Phys.org: Earth science

A team led by atmospheric scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory has demonstrated the first-ever remote observations of the fine-scale structure at the base of clouds. The results, just published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, show that the air-cloud interface is not a perfect boundary but rather is a transition zone where aerosol particles suspended in Earth's atmosphere give rise to the droplets that ultimately form clouds.

As a massive heat dome lingered over the Pacific Northwest three years ago, swaths of North America simmered—and then burned. Wildfires charred more than 18.5 million acres across the continent, with the most land burned in Canada and California.

Powerful monsoon winds, strengthened by a warming climate, are lofting unexpectedly large quantities of ozone-depleting substances high into the atmosphere over East Asia, new research shows.

As wildfires in Siberia become more common, global climate modeling estimates significant impacts on climate, air quality, health, and economies in East Asia and across the northern hemisphere.

Nature-based climate solutions can help mitigate climate change, especially in forested regions capable of storing and sequestering vast amounts of carbon. New research published in Global Change Biology indicates that a single hurricane in New England, one of the most heavily forested regions in the United States, can down 4.6–9.4% of the total above-ground forest carbon, an amount much greater than the carbon sequestered annually by New England's forests.

Warming temperatures are causing a steady rise in copper, zinc, and sulfate in the waters of Colorado mountain streams affected by acid rock drainage. Concentrations of these metals have roughly doubled in these alpine streams over the past 30 years, a new study finds, presenting a concern for ecosystems, downstream water quality, and mining remediation.

In a recent publication in Science Bulletin, a multidisciplinary team of authors from Tongji University, the Second Institute of Oceanography (Ministry of Natural Resources), the Institute of Earth Environment (Chinese Academy of Sciences), and Utrecht University reports for the first time that massive carbon inputs from volcanism and seafloor spreading have impacted the orbital phase relationships between carbon cycle and climate change.

A research team led by Prof. Xu Yongsheng from the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has obtained the two-dimensional sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) of about 100 km along the track and the first broadband SSHA wavenumber spectrum using Airborne Interferometric Radar Altimeter (AIRA) observations.

WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) researchers expect an elevated wildfire danger in the Alpine Foreland from 2040 onwards due to changing meteorological conditions. The danger currently remains very low in that region, but there is likely to be a shift in this regard as a result of climate change.

CloudSat, a NASA mission that peered into hurricanes, tallied global snowfall rates, and achieved other weather and climate firsts, has ended its operations. Originally proposed as a 22-month mission, the spacecraft was recently decommissioned after almost 18 years observing the vertical structure and ice/water content of clouds.

Like humans, lakes are living systems that can suffer from a number of health issues, including circulatory and respiratory problems, infections, nutritional imbalances, and heat-related illnesses. Without treatment, these conditions can become chronic, harming lake ecosystems and those who depend on them. More than 12% of the world's human population, for instance, lives within 3 kilometers of a lake.

Extracting natural gas from shale formations can provide an abundant, lower-carbon footprint fossil fuel, but also creates concerns over increased methane emissions. A team led by Penn State researchers has developed a new tool that can estimate the emission potential of shale wells after they are no longer active.

New research has found a "missing piece of the puzzle" of West Antarctic Ice Sheet melt, revealing that the collapse of the ice sheet in the Ross Sea region can be prevented—if we keep to a low-emissions pathway.

A large number of coal pillars were left behind during the mining of multi-coal seams. These pillars, when unstable, pose significant risks during both production and well closure stages in coal mines. Their failure can exert intense dynamic pressure on lower coal seams, resulting in substantial deformation and damage to support structures and mining tunnels.

Oases are important habitats and water sources for dryland regions, sustaining 10% of the world's population despite taking up about 1.5% of land area. But in many places, climate change and anthropogenic activities threaten oases' fragile existence. New research shows how the world's oases have grown and shrunk over the past 25 years as water availability patterns have changed and desertification encroaches on these wet refuges.

A new statistical analysis of the interaction between El Niño and rising global temperatures due to climate change concludes that the approaching summer in the tropics has nearly a 7 in 10 chance of breaking records for temperature and humidity.

Oregon State University researchers have teamed with the Karuk Tribe to create a novel computer simulation model that showcases Indigenous fire stewardship's role in forest ecosystem health.

Earthquakes, volcanic activity, and sediment flux can trigger underwater landslides known as submarine slides, which can translate to tsunamis on the surface. Megaslides are extreme versions of these underwater events.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can quickly and accurately predict the path and intensity of major storms, a new study demonstrates.

Whether sedimentary rocks store fossil hydrocarbons or act as impermeable layers to prevent the rise of oil, natural gas or stored carbon dioxide—all depends on their porosity. The size, shape, organization, and connectivity of the pore spaces are decisive.