Phys.org: Earth science

Global climate and weather forecasting use predictive models that divide Earth's atmosphere into a grid, with each section typically covering tens to hundreds of kilometers. Now a new model, run by a team at the University of Tokyo, has narrowed this grid spacing to just 220 meters (720 feet). This higher resolution eliminated instances of "popcornlike" rain—bursts of heavy rain that appear in simulations but not in real life—providing more accurate predictions of extreme local weather from a global model.

Iron is one of the most abundant metals on Earth's surface, yet how such massive iron ore deposits formed throughout geological history has long remained a mystery. The prevailing theory has been that ancient photosynthetic bacteria oxidized iron, causing it to precipitate and accumulate in the oceans.

Tiny photosynthetic organisms in the Baltic Sea can contribute substantially to the transport of carbon from surface waters to deeper parts of the sea. A new study from the Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences at Stockholm University shows that their ability to form colonies and aggregates is an important factor determining how much of their biomass sinks.

On Earth, everything is moving. The planet spins, the tectonic plates shift and the spin axis wobbles, as do the magnetic poles, which makes determining how things move a rather tricky proposition. For Rice University's Richard Gordon, this problem came up when he was trying to understand the history of the Hawaiian hot spot, the deep-mantle source of the volcanism that created the Hawaiian–Emperor chain of islands and underwater volcanoes.

The discovery of an unexpectedly hot rock beneath Earth's surface is challenging scientists' understanding of how heat is distributed deep inside the planet, with potential implications for how they understand earthquakes, volcanic activity and the movement of carbon through Earth.

When scientists discovered that increasing the ocean's natural alkalinity could enhance seawater's capacity to absorb and store carbon dioxide (CO₂), the idea quickly gained attention as a potential geoengineering solution to climate change. Early visions suggested it could remove gigatonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere each year. But the reality is far more complex.

Research published today in Nature by University of Melbourne researchers, in collaboration with Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Corporation, reconstructed the past 1,000 years of vegetation, fire and erosion in Croajingolong National Park in East Gippsland, one of southeastern Australia's most fire-prone forests.

Our oceans are becoming more acidic, which could have major consequences for marine life. Of particular concern is what this could mean for phytoplankton, the microscopic photosynthetic organisms that form the basis of marine food webs and produce roughly half of the oxygen on Earth. Now, a study published in Nature Geoscience has found that the carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere is changing their internal chemistry.

Off the coast of East Antarctica, researchers led by Kiel University (CAU) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), have investigated an exceptionally large sedimentary body embedded in the seafloor of Vincennes Bay: a so-called "grounding-zone wedge"—symmetrical, wedge-shaped, approximately 260 meters (853 feet) high and 65 kilometers (40 miles) long. With a volume of more than 580 cubic kilometers (139 cubic miles), it is the largest known isolated grounding-zone wedge on a glaciated continental shelf to date and constitutes an exceptional archive of East Antarctica's glacial history.

A hidden 'uranium hotspot' has been discovered beneath Aberdeen by University of Aberdeen researchers—shedding new light on the geological history of the region.

Penguin poop is fertilizing snow algae blooms along the Antarctic Peninsula, feeding dense green algae patches along the coastline, a new study shows. These expanding stretches of green snow melt faster than clean, white snow, potentially speeding up the spread of snow- and ice-free areas of Antarctica.

During the 2023–2024 El Niño, about 75% of the world's tropical forest areas experienced at least six months of unprecedented simultaneous drought and heat. According to a study published in Earth's Future, this scenario offers more than just a snapshot of an extreme event; it offers a preview of the "new normal" for the next two decades if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.

Ozone pollution caused by Amazon wildfires is significantly reducing the rainforest's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, new research reveals. Ground-level ozone is formed when pollutants from sources such as wildfires react in the presence of sunlight. This harms human health and interferes with plants' ability to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.

A new study shows that the world's oyster reefs are a precious resource that's vastly underestimated and underutilized. The authors set out to calculate the reefs' potential gross ecosystem product (GEP), the ecological counterpart of the gross economic product, and arrived at trillions of dollars in ecosystem goods and services delivered each year to different aspects of planetary health, including human well-being. But for their full potential to be realized, oyster reefs around the world will need to be restored and protected.

"Is there enough water? What's happening with climate change? How do I operate my hydro plant? In a world of water problems, there are problems that we need a good model to solve," says Colin Gleason, a hydrologist in the Riccio College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. But the models are only as good as the math that they're based on, and short of measuring every river in the world, there is no way to check this on a global scale.

A flash flood can devastate a community for years in a matter of minutes. These disasters account for roughly 85% of floods and cause thousands of deaths annually worldwide, with water levels capable of shooting up 30 feet (9 meters) and receding to normal levels in the span of a single, unpredictable day, according to the National Weather Service.

In January 2013, Lake Michigan reached its lowest water level on record. Seven years later, in the summer of 2020, it broke the opposite record with widespread flooding, eroded shorelines and closed lakeside roads.

El Niño and warming in the tropical Atlantic could help provide advance warning of extreme heat in the Amazon, with some signals appearing as much as seven months earlier, new research has found. Researchers from the ARC Center of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century and the National Institute of Space Research in Brazil studied how major patterns of natural climate variability influence temperature and rainfall extremes across the Amazon Basin.

A better understanding of how earthquakes occur and what happens during a rupture is important for assessing seismic risk. Small earthquakes, which are more frequent than large ones, are a tempting data set, but they're hard to study, in large part because their energy is quickly sapped as it travels through Earth.

This summer broke records around the U.K. for maximum temperatures and dry weather. According to the U.K.'s Met Office, while it was rare to hit 35°C (95°F) in the 20th century, that temperature has been surpassed in six out of the past 10 years. And temperatures are only expected to get higher.