Phys.org: Earth science

A team led by Prof. Zheng Tianlu and Prof. Wei Jiang from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), has developed a novel technique known as All-Optical Atom Trap Trace Analysis.

How sensitively does organic carbon stored in soils react to changes in temperature and humidity? This question is central to a new study now published in Nature Communications.

Noctilucent or night-shining clouds are rare, high-altitude clouds that glow with a blue, silvery hue at dusk or dawn when the sun shines on them from below the horizon. These ice clouds typically occur near the North and South Poles, but are increasingly being reported at mid- and low latitudes. Observing them helps scientists better understand how human activities may affect our atmosphere.

Scientists know that changing tree leaves can indicate when a nearby volcano is becoming more active and might erupt. In a new collaboration between NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, scientists now believe they can detect these changes from space.

Warming in the Arctic is intensifying methane emissions, contributing to a vicious feedback loop that could accelerate climate change even more, according to a new study published in Nature.

Small things matter, at least when it comes to ocean features like waves and eddies. A recent NASA-led analysis using data from the SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite found that ocean features as small as a mile across potentially have a larger impact on the movement of nutrients and heat in marine ecosystems than previously thought.

Amber deposits found in ancient deep-sea sediment may represent one of the oldest records to date of a tsunami, suggests research published in Scientific Reports. The study describes large amber deposits discovered on Hokkaido Island in northern Japan, and proposes that they were likely swept out from a forest to the ocean by one or more tsunamis between 116 and 114 million years ago.

Fifty-six million years ago, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), global temperatures rose by more than 5°C over 100,000 or more years. Between 3,000 and 20,000 petagrams of carbon were released into the atmosphere during this time, severely disrupting ecosystems and ocean life globally and creating a prolonged hothouse state.

A team led by researchers at the University of Oxford has created the most complete map of the world's rivers ever made, offering a major leap forward for flood prediction, climate risk planning, and water resource management in a warming world.

Mercury (Hg) is a naturally occurring element found across the globe, yet it becomes highly toxic as it accumulates up the food chain. Pollution from human activities has pumped increasing amounts of mercury into the atmosphere, and for reasons that are not well understood, the Arctic region has significantly higher levels of mercury, despite having a relatively sparse population and less pollution.

A team of researchers led by Niccolò Maffezzoli, "Marie Curie" fellow at Ca' Foscari University of Venice and the University of California, Irvine, and an associate member of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy, has developed the first global model based on artificial intelligence to calculate the ice thickness distribution of all the glaciers on Earth.

The Amazon rainforest may be able to survive long-term drought caused by climate change, but adjusting to a drier, warmer world would exact a heavy toll, a study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution suggests.

Using advanced technology that analyzes tiny gas bubbles trapped in crystals, a team of scientists led by Cornell University has precisely mapped how magma storage evolves as Hawaiian volcanoes age.

Landslide-generated tsunamis pose a serious risk to coastal communities, particularly within narrow fjords where tall cliffs can trap and amplify waves. Scientists rely heavily on earthquake-based observation systems to issue tsunami warnings, but these methods don't always capture localized ground movement caused by landslides.

When we think of earthquakes, we imagine sudden, violent shaking. But deep beneath Earth's surface, some faults move in near silence. These slow, shuffling slips and their accompanying hum—called tremors—don't shake buildings or make headlines. But scientists believe they can serve as useful analogs of how major earthquakes begin and behave.

The South Asian Summer Monsoon (SASM) is the world's most significant monsoon system, providing approximately 80% of the region's annual rainfall—influencing agriculture, water security, and the livelihoods of more than a billion people across the Indian Peninsula, the western Indochina Peninsula, and the southern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Sophisticated chemical analysis of volcanic gases from Kenya has provided the first evidence that a vast mass of deep Earth material lies beneath East Africa.

A study in Nature finds that with bold and coordinated policy choices—across emissions, diets, food waste, and water and nitrogen efficiency—humanity could, by 2050, bring global environmental pressures back to levels seen in 2015. This shift would move us much closer to a future in which people around the world can live well within Earth's limits.

Paul Wilcox, a geologist at the University of Innsbruck, has discovered the first land-based evidence of meltwater pulses from the Cordilleran Ice Sheet during the last ice age, about 20,000 years ago. The age of the cave sediments was constrained via optical dating techniques, which is crucial to help piece together the sequence of climate events leading to a warming planet.

The impacts of human activity and climate change are coalescing to make coastal lagoons saltier, changing the microbial life they support and the function they play in their ecosystems, according to new University of Adelaide research published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews.