carbon dynamic process should not be missing in terrestrial carbon cycle simulations.

In the ongoing quest to track the progression of climate change, scientists frequently examine the state of our planet's vegetation—forests, grasslands, agricultural lands, and beyond.

Just as water moves through a river, rivers themselves move across the landscape. They carve valleys and canyons, create floodplains and deltas, and transport sediment from the uplands to the ocean.

Arctic riverbanks are typically resilient, thanks to the power of permafrost. This permanently frozen soil locks in sediment, leading to low erosion rates. But as Arctic river water warms due to climate change, some researchers worry that riverbanks in the region will thaw and crumble. This, in turn, could cause problems, including the release of stored soil carbon and damage to infrastructure near rivers.

Climate change is a global phenomenon, but its impacts are felt at a very local level. Take, for example, dust. Dust can have a huge impact on local air quality, food security, energy supply and public health. Yet, little is known about how global climate change is impacting dust levels.

A study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters has shed light on the long-range transboundary transport of radioactive iodine-129 (129I) from the Indian nuclear fuel reprocessing plants (NFRPs) to the Southern Tibetan Plateau (STP).

Groundwater withdrawals are expected to peak in about one-third of the world's basins by 2050, potentially triggering significant trade and agriculture shifts, a new analysis finds.

One might think that snow, of all things, is easy to describe: it is cold, white and covers the landscape like a blanket. What else is there to say about it?

Researchers in North Carolina have created a simulation model to analyze how coastal management activities meant to protect barrier islands from sea-level rise can disrupt the natural processes that are keeping barrier islands above water.

Little is known about the nature and evolution of Earth's continental crust before a few billion years ago because cratons, or stable swaths of the lithosphere more than 2–3 billion years old, are relatively rare.

Early on Tuesday (April 23), Taiwan was hit by a series of earthquakes with the highest magnitude at 6.3. The latest tremor came less than three weeks after a magnitude 7.4 quake hit the island, damaging more than 100 buildings and trapping dozens of people in collapsed tunnels.