Phys.org: Earth science

Increased warming in high-latitude wetlands seems poised to increase the activity of methanogens, or methane-producing microbes. These ecosystems are complex places, however, making outcomes hard to predict.

Dangerous flooding has damaged neighborhoods in almost every state in 2025, leaving homes a muddy mess. In several hard-hit areas, it wasn't the first time homeowners found themselves tearing out wet wallboard and piling waterlogged carpet by the curb.

A new study published in the journal Nature Communications reveals that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a key driver of global climate variability, is projected to undergo a dramatic transformation due to greenhouse warming.

Human-driven climate change made wildfires in parts of South America and Southern California many times larger and more destructive, according to an annual assessment by international experts.

POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) Professor Hyung Joo Lee's research team, including integrated program students Min Young Shin and Na Rae Kim, has published the results of a study analyzing how the combined effects of droughts and wildfires influence fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in California, U.S., using 15 years of data.

Peatlands are among the world's most important yet underappreciated ecosystems. They are a type of wetland that covers a small fraction of Earth's land, while containing the most carbon-rich soils in the world.

Remnants of a powerful typhoon swept into Western Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta on Oct. 12, 2025, producing a storm surge that flooded villages as far as 60 miles up the river. The water pushed homes off their foundations and set some afloat with people inside, officials said. More than 50 people had to be rescued in Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, hundreds were displaced in the region, and at least one person died.

On 30 July, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula triggered a tsunami that spread across the Pacific Ocean.

A team of scientists led by Rutgers researchers has uncovered evidence that modern sea level rise is happening faster than at any time in the past 4,000 years, with China's coastal cities especially at risk.

The trunks and branches of trees in Australia's tropical rainforests—also known as woody biomass—have become a net source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, according to a new international study.

A team of researchers, led by Cambridge University, has now formulated a method to assess whether carbon removal portfolios can help limit global warming over centuries. The approach also distinguishes between buying credits to offset risk versus claiming net-negative emissions.

A new study led by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Coastal Climate Resilience (CCCR) and East Carolina University (ECU) has found that mangroves significantly reduced storm surges and property damages during Hurricanes Irma in 2017 and Ian in 2022.

Earthquakes often bring to mind images of destruction, of the Earth breaking open and altering landscapes. But after an earthquake, the area around it undergoes a period of post-seismic deformation, where areas that didn't break experience new stress as a result of the sudden change in the surroundings. Once it has adjusted to this new stress, it reaches a state of recovery.

A new study has uncovered how tiny differences in boron atoms can help scientists better predict the long-term behavior of glass used to store hazardous waste. The findings, published in Environmental and Biogeochemical Processes, could improve forecasts of how radioactive materials are released from storage over thousands of years.

Methane is a greenhouse gas that is more than 25 times as potent as CO2 in warming the Earth. Reducing methane emissions is necessary to reduce the impact of global warming.

Around the world, we are already witnessing the detrimental effects of climate change, which we know will only become more severe. Extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall, tropical cyclones, and heat waves are projected to intensify, and this will negatively impact both human society and natural ecosystems.

Lightning-induced wildfires are severe natural disasters. However, because of the regionality and random nature of lightning, there is still an incomplete understanding within the scientific community regarding the characteristics of lightning that cause fires.

A team led by Prof. Liu Xueyan from the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a new plant-soil nitrogen isotope process model that quantifies the fractional contribution of three nitrogen forms (nitrate, ammonium, and dissolved organic nitrogen) to the total nitrogen in global terrestrial plants.

The lyrics of traditional Okinawan songs were found to record past climate and geological history of the Ryukyu Islands (21st-century Okinawa Prefecture, Japan), according to a new study by a University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Earth scientist and fellow Ryukyuan music practitioners. Their study was published today in Geoscience Communication and was selected as an Editor's Choice article by the journal's publisher.

Groundwater commonly contains methane, but the amount of this important greenhouse gas that can escape to surface waters or the atmosphere is highly uncertain. A team from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and University of Jena has shown that microbes in groundwater significantly reduce methane emissions, as revealed in a study published in PNAS.