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On February 8, 2022, approximately 40 of the 49 Starlink satellites were reported to have lost altitude, leading to atmospheric re-entry. SpaceX reported that the orbital decay on Starlink satellites was consi...

Melting ice sheets are often considered synonymous with climate change in the media, with evocative images of lone polar bears floating on ever-shrinking rafts of ice. While impacts such as sea level rise and salinity changes are commonly reported, one lesser-known consequence is the effect on volcanoes.

From the persistent droughts of southern Africa and Central America in the early part of the year to the more recent devastating extreme rainfall in Spain and the deadly Hurricane Helene along America's east coast, 2024 has been a year of climate events that affected the lives of billions of people.

Two of the ten most damaging earthquakes in recorded history happened on January 17th. This year is the thirtieth anniversary of Japan's Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. The Northridge Earthquake in Southern California happened just one year earlier, in 1994. The two events killed 6,400 people, injured 45,000, and left a half million people homeless.

A new study led by scientists in the Schmid College of Science and Technology at Chapman University provides the first comprehensive global estimates of the amount of water stored in Earth's plants and the amount of time it takes for that water to flow through them. The information is a missing piece of the puzzle in understanding the global water cycle and how that cycle is being altered by changes in land use and climate.

A study based on the sampling and analysis of volcanic ash at Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands, located off Africa's northwest coast, suggests that the composition of magma could drive tremors during volcanic eruptions.

Author(s): Vladimir I. Kolobov and Robert R. Arslanbekov

A hybrid kinetic-fluid model is used to study plasma stratification in alternating current (ac) discharges in noble gases at low plasma densities. Self-consistent coupled solutions of a nonlocal kinetic equation for electrons, a drift-diffusion equation of ions, and a Poisson equation for the electr…

[Phys. Rev. E 111, 015203] Published Fri Jan 10, 2025

A study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences has found that ocean warming in 2024 has led to new record high temperatures. The ocean is the hottest it has ever been recorded by humans, not only at the surface temperature but also for the upper 2000 meters.

A series of more than 100 small earthquakes in Surrey in 2018 and 2019 might have been triggered by oil extraction from a nearby well, suggests a new study by UCL researchers.

Nature Geoscience, Published online: 10 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41561-024-01623-x

The SiO2 contents of erupted volcanic melts are correlated with persistent seismic signals that accompany eruptions—volcanic tremor—and may represent an eruption monitoring tool, according to a study of volcanic ash glasses from Cumbre Vieja volcano.

Neal Iverson started with two lessons in ice physics when asked to describe a research paper about glacier ice flow that has just been published in the journal Science.

Dust from open cast mining suffocates surrounding forests and inhibits trees' ability to capture carbon from the atmosphere more than previously thought, according to new research by scientists in India and the UK.

An international team of scientists announced Thursday they've successfully drilled one of the oldest ice cores yet, penetrating nearly 2 miles (2.8 kilometers) to Antarctic bedrock to reach ice they say is at least 1.2 million years old.

Los Angeles is burning, and accelerating hydroclimate whiplash is the key climate connection. After years of severe drought, dozens of atmospheric rivers deluged California with record-breaking precipitation in the winter of 2022–23, burying mountain towns in snow, flooding valleys with rain and snow melt, and setting off hundreds of landslides.

Abstract

In order to further improve the convergence rate and positioning accuracy of multi-frequency multi-system precise point positioning (PPP), an open-sourced software for fractional cycle bias (FCB) estimation (M_FCB) was produced based on MATLAB 2016a for GPS, BDS-2, Galileo, and BDS-3 satellite users. Based on raw frequency float ambiguity, the software can estimate ultra-wide-lane, wide-lane, narrow-lane combined FCB and raw frequency FCB. To validate the usability of the M_FCB software, 180 and 24 globally uniformly distributed multi-GNSS experiment stations were used to perform FCB estimation and triple-frequency uncombined PPP ambiguity resolution performance evaluation. The results show that the M_FCB software can generate stable and reliable FCB products. Particularly, Galileo satellites presented the best FCB stability. In addition, taking GPS/Galileo/BDS-2/BDS-3 fusion positioning as an example, the kinematic PPP after ambiguity resolution was significantly improved in terms of three-dimensional coordinate accuracy and positioning stability. Relative to the float solution, the average root mean square of the fixed-solution coordinate residuals in the east, north and vertical directions decreased by 30.3%, 12.5% and 16.0%, respectively.

Nature Geoscience, Published online: 09 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41561-024-01618-8

This study examines the influence of agricultural irrigation on heat stress and contrasts it against local impacts of urbanization in North American cities using regional climate model simulations. The results indicate that irrigation decreases air temperature and increases relative humidity, with daytime urban moist heat stress reduced according to most indices.

Nature Geoscience, Published online: 09 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41561-024-01613-z

Convection-permitting regional climate simulations suggest that irrigation reduces daytime urban heat stress in North America.

Abstract

In this paper, we studied the impact of solar activity, especially proton density, He++/H+ ratio and temperature of solar wind, on the geomagnetic field and thereby on earth’s climate. The verified data of these indices are collected from the official websites: wdc.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp and www.srl.caltech.edu/ace. Using the data values, both the indices are analyzed and studied to explore the link between solar activity and geomagnetic field. The magnetic field is irregular with negative and positive peaks and at the same time it shows the uniformity with the irregularities of solar wind plasma parameters. It has been observed that solar wind plasma has a significant influence on the intensity of magnetic field of earth and this correlation can be used for weather forecasts and climatic studies in the future.

Abstract

This study investigates the vertical electron content (VTEC) variations and depletions using two years of Global Positioning System (GPS), Total Electron Content (TEC) data from 2012 and 2013. The data, gathered at altitudes between 5° and 15° and longitudes between 34° and 48°, was specifically focused on quiet days and analyzed from nine GPS stations. Employing a spherical model and standard kriging interpolation techniques, the research explored hourly, diurnal, and seasonal fluctuations of VTEC over the two-year period. The spherical model demonstrated high efficacy in estimating data with short lag distances, effectively capturing hourly and daily VTEC fluctuations. Diurnal VTEC variations showed a consistent pattern: increasing from dawn, peaking at 1200 UT, and declining to a minimum after 1800 UT. The peak in diurnal variation was most pronounced at Debark, with similar patterns observed at other stations, reflecting consistent ionospheric behaviors due to geomagnetic conjugcy. A strong correlation was observed between the alignment of the solar terminator and magnetic meridian during equinox seasons and VTEC variation and depletion, with the most significant effects during equinoctial seasons. The study identified a distinct north-south gradient in VTEC within the region, with levels exceeding 65 TECU in the north and around 40 TECU in the south, depending on ionospheric conditions. Nighttime VTEC levels typically decreased to approximately 5 TECU. The spatial distribution analysis of TEC revealed a pronounced maximum concentration in the northeastern sector, contrasting with a minimal concentration in the southwestern sector. This research provides valuable insights into the spatial and temporal behaviors of VTEC, enhancing our understanding of ionospheric dynamics within the specified region.