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Official flood maps shape disaster preparedness, insurance decisions and urban planning, but large parts of the United States remain unmapped or under-mapped. This means some communities may be left unaware of the risks they face, limiting their ability to prepare for future floods.

A new analysis of ice cores collected from the Andes in Peru has produced the first global record of historical tropical methane, filling a critical gap in our understanding of the origins of Earth's greenhouse gases.

Between 2021 and 2023, Antarctica appeared to be growing. Heavy snowfall fueled by wetter weather caused parts of the continent to gain mass, leading some to question whether climate change is really causing the ice to melt. However, a new study shows that the precipitation increase was an anomaly related to extra-warm tropical ocean temperatures, not part of a long-term trend.

Editors’ Vox is a blog from AGU’s Publications Department.

Every lightning flash has one defining moment: the return stroke, an intense surge of electric current that rockets upward along the ionized channel at a sizable fraction of the speed of light, unleashing the blinding flash, the crack of thunder, and the burst of radio energy that detection networks use to pinpoint strikes worldwide. Despite decades of study, a full, self-consistent explanation for why this current takes the shape it does — its rapid rise, its slower decay, its weakening and spreading as it climbs — has remained elusive.

In a new article published in Reviews of Geophysics, Caitano da Silva and colleagues at New Mexico Tech show that the Telegrapher’s Equations, a compact framework describing how electrical signals propagate along any conductor, can be adapted into a physically transparent model that derives all of these features from first principles — and reconciles them with decades of field and laboratory measurements. Here, the authors answer a few questions about their work.

In simple terms, what is the “lightning return stroke current”?

When a downward-moving leader from a thundercloud gets close enough to the ground, a channel of ionized air connects cloud to ground. At that instant, a powerful surge of electric current — the return stroke — rushes upward along this newly formed conducting path at a sizable fraction of the speed of light, carrying tens of thousands of amperes. This surge is what produces the visible flash, heats the air explosively to create thunder, and radiates the burst of radio waves that lightning detection networks use to pinpoint strikes. It’s the most energetic and consequential part of a lightning flash, even though it typically lasts only tens of microseconds.

Why are return strokes important to study?

The return stroke current is responsible for most of lightning’s real-world impacts. It causes billions of dollars in damage annually to power transmission lines and communication infrastructure, and it’s a leading ignition source for wildfires. It is also the atmosphere’s main natural source of nitrogen oxides, which influence atmospheric chemistry on regional and global scales. On top of that, the radio pulse the return stroke emits is exactly what national and global lightning-detection networks measure to locate strikes, supporting both hazard mitigation and weather forecasting. Understanding the physics that shapes this current — its peak strength, its speed, and how quickly it weakens — is therefore essential for protecting infrastructure and for interpreting the remote-sensing data scientists rely on.

What are the main types of models scientists use to simulate the return stroke?

Researchers have taken a few different approaches. “Gas-dynamic” models solve the detailed physics of how the current heats and expands the channel of air, which is useful for calculating channel temperature and chemical byproducts, but they need the current as an input rather than predicting it. To calculate the current and resulting electromagnetic fields directly, three families of models exist: “engineering models,” which simply assume a plausible mathematical shape for the current and how it weakens with height; “antenna-theory models,” which apply full numerical electromagnetics; and “distributed-circuit models,” which treat the lightning channel as an electrical transmission line. This last approach, governed by the Telegrapher’s Equations, is the focus of this review.

What are the Telegrapher’s Equations, and what can they tell us about return strokes?

The Telegrapher’s Equations describe how current and voltage evolve along any conductor with distributed resistance, inductance, and capacitance — they are widely used to model how signals travel in power transmission cables. We model the lightning channel as two concentric cylinders: a thin core that carries the current and a wider sheath that stores the associated charge. Solved this way, the equations self-consistently explain the current’s signature shape at ground level — a fast rise, set by how quickly the leader tips connect and thermalize, followed by a slower decay, governed by the channel’s electrical resistance. We also explain why the current wave travels at a fraction of light speed, why it weakens as it climbs, and why the current pulse disperses over distance — all derived from a handful of physical parameters rather than assumed curve shapes.

(a) Photograph of a lightning return stroke. (b-c) Schematic representation of the return stroke as a charge-neutralization wave. (d) Numerical discretization of the problem. Credit: da Silva et al. [2026], Figure 1

What are the benefits and limitations of this approach compared to other techniques?

Its biggest strength is speed paired with insight: the model runs orders of magnitude faster than full electromagnetic or gas-dynamic simulations, yet still yields exact analytical solutions in several limiting cases and explains why the empirical “engineering models” long used in industry take the mathematical forms they do. That transparency has made it a teaching tool in its own right — the model anchors how the return stroke is taught in the “Physics of Lightning” graduate course at New Mexico Tech, letting students derive lightning’s key features from first principles rather than take them on faith. Its main limitation is a simplifying assumption baked into the mathematics: it treats the electromagnetic fields as purely transverse to the channel, which breaks down for real, tortuous, branching channels. The model also simplifies the charge-storing corona sheath and requires care at the channel’s upper boundary to avoid artificial wave reflections.

What remaining questions or knowledge gaps need more research?

Two open questions stand out. The first is how to extend this framework — built around a single, straight channel — to capture the full complexity of a real lightning flash: its three-dimensional, branching geometry, and the sequence of multiple return strokes and other subprocesses, such as M-components and continuing currents, that typically follow the first stroke down the same channel.

The second is how to properly incorporate corona sheath dynamics into the Telegrapher’s Equations themselves. The present model treats the sheath’s charge as spreading out instantaneously over a fixed radius, but in reality, the sheath expands and charges on a finite timescale, and self-consistently coupling that behavior to the equations remains unresolved. Solving both problems — geometric realism and sheath physics — would sharpen predictions of lightning’s electromagnetic fields and its hazards to infrastructure, wildfires, and atmospheric chemistry.

—Caitano da Silva (caitano.dasilva@nmt.edu, 0000-0003-3728-3035), New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, United States; Logan Baeza, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, United States; Jacob Wemhoner (0000-0002-8917-3009), New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, United States; and Saulo Orizaga (0009-0000-9635-8100), New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, United States

Editor’s Note: It is the policy of AGU Publications to invite the authors of articles published in Reviews of Geophysics to write a summary for Eos Editors’ Vox.

Citation: da Silva, C., L. Baeza, J. Wemhoner, and S. Orizaga (2026), Decoding the origins of lightning’s violent currents, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO265031. Published on 19 August 2026. This article does not represent the opinion of AGU, Eos, or any of its affiliates. It is solely the opinion of the author(s). Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Source: AGU Advances

This is an authorized translation of an Eos article. 本文是Eos文章的授权翻译。

北极地区冻土覆盖的山坡上会呈现出一系列几何纹理，从圆形、条纹到多边形图案，不一而足。此外，还存在冻融泥流（solifluction）形态，即部分融化的永久冻土沿坡下滑时留下的痕迹。这些冻融泥流形态看起来像是平坦的梯田状土壤，如同一个巨大的阶梯，与梯田底部圆形的土壤块状物组合在一起。

随着气候变化加剧冻土融化的速度，了解这些图案的形成方式对于预测和修复北极地区不稳定的坡面至关重要。同时，这也有助于研究火星过去的气候状况，因为科学家已经在火星表面发现了类似的地形。然而，冻融泥流形态的形成机制一直难以解释。在一项新的研究中，Glade等人利用数学和物理模型以及遥感技术，解释了冻融泥流地形的形成机制。

冰冻土壤的移动速度非常缓慢，每年仅移动几毫米到几厘米，其行为也十分复杂，有时像流体，有时又像固体。这种复杂性源于水分和温度的季节性变化，以及土壤本身的固有物理规律。

研究人员排除了其他常见的流体类比物，例如墙上的油漆滴落、熔岩褶皱中的屈曲不稳定性以及滚动波。研究人员回顾了土壤学文献，运行了基于物理过程的计算机模型，对梯田与叶状结构的形成进行了模拟，并对不同流体行为进行了数学建模。

最终，他们找到了一个合适的类比物：在一种名为“Oobleck”的非牛顿流体中形成的波浪。Oobleck是一种由玉米淀粉和水混合而成的非牛顿流体，在不同应力下，其速度会发生变化，而且与直觉相反，施加的压力越大，它就越难被推动。

由于Oobleck具有独特的物理性质，它常被用于教学实验，且与研究人员在自然界观测到的冻土地貌特征高度吻合。土壤湿度的差异可能导致土壤流速不同，从而形成空间上不均匀的土壤堆积，最终在泥流过程再次开始之前坍塌。

研究人员指出，目前这一模型仍有其局限性。Oobleck反映的仅仅是流变特性，也就是所研究土壤（或流体）的物质构成。现实世界中的冻土，远比玉米淀粉和水的简单混合物要复杂得多。

除此之外，地形和植被等因素也会影响其形态，而不仅仅是物质组成。土壤堆积的前提是必须存在一个隆起结构，同时还需要足够的土壤湿度来积累冰层。

研究人员希望在实地验证他们的模型，但由于这些地貌特征的形成需要数百年甚至更长时间，直接观察其演变过程极为困难，但也并非不可能，他们决心尝试。(AGU Advances, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026AV002392, 2026)

—科学撰稿人Rebecca Dzombak

Text © 2026. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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Volcanoes emit smoke. Beneath a volcano lies a huge chamber filled with liquid magma. A series of earthquakes means an eruption is imminent. And if a "supervolcano" like Yellowstone were to awaken, a global catastrophe would be upon us. These are images and ideas that regularly crop up in news reports, documentaries and on social media.

Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface

Many exciting topics in geomorphology revolve around boundaries. The boundaries between hillslopes and river channels may seem obvious in an active landscape, but are far from trivial to detect objectively from digital elevation data. A pragmatic and routine solution is to use a fixed contributing catchment area to separate hillslopes from channels. The resulting geometry of the channel network then allows estimates of local steepness as a key metric of how rivers incise in response to rock uplift, and more generally, how landscapes respond to tectonic drivers. Yet, these estimates ultimately hinge on the choice of where channels begin.

Fox et al. [2026] explore how this choice matters: they showcase a numerical model of hillslope and channel evolution that predicts that the boundary between the two domains systematically shifts with varying rates of rock uplift. According to the model, more rapid uplift tends to lengthen hillslopes such that they can extend well beyond the arbitrary minimum catchment area used to characterize channels exclusively. The effect is that hillslope geometry contaminates estimates of channel steepness, and thus any inference about how river incision responds to changes in rock uplift. What is commonly reported as “channel steepness” as a metric of river form and adjustment might indeed carry an undesired contribution of hillslopes and their processes such as soil creep or debris flow. Clearly it is time to acknowledge a more flexible perspective of where channels begin, especially if using their geometry in models of landscape evolution.

Citation: Fox, M., Goren, L., & Adams, B. A. (2026). Non-linear hillslopes produce apparent non-linear river erosion models. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 131, e2025JF008753. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JF008753   

—Oliver Korup, Associate Editor, JGR: Earth Surface

Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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Source: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES)

Photovoltaic technology, most commonly seen as the bulky solar panels used on solar farms, is expected to become a dominant energy source by 2050. But these panels are often installed on land that might otherwise be used to grow crops for feeding a burgeoning population.

Agrivoltaics aims to solve this problem by planting crops around or underneath rows of solar panels, allowing for more efficient land use. In previous studies, solar panels were shown to help shade and protect certain crops as well as increase soil moisture, suggesting that carefully designed systems could support both agriculture and clean energy production.

Existing agrivoltaic research, however, tends to focus on one aspect of this process at a time—for example, light availability or crop growth—rather than addressing the nuanced interactions between microclimates, crop type, light, and panel type. Hosseini et al. share a new model that can simulate the microclimates beneath solar panels and even addresses the heat stress that workers might face in actual conditions.

The new model simulates the interactions between solar panels, crops, soil, air and water movement, and carbon dioxide uptake by tracking how energy, momentum, and mass move through the agrivoltaic system. The researchers used agrivoltaic site data, including leaf temperature measurements taken in Davis, Calif., and soil temperatures taken in Chicago City, Minn., to assess how the model’s efforts matched real-world conditions.

They then applied the model to a hypothetical agrivoltaic tomato farm using weather data from a hot, humid day in Princeton, N.J., a representative location for the densely populated mid-Atlantic region, where food and energy are both in high demand.

Compared to tomatoes grown in an open field, tomatoes grown under solar panels experienced leaf temperatures that were 1.84°C cooler during the day overall and up to 7.56°C cooler during peak afternoon heat, reducing water loss through evapotranspiration by 22.4%. Even though the simulated crops received 47% less sunlight, their carbon uptake declined by only 31%, suggesting that more temperate conditions lowered heat stress and partially offset the effects of increased shade.

The solar panels themselves were also 5.6°C cooler during the daytime than panels in bare soil, allowing them to recover about 15% of the efficiency that is lost during hotter temperatures. The average perceived temperatures for humans decreased by 4.46°C during working hours, implying important occupational health and safety benefits for farmworkers. The researchers suggest this model can be used to examine the benefits of agrivoltaic farms as well as other climate and crop combinations. (Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES), https://doi.org/10.1029/2025MS005588, 2026)

—Rebecca Owen (@beccapox.bsky.social), Science Writer

Citation: Owen, R. (2026), Solar panels can cool crops—and workers, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260241. Published on 19 August 2026. Text © 2026. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

The external review of the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park landslide is extremely critical of the local authority in their approach to the management of the well-documented landslide hazard and risk at the site.

The external review commissioned by Tauranga City Council (TCC) into the 22 January 2026 Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park landslide released its report today. It has been extensively covered in the New Zealand media. The conclusions are quite devastating for TCC, but are also likely to have wider implications for the management of risk from natural hazards across New Zealand.

The 22 January 2026 landslide at Mount Maunganui in New Zealand. Image from the TCC external review.

It is important to remember the terms of reference of this external review, which was undertaken by Hon. Paul Davison KSO KC:

“the external review examines the facts, timeline and decision-making processes leading up to the landslide, the adequacy of risk assessments and monitoring systems, and any lessons or improvements needed to strengthen future safety. The external review is separate from the Government Inquiry and the investigations currently being undertaken by the Coroner, Police and WorkSafe.”

So this review does not look at the initiation of the landslide – that will come in due course – it is really about the management of the risk. The conclusions are summarised in this section of the report (p. 204):-

What this Review does find is that this tragedy was, in the end, preventable. I do not mean by that that anyone could have known that this slope would fail at this moment, on this particular morning — no one could. I mean something more deeply troubling: that the hazard was known, that an effective and inexpensive means of managing the risk it posed had twice been recommended, and that the Council had every opportunity to put it in place. Had it done so, the most consequential decision of 22 January — whether to move people away from the foot of the slope — would not have been left to the unaided judgement of whoever happened to be on site that morning. It would have been made in advance, against defined criteria that the readily observable conditions of that day would plainly have met. What was required was not extraordinary foresight. It was the robust operational processes and discipline required of a well-run organisation: that a known risk to life be owned by someone, recorded, escalated, and followed through until an effective means of mitigating it was in place, and that those left in charge of the campground were equipped to recognise the danger, and ready to act quickly and effectively if ever required.

The report highlights that multiple studies showed that the risk to life at the campsite was unacceptably high – indeed, by some calculations the impact of this event was lower than had been feared. This is primarily because individuals at the site recognised that the risk was high and started to raise the alarm. If the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park landslide had occurred in the early hours of the morning the toll would probably have been higher.

There is little in this report with which I disagree, and the consequences for TCC are likely to be serious. I’m unsure as to the detail of the New Zealand judicial system, but in the UK this report would open the path to both civil and criminal court action, with the latter potentially occurring at both the institutional and individual level.

If there is one thing that worries me, it is that the the report does not fully recognise that early warning systems and evacuation plans are not a magic bullet. There is strong evidence from multiple settings that they can be dogged by uncertainty, equipment failures, false alarms and a lack of willingness from individuals to respond in the way that is planned.

But that is not an excuse for failing to have such a system in place.

Apart from the direct impact on TCC and its members, this report is likely to have profound implications for landslide risk management in New Zealand. Take this recommendation for example:

“For every populated site controlled by TCC, exposed to a natural-hazard risk to life assessed as Medium or higher, TCC should require — not merely consider — the development and maintenance of a Trigger Action Response Plan. The TARP should: be capable of immediate implementation in a simple initial form (for example, staged evacuation of defined runout zones when rainfall exceeds a defined return interval threshold over a defined duration), and be refined over time as a living document; link specific, observable or measurable triggers — defined rainfall thresholds, antecedent soil-moisture, and visible signs such as turbid water from the toe of a slope, tension cracking, bulging or changes in seepage — to specific, staged actions up to and including full evacuation; empower designated site personnel to act on a trigger immediately, without needing approval from someone higher in the TCC organisation; identify who holds each responsibility and the communication and escalation protocol; and recognise that evacuation/avoidance is a higher-order control than engineered consequence-reduction.”

Whilst this recommendation is TCC specific, it is inevitably going to have implications across all local authorities in New Zealand. The country inevitably has many, many sites in which “natural-hazard risk to life” is medium or above. This recommendation is going to require a very extensive revisit of risk management at those locations. In a country with a small population and a very large, hazard-prone landmass, that is going impose a major burden.

It is worth noting that TCC has “today accepted the findings and recommendations from the external review into the landslide at Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park on 22 January 2026”.

The reverberations of the tragic Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park landslideare going to continue for a long time.

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Large earthquakes can dramatically reshape mountain landscapes by triggering thousands of landslides and rapidly accelerating erosion. However, the reasons why some mountain regions experience intense, long-lasting erosion after large earthquakes while others show only limited responses have been poorly understood.

SummaryThe Alpine-Himalayan orogen preserves geological remnants of subducted lithosphere from the Paleotethys and Neotethys oceans and intervening microcontinents. This orogenic belt displays distinct segments separated by discontinuities aligned with paleo-transform faults, reflecting laterally varying ocean opening and closure histories. We investigate how upper and lower mantle slab remnants imaged by seismic tomography may correlate with Paleo- and Neotethyan subduction zones, focusing on the Anatolian, Aegean, and Iranian segments. Using plate tectonic reconstructions in a mantle reference frame, we predict slab subduction timing, amount, and location and make a semi-quantitative dimensional comparison with seismic tomographic images beneath the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. We identify three major Neotethyan slabs: the Pontides and Egypt slabs detached in the Late Cretaceous and now occupy the upper lower mantle. The Cyprus slab remains mainly in the upper mantle in which it overturns. To account for subducted lithosphere that reconstructions predict, we interpret that the Cyprus slab lies overturned in the lower mantle down to ∼1000 km. We interpret a large lower mantle anomaly volume between 2200-1500 km (the Herodotus anomaly) as representing Paleotethyan lithosphere that subducted between ∼240-180 Ma. Our reconstruction-tomography comparison suggests that current slab positions likely reflect past detachment locations, while geometries indicate paleo-trench absolute motions, including a Late Cretaceous same-dip, double subduction configuration. Slabs associated with Aegean, Anatolian, Iranian, and Tibetan segments define stable mantle provinces with boundaries aligned with transform-related orogenic segmentation, implying minimal paleo-longitudinal mantle flow since the Early Mesozoic. Our findings indicate upper and lower mantle structure primarily results from near-vertical slab sinking after detachment since the Triassic, without evidence for deflection by lateral components of mantle convection.

SummaryAs the demand for European domestic mineral resources increases, exploration is increasingly focused on deeper and covered targets, often located in populated regions. In such environments, the application of electromagnetic (EM) techniques is severely challenged by anthropogenic infrastructure. Metal-bearing structures, including power lines, pipelines, railway tracks, and mine shafts, can strongly distort the EM fields, producing significant artefacts in both the measured data and the resulting inversion models, thereby biasing or hindering geological interpretation. These effects currently limit EM investigations in inhabited areas, despite their potential for non-invasive and efficient exploration of challenging subsurface targets. Focusing on semi-airborne electromagnetic (sAEM) data, we develop a data-driven approach to address infrastructure-related effects. By inverting affected data for the distribution of infrastructure currents, we account for the full coupling between the EM transmitter, the conducting Earth, and the metal infrastructure. In sAEM field experiments, involving a grounded dipole transmitter and an airborne receiver system, we study the distortion by self-built infrastructure and investigate both measured currents in infrastructure as well as its EM coupling. We validate the functionality of our current inversion approach by reproducing the measured currents in a simplified 1D scenario. With a synthetic 3D study, mimicking a sAEM campaign in the presence of infrastructure, we find that the current inversion approach is capable of separating and correcting for infrastructure effects even if the true resistivity distribution of the subsurface is unknown. In particular, other conductive subsurface structures can be resolved well, even directly below infrastructure. On a small sAEM field data example, affected by the impact of a metal-built conveyor belt and pipeline, we demonstrate the applicability of this framework for real-world scenarios.

SummaryPermeability is a critical parameter for reservoir characterization and hydrocarbon development, yet its accurate prediction remains a challenge. Pore structure, as the intrinsic factor governing both the elastic and hydraulic transport properties of rocks, serves as a bridge between these properties and facilitates permeability prediction from well logs and seismic data. To accurately describe the variation in the physical properties of tight sandstone reservoirs with pressure, our study aims to construct a physical model that relates rock elastic properties with permeability. We developed a dual-porosity rock physics model by coupling David & Zimmerman’s pore-structure inversion method with Dienes’s percolation theory. Our model divides the pore space into pressure-insensitive stiff pores and pressure-sensitive compliant microcracks. By inverting the microcrack density and aspect ratio distribution-which evolve with pressure-from elastic wave velocities, we quantitatively predict permeability variations using Dienes statistical percolation model. To validate this model, we measured porosity, permeability, and P- and S-wave velocities on four tight sandstone samples under effective pressures of 5 to 50 MPa. The results show that the proposed model accurately captures the evolution of both elastic parameters and permeability with effective pressure, demonstrating strong predictive capability for the experimental data. The significance of this study lies in achieving a quantitative relation between elastic and transport properties by explicitly characterizing the pore structure and integrating percolation theory, which is then calibrated with real experiment data, thereby providing solid physical basis for better prediction of reservoir permeability using acoustic logs and seismic data.

Scientists have found evidence that a colossal cliff stretching thousands of kilometers across ancient North America may have exposed the heart of the Grand Canyon nearly a billion years before it was carved by the Colorado River.

For all that day-to-day weather forecasts have improved, it remains a challenge to forecast events that might happen once in 1,000 years—like the deadliest heat waves.

The Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine was destroyed on June 6, 2023. The event unleashed a catastrophic flood that forced thousands of residents to evacuate their communities as water levels rose 10 feet (3 meters) above normal.

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The Arctic Report Card, an annual, peer-reviewed evaluation of the state of our warming Arctic, will still be published this year despite a lack of financial or logistical support from NOAA. 

On 10 August, editors of the Arctic Report Card were informed that NOAA will no longer support its publication, meaning the agency will not provide the report with coordinating editors, coordinate its external peer review, or fund the report’s web presence, publicity, graphics, or summary video. 

After a meeting of non-NOAA editors and chapter authors, however, the Arctic Report Card team has decided to move forward with publishing the 2026 report. Many of the report’s authors had been well into their work on their chapters when they learned that NOAA would no longer support that work.

“While many of the details are not final, we will be producing an ARC sans NOAA this year,” Rick Thoman, an Arctic scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and an editor of the 2026 report, wrote in a message to Eos. Thoman said the team is not yet sharing which organization will host the 2026 Arctic Report Card, but that there has been a “tremendous outpouring of support for the Arctic Report Card, from individuals to large organizations.”

 
Related

•  Government Pulls Funding for the Arctic Report Card
•  Amid the Arctic’s Hottest Year, Arctic Science Faces a Data Deficiency
•  Get Involved: AGU Science Policy Action Center
 

He said the team plans to move forward with the original plan to present the report’s findings in a press conference at the 2026 AGU Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Calif. this December. Thoman also said the group of editors and authors is “pursuing multiple avenues” to produce the report’s graphics and summary video, and that they are planning to establish a non-NOAA website to serve as a long-term home for the Arctic Report Card in future years. 

“A lot of what we’re doing right now is, ‘How do we get this year’s report card out?’” he said. “But we are looking at the longer term, [also].”

The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), part of the Arctic Council (an international Arctic policy and research collaboration), previously found reviewers and carried out the review process for the report. According to Thoman, AMAP has committed to providing that service for the 2026 report card. 

Science for Stakeholders

Having support from NOAA gave the report a heightened credibility for stakeholders, said Walter Meier, a sea ice scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and a longtime author of the report’s sea ice chapter. “NOAA has had a strong reputation for providing high quality data, high quality observations, analysis, and research,” he said. “When you have that NOAA stamp of approval, people trust in that.” 

“I’m confident that the science will be of the same high quality.”

Still, he said not much would change about the scientific content of the report once it is hosted by a new organization. “I’m confident that the science will be of the same high quality,” he said. “I don’t feel there will be any loss [of quality], which is really the most important part.”

The report being outside of NOAA’s purview also “allows much more flexibility in language,” for the authors, Thoman said. He added that creating an Arctic Report Card without NOAA may allow the report to be more internationally focused than it has been previously.

—Grace van Deelen (@gvd.bsky.social), Staff Writer

These updates are made possible through information from the scientific community. Do you have a story about how changes in law or policy are affecting scientists or research? Send us a tip at eos@agu.org. Text © 2026. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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Growing up in New Jersey, Emily Wilson regularly passed tidal marshes without giving them much thought. They were part of the coastal landscape—stretches of green and blue she saw from the road.

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The U.S. Forest Service has moved forward with a rule to withdraw protections from 45 million acres of pristine national forests by rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) first announced its intent to rescind the Roadless Rule in June 2025 and it has now taken the next step to do so.

In today’s announcement, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins claimed that the Roadless Rule increases wildfire risk by preventing land managers from maintaining national forests.

“For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk to our communities,” Rollins said in a statement. “Today, we filed a proposal to restore authority to local forest managers who know the land best, removing the barriers that have kept them from doing the work the land demands. It’s time to turn the page on the failed roadless rule and return our forests to health and productivity.”

However, this justification is not backed up by data. Research has shown that nearly 85% of wildland fires begin with human activity, either accidentally or deliberately. What’s more, human-caused fires are much more destructive than naturally-caused fires from, for example, lighting strikes. Building roads would bring more people into former wildlands, thereby increasing wildfire risk despite the increased access for maintenance, several forest experts told the New York Times.

The Trump Administration “is trying to walk away from the most successful land conservation policy in modern U.S. history.”

“The truth is that roadless forests are our greatest defense against wildfire,” David Jenkins, president of the nonprofit Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship, said in a media statement. “Not only are old growth forests naturally resistant to fire, but 90% of all wildfires in the U.S. occur within a half mile of a road. Any claims to the contrary are demonstrably false.”

Most of the inventoried roadless areas are in western states, with more than 95% located in Alaska, Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. However, the proposed rule does not apply to Colorado and Idaho, which have state-specific roadless regulations.

Some suspect that the administration’s true intent is not to reduce wildfire risk but to drastically increase logging production.

“The Trump administration is moving to gut our most iconic national forests by giving loggers and drillers free rein to turn them into industrial wastelands. It is trying to walk away from the most successful land conservation policy in modern U.S. history,” Andrew Wetzler, senior vice president for nature at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.

Jenkins added, “This is one of the most boneheaded and fiscally irresponsible actions this administration could take. The agency doesn’t have the budget to take care of the 368,000 miles of roads already riddling our national forests. In fact, there is currently a $10.8 billion maintenance backlog.”

 
Related

•  Trump Administration Moves to Allow Logging in Pristine National Forests
•  Read the Forest Service’s Proposal
•  Context from Eos: USDA Moves to Rescind Roadless Rule Protecting 45 Million Acres of Wild Area
•  Get Involved: AGU Science Policy Action Center
 

The Roadless Rule was enacted by the Clinton administration in 2001 to prevent logging and development on millions of acres of pristine forest across the country. For 25 years, this rule has protected crucial habitats for migratory species, headwaters for municipal water supplies, and old-growth forests which act as significant carbon sinks. If the rule was rescinded, those forests and the ecosystem services they provide would be at risk.

“Once we cut a road through these forests, we don’t get their values back,” Wetzler said. “The forest fragments. The streams and rivers are degraded by runoff. Iconic wildlife struggles to find suitable habitat. And we get stuck with even more roads in a vast network the agency already can’t maintain.”

The Roadless Rule itself is hugely popular, garnering around 75% public support. Nearly 626,000 public comments were submitted on the USDA’s 2025 draft proposal to eliminate the rule, with more than 99% of comments calling for the rule to stand. Former U.S. Forest Service chiefs, lawmakers, Tribal leaders, scientists, and wildland firefighters have also defended the rule.

The Forest Service’s proposal will be published in the Federal Register on 20 August, after which it will accept public comments before finalizing the rule change.

—Kimberly M. S. Cartier (@astrokimcartier.bsky.social), Staff Writer

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A study led by a Montana State University research professor reveals how climate and hydrothermal activity have shaped the vegetation, wildfire and aquatic ecosystem histories of the Yellowstone Plateau over the past 15,000 years. The results of the project were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.