Phys.org: Earth science

As Earth continues to warm, more and more of the planet is becoming dry. A 2024 UN report found that in the last three decades, over three-fourths of all the world's land became drier than it had been in the previous 30 years.

By coring the seabed at 850 m water depth in Disko Bay off Greenland's west coast, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have obtained the first historical record of plastic pollution in Greenland. The new data suggest a link to local socio-economic development and represent a step towards developing a common method for analyzing and mapping global microplastic pollution.

Scientists from the University of Sheffield will warn policymakers that the shrinking glaciers of the Andes threaten the water supply of 90 million people on the South American continent at the first-ever World Day for Glaciers hosted by UNESCO in Paris.

Recent studies have shown that carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystems are increasing, mitigating around 30% of the CO2 emissions linked to human activities.

A media storm blew up in mid-March 2025 when a researcher at South Africa's isolated Sanae IV base in Antarctica accused one of its nine team members of becoming violent.

Human use of the marine environment of the Baltic Sea is visible on the seabed and can significantly impact the habitat of many marine species. In a new study, researchers from Kiel University have used high-resolution hydroacoustic methods to investigate the seafloor in the southwestern Baltic Sea for human traces.

A graph I saw in high school appeared to show the Earth breathing. It was a graph that plotted carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st. CO2 had risen steadily, and then more rapidly, but it hadn't gone up in a straight line. Each year it had fallen sharply before rising to a new peak, increasing over time in an upwards zig-zag.

Where California's towering Sierra Nevada surrenders to the sprawling San Joaquin Valley, a high-stakes detective story is unfolding. The culprit isn't a person but a process: the mysterious journey of snowmelt as it travels underground to replenish depleted groundwater reserves.

A new AI weather prediction system, Aardvark Weather, can deliver accurate forecasts tens of times faster and using thousands of times less computing power than current AI and physics-based forecasting systems, according to research published in Nature.

According to a predictive model developed by a CNRS researcher and his European colleagues, the microalgae present in peat bogs could offset up to 14% of future CO2 emissions, thanks to their photosynthetic activity. This conclusion was reached by basing the work on in situ experiments and the various predictive scenarios established by the IPCC.

A team of researchers is making final preparations for a trip to Mount Everest in Nepal next month to explore why the ice of one of the mountain's most iconic glaciers is so close to the melting point.

NPL and MSL in New Zealand successfully detected a multitude of earthquakes in the Pacific Ocean using a pioneering detection technique.

Most of the United States' major climate regulations are underpinned by one important document: It's called the endangerment finding, and it concludes that greenhouse gas emissions are a threat to human health and welfare.

Key agreements in the "Law of the River," which encompasses more than 100 years of regulations, laws, court decisions and more focused on managing the Colorado River, are set to expire next year. First established in 1922 as the Colorado River Compact, the guidelines split water management and allocation among seven states.

The risk of damaging flooding from a major tsunami may be greater than many realized along stretches of California's renowned coastline, state officials say, further reinforcing the need for residents to take note if they live in or visit hazardous areas.

New geological data has given more insight into the rate and magnitude of global sea level rise following the last ice age, about 11,700 years ago. This information is of great importance to understand the impact global warming has had on the ice caps and on sea level rise.

The mantle transition zone (MTZ), which occurs 410–670 kilometers below Earth's surface, may store several oceans' worth of water. This water, which is carried to such depths by subducting tectonic slabs, is stored in minerals like ringwoodite and wadsleyite.

Between 18,000 and 11,000 years ago, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere suddenly shot up. This caused rapid global warming, the mass melting of glaciers, and the end of the last ice age.

Successful test results of a new machine learning (ML) technique developed at Georgia Tech could help communities prepare for extreme weather and coastal flooding. The approach could also be applied to other models that predict how natural systems impact society.

The term greenhouse gas often brings carbon dioxide (CO2) to mind, and rightly so, as it is a key contributor to rising global temperatures. However, a more potent pollutant and greenhouse gas that often gets overlooked is nitrous oxide (N2O). Molecule for molecule, N2O is 300 times stronger than CO2 and is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected.