In recent years, the Prairies have seen bigger swings in climate conditions—very wet years followed by very dry ones. That makes an already unpredictable landscape even harder to forecast, with real consequences for flood preparedness and water quality.
Wild animals are not just inhabitants of the natural world. Many also act as natural landscape engineers, reshaping Earth's surface as they burrow, feed, and build shelters that move soil and sediment across ecosystems. From animals disturbing riverbeds to burrowing species redistributing soil, wildlife constantly modifies the physical structure of landscapes through everyday activities.
Earth has already exceeded its ability to support the global population sustainably, with new research warning of increasing pressure on food security, climate stability, and human well-being. However, slowing population growth and raising global awareness could still offer humanity some hope.
Volcanoes are both captivating and disastrous. Most are likely familiar with the common short-term dangers associated with them: explosive forces, lava, and even atmospheric particles disrupting air traffic. But researchers also explore longer-term impacts of eruptions, as their contributions to broader climate patterns are important, but not well understood. For example, it's known that ejected material can reach high into the atmosphere and cause local or even global cooling to some degree.
Experiments by University of Leeds researchers, published in Earth's Future, have shown that thawing of permafrost makes it between 25 and 100 times more permeable, allowing more climate change forcing gases to escape.
Some Arctic regions regain their "greenness" within a decade of a sudden permafrost collapse, while others can take a century or more to recover, researchers report in a new study. The difference is directly related to each site's gross primary productivity, a measure of its photosynthetic capacity, the researchers discovered. This finding will allow scientists to accurately predict how long it will take a specific site to recover after a permafrost collapse.
SummaryThe Orientale Basin is the youngest and best-preserved multi-ring impact basin on the Moon. It is approximately 930 km in diameter and comprises three concentric rings—the Cordillera, Inner Rook, and Outer Rook rings. We used Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission gravity data (GRGM1200B, truncated to degree 660) to invert the three-dimensional (3D) density structure associated with the basin’s mascon and ring-related crustal anomalies. To separate longer and shorter-wavelength signals, we performed inversions using (1) spherical harmonic degrees 2–660 to characterise the basin’s deep structure and (2) degrees 60–660 to highlight crustal-scale heterogeneity. The inversion with degree and order of 2–660 resolves a basin-wide central positive density anomaly beneath the inner depression, extending from a depth of ∼16–80 km, corresponding to uplifted mantle. This anomaly persists below the crust–mantle boundary; however, its deep continuation should be interpreted cautiously because it may partially reflect vertical smearing in the gravity inversion. Nonetheless, the spatial association of this anomaly with a mascon rooted in the upper mantle is compatible with impact-driven uplift of dense material from depth, followed by post-impact thermal evolution and relaxation processes. The inversion with degree and order of 60–660 indicates alternating positive and negative density anomalies associated with the ring system. Prominent ring-parallel positive anomalies occur along the Outer Rook Ring and Cordillera Ring, extending to ∼30–35 km depth and exhibiting a density contrast of ∼60–200 kg/m3. The geometry and lateral continuity of these anomalies across multiple rings support an interpretation of ring-controlled crustal heterogeneity, consistent with either intrusion and structurally focused modification along ring-related discontinuities or impact-generated fracturing that provided pathways for magma ascent. The results of this study provide quantitative constraints on the depth, magnitude, and spatial distribution of density anomalies associated with the Orientale mascon and ring system, thereby improving the subsurface framework for regional geological interpretation and supporting future lunar landing-site geophysical investigations and in situ sampling. Based on the inferred crustal density architecture, we propose that future geophysical sampling efforts should prioritise the Outer Rook Ring and Cordillera Ring, where the observed ring-parallel anomalies may provide insights into crustal modification processes and the composition of the lunar interior.
Publication date: Available online 19 March 2026
Source: Advances in Space Research
Author(s): S.N. Ponomarchuk, N.A. Zolotukhina, V.I. Kurkin
Publication date: Available online 19 March 2026
Source: Advances in Space Research
Author(s): Jin-Cherng Hsu, Wei-Yu Chen, Chih-Hsuan Shih, Guo-Yu Yu, Yung-Shin Sun, Hsing-Yu Wu
Publication date: Available online 19 March 2026
Source: Advances in Space Research
Author(s): Yewen Yin, Zhenwei Li, Chengzhi Liu, Zhe Kang, Jiannan Sun, Haiwen Xie, Wenbo Yang
Publication date: Available online 19 March 2026
Source: Advances in Space Research
Author(s): Tiantian Qing, Hao Zhou, Ming Li, Le Suo, Zhu Zhu, Mingyang Xia, Yaozong Li, Lijun Zheng, Shuyun Zheng, Siyou Xu, Zhicai Luo
Publication date: Available online 18 March 2026
Source: Advances in Space Research
Author(s): Tian-Ren Liu, Ying-Ji Yuan, Ming-Jiang Zhang, Jian-Ning Xiong
Publication date: Available online 18 March 2026
Source: Advances in Space Research
Author(s): Josef Řezníček, Vratislav Bednařík, Štěpán Vinter, Jaroslav Filip, Ivo Kuřitka, Pavol Šuly, Ondřej Krejčí
Publication date: Available online 18 March 2026
Source: Advances in Space Research
Author(s): F.O. GRODJI, H.F.M. YAO, P.O. AMAECHI, C. AMORY-MAZAUDIER, V. DOUMBIA, N. KOUASSI, A.A. KASSAMBA, Z. TUO
In recent years, residents of Spain, France and the UK have looked up to see an eerie sight: deep orange sunrises and skies thick with a yellowish haze. These hazy skies often deposit "blood rain," rust-colored precipitation that leaves a fine grit on cars and windows.
Both winds and tides inject energy into the ocean. Much of that energy is then transported up to thousands of miles by internal waves: large-scale underwater waves that can travel between ocean basins. Quantifying the amount of energy transported by internal waves and assessing their dynamics are difficult given their location and scale. Still, the question is important because internal wave dynamics interact with the global climate and underwater ecosystems by influencing currents, ocean mixing, and more.
Offshore wind farms are an important pillar of the European Union's strategy for renewable energy—by 2050, the EU aims to increase capacity in the North Sea more than tenfold. A new study by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon shows that the expansion of wind farms can alter the natural transport and deposition of sediments on a large scale and over the long term. The German Bight is particularly affected. The researchers have published their findings in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment.
Sea ice is sticking to Alaska's northern coast for less time each year, according to 27 years of data analyzed by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists. Such landfast ice, which stays attached to the shoreline instead of drifting with winds and currents, also has covered less total area in recent winters.
A new Stanford University study has helped solve a mystery about dramatic swings in sea ice extent around Antarctica.
SummaryWe studied ionospheric changes associated with the 2025 March 28 Myanmar earthquake (Mw7.7) using global navigation satellite system receivers to measure ionospheric electrons, as a part of the project to predict earthquake precursors. The total electron contents above the fault changed their trends ~36 minutes before the earthquake, with the positive anomaly reaching ~1 per cent of the background. These quantities fit well with the past ~20 cases despite relatively large day-to-day variability due to high geomagnetic activities. The positive anomaly was sandwiched by two negative anomalies to the north and the south, suggesting within-ionosphere electron transportation along geomagnetic fields possibly driven by surface positive electric charges released from the fault.
