Phys.org: Earth science

Environmental phenomena and their consequences can disrupt social structures and destabilize political systems. An interdisciplinary research team demonstrated this using the example of the late Tang dynasty in medieval China.

Environmental research in the tropics is heavily skewed, according to a comprehensive study led by Umeå University. Humid lowland forest ecosystems receive a disproportionate amount of attention, while colder and drier regions that are more affected by climate change are severely underrepresented.

Understanding how water moves through the Earth system is fundamental to predicting climate impacts and ensuring sustainable water management. Yet despite decades of research, uncertainties persist regarding how global precipitation is partitioned into evapotranspiration and river flow—the two dominant pathways by which water returns from land to the atmosphere and oceans.

Under the Great Salt Lake playa lies a potentially vast reservoir of pressurized freshwater that has accumulated over thousands of years from mountain-derived snowmelt, according to new research from University of Utah geoscientists. This groundwater occupies the pore spaces in sediments that fill the basin west of the Wasatch Mountains and below a 30-foot-thick salty layer.

For the first time, a study by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego integrates climate-related damages to the ocean into the social cost of carbon—a measure of economic harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

As climate change drives more frequent and severe wildfires across boreal forests in Alaska and northwestern Canada, scientists are asking a critical question: Will these ecosystems continue to store carbon or become a growing source of carbon emissions?

Sometimes to truly study something up close, you have to take a step back. That's what Andrea Donnellan does. An expert in Earth sciences and seismology, she gets much of her data from a bird's-eye view, studying the planet's surface from the air and space, using the data to make discoveries and deepen understanding about earthquakes and other geological processes.

The Indonesian Throughflow carries both warm water and fresh water from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean. As the only low-latitude current that connects the two bodies of water, it plays a key role in ocean circulation and sea surface temperature worldwide.

How much fresh water is in the United States? It's a tough question, since most of the water is underground, accessible at varying depths. In previous decades, it's been answered indirectly from data on rainfall and evaporation. Knowing how much groundwater is available at specific locations is critical to meeting the challenges of water scarcity and contamination.

The storing of the very first heritage cores in Antarctica marks a pivotal moment for the Ice Memory project launched in 2015 by CNRS, IRD, the University of Grenoble-Alpes (France), CNR, Ca' Foscari University of Venice (Italy) and the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland).

In the icy reaches of the Svalbard archipelago, a quiet revolution in marine restoration is underway. Researchers are building a digital twin of the region—an interactive, data-rich simulation designed to help researchers and restoration teams understand how climate change is affecting Arctic coastlines and how its impacts might be reduced.

A study published in Nature shows that many of the world's major river deltas are sinking faster than sea levels are rising, potentially affecting hundreds of millions of people in these regions.

Scientists on Wednesday sealed ancient chunks of glacial ice in a first-of-its-kind sanctuary in Antarctica in the hope of preserving these fast-disappearing records of Earth's past climate for centuries to come.

Lightning has captured people's fascination for millennia. It's embedded in mythology, religion and popular culture. Think of Thor in Norse mythology or Indra in Hinduism.

Devastated by widespread fires, Victoria has declared a state of disaster. More than 500 structures have reportedly been destroyed and 1,000 agricultural properties have been affected. Tragically, there has also been one fatality.

The number of wildland fires burning in the Arctic is on the rise, according to NASA researchers. Moreover, these blazes are burning larger, hotter, and longer than they did in previous decades.

New research from Adelaide University suggests the power of the ancient Tethys Ocean might have shaped Central Asia's topography during the Cretaceous period.

Europe and western North America will experience more frequent and severe crop droughts as Earth warms, even in places where yearly rainfall increases.

Dr. Rowan Martindale, a paleoecologist and geobiologist at the University of Texas at Austin, was walking through the Dadès Valley in the Central High Atlas Mountains of Morocco when she saw something that literally stopped her in her tracks.

Underground environments like soil and aquifers teem with microbial life. These tiny microbes play a big role in cycling nutrients and breaking down or transforming pollutants. However, scientists still struggle to reliably model how microbes grow and decay.