https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. The low-latitude highlands region of southwestern China experienced two major climate events in recent years: a severe drought in 2009–2010 and an extreme heat wave in 2019. Though both sprang from similar large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, the events produced different responses, raising questions about how multiple stressors can push ecosystems toward contrasting outcomes. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-ecosystem-extreme-drought-responses-linked.html Earth Sciences Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:06:00 EST news685631122 Scientists have confirmed that East Antarctica's interior is warming faster than its coastal areas and identified the cause. A 30-year study, published in Nature Communications and led by Nagoya University's Naoyuki Kurita, has traced this warming to increased warm air flow triggered by temperature changes in the Southern Indian Ocean. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-east-antarctic-interior-faster-earlier.html Earth Sciences Mon, 08 Sep 2025 12:41:05 EDT news676554061 A study led by researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) has used a novel approach to unravel the influence of the loss of Arctic sea ice on the planet's climate, isolating it from other factors related to climate change. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-arctic-sea-ice-loss-drier.html Earth Sciences Tue, 11 Mar 2025 06:00:03 EDT news660814861 Despite 2023 and 2024 being the warmest years on record, extreme cold events are still affecting regions across China, Europe, and North America. A recent study published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science examines this paradox and evaluates future risks associated with ongoing climate change. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-unraveling-paradox-explores-extreme-cold.html Environment Mon, 10 Feb 2025 10:04:04 EST news658404241 Northeast Greenland is home to the 79° N Glacier—the country's largest floating glacier tongue, but also one seriously threatened by global warming. Warm water from the Atlantic is melting it from below. However, experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute have now determined that the temperature of the water flowing into the glacier cavern declined from 2018 to 2021, even though the ocean has steadily warmed in the region over the past several decades. This could be due to temporarily changed atmospheric circulation patterns. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-atmospheric-blocking-ocean-driven-greenland.html Earth Sciences Tue, 24 Sep 2024 14:20:38 EDT news646406426 The interaction between the oceans and the atmosphere plays a vital role in shaping the Earth's climate. Changing sea surface temperatures can heat or cool the atmosphere, and changes in the atmosphere can do the same to the ocean surface. This exchange in energy is known as "ocean-atmosphere coupling." https://phys.org/news/2024-03-extratropical-ocean-atmosphere-interactions-contribute.html Earth Sciences Thu, 28 Mar 2024 11:55:03 EDT news630845701 North America's 2021 heat wave was Washington's deadliest weather-related disaster, claiming over 100 lives in the evergreen state and many others in neighboring regions. Scientists not only suggest that such heat waves will grow more intense and strike more often—in new work published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, they reveal the underlying mechanism behind these strengthened heat waves. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-supercharged-washington-deadliest-harder.html Earth Sciences Tue, 12 Dec 2023 13:35:04 EST news621610501 The strength of the wind has an important influence on ocean circulation. This is particularly true for extreme events such as storm fronts, tropical storms and cyclones. These weather patterns, which last from a few days to a few weeks, will change in the future due to climate change. In particular, the average energy input into the ocean from mid-latitude storms is expected to decrease, while equatorial regions will become more active. Scientists call these different weather patterns "Atmospheric Synoptic Variability" (ASV). https://phys.org/news/2023-10-impact-extreme-weather-events-ocean.html Earth Sciences Fri, 13 Oct 2023 11:56:03 EDT news616416961 The Dansgaard-Oeschger events are rapid Northern-Hemisphere temperature jumps of up to 15°C in Greenland that repeatedly occurred within a few decades during the last ice age. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-abrupt-north-atlantic-overturning-impacted.html Earth Sciences Mon, 28 Aug 2023 15:00:01 EDT news612434122 Atmospheric rivers—long, concentrated flows of moisture in the sky—are a key factor in the complex conditions accelerating glacial melting over northern Greenland, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. https://phys.org/news/2023-05-atmospheric-rivers-linked-greenland-ice.html Earth Sciences Thu, 04 May 2023 10:56:03 EDT news602416561 Projected growth in rocket launches for space tourism, moon landings, and perhaps travel to Mars has many dreaming of a new era of space exploration. But a NOAA study suggests that a significant boost in spaceflight activity may damage the protective ozone layer on the one planet where we live. https://phys.org/news/2022-06-space-ozone-layer.html Space Exploration Wed, 22 Jun 2022 10:52:31 EDT news575113948 At roughly 415,000 acres, Northern California's Mendocino Complex Fire is now the state's largest recorded wildfire, surpassing the record held by Santa Barbara and Ventura counties' Thomas Fire, which occurred less than a year before. Roughly 10 other large-scale conflagrations are threatening the state. And California is not yet even at the height of its wildfire season. https://phys.org/news/2018-08-reveals-climate-el-nio-possibility.html Earth Sciences Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:00:26 EDT news454683609 Gardeners know the frustration of a false spring. Coaxed outside by warm weather, some people plant their gardens in the spring only to see a sudden late frost strike at the plants with a killer freezer burn. Grumbling green thumbs, along with farmers and water supply managers, would benefit from more accurate predictions of the first and last frosts of the season. https://phys.org/news/2017-05-air-circulation-affects-frost-global.html Earth Sciences Tue, 23 May 2017 05:00:02 EDT news414729865 The Andes have been a mountain chain for much longer than previously thought, new research from the University of Bristol, UK suggests. https://phys.org/news/2015-11-andes-mountains.html Earth Sciences Wed, 18 Nov 2015 12:11:24 EST news367071075 Major volcanic eruptions can have a significant effect on the flow of the biggest rivers around the world, research shows. https://phys.org/news/2015-10-volcanic-eruptions-affect-world-major.html Earth Sciences Mon, 05 Oct 2015 11:06:43 EDT news363261991 (Phys.org) —Air pollution from Asia has been rising for several decades but Hawaii had seemed to escape the ozone pollution that drifts east with the springtime winds. Now a team of researchers has found that shifts in atmospheric circulation explain the trends in Hawaiian ozone pollution. https://phys.org/news/2014-01-asian-ozone-pollution-hawaii-tied.html Earth Sciences Mon, 27 Jan 2014 17:15:01 EST news310065290 (Phys.org) —Some Heinrich events – periodic massive iceberg surges into the North Atlantic that were previously thought to have weakened the global ocean conveyor belt circulation and sent Earth's climate into the deep freeze – may actually have been caused by changes in atmospheric circulation patterns, say a team of researchers that includes two Texas A&M University professors. https://phys.org/news/2014-01-iceberg-shifts-north-atlantic.html Earth Sciences Thu, 16 Jan 2014 09:10:13 EST news309085492 The intensity of tropical cyclones hitting East Asia has significantly increased over the past 30 years, according to a new study published today. https://phys.org/news/2014-01-highlights-threat-intense-tropical-cyclones.html Environment Wed, 15 Jan 2014 19:00:01 EST news309014293 The rain in Spain may lie mainly on the plain, but the location and intensity of that rain is changing not only in Spain but around the globe. https://phys.org/news/2013-11-global-precipitation.html Earth Sciences Mon, 11 Nov 2013 16:56:44 EST news303411391 (Phys.org) —A new NASA-led study of atmospheric-river storms from the Pacific Ocean may help scientists better predict major winter snowfalls that hit West Coast mountains and lead to heavy spring runoff and sometimes flooding. https://phys.org/news/2013-11-climate-link-atmospheric-river-storms.html Earth Sciences Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:47:16 EST news303378419 Scientists look at past climates to learn about climate change and the ability to simulate it with computer models. One region that has received a great deal of attention is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, the vast pool of warm water stretching along the equator from Africa to the western Pacific Ocean. https://phys.org/news/2013-05-sea-tropical-climate-ice-age.html Earth Sciences Sun, 19 May 2013 13:10:08 EDT news288172277 (Phys.org) —The eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula, a finger of the southern polar continent that juts toward South America, has experienced summer warming of perhaps a half-degree per decade – a greater rate than possibly anywhere else on Earth – in the last 50 years, and that warming is largely attributed to human causes. https://phys.org/news/2013-05-tropical-air-circulation-fall-antarctic.html Earth Sciences Wed, 15 May 2013 15:30:37 EDT news287850627 Almost imperceptibly, rainfall over the Hawaiian Islands has been declining since 1978, and this trend is likely to continue with global warming through the end of this century, according to a team of scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) and the University of Colorado at Boulder. This latest Hawaii rainfall study, published in the March 13, 2013, early online issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research, supports previous work conducted at the University of Hawaii. What has been unclear, however, is whether this drying trend will continue. https://phys.org/news/2013-04-rainfall-hawaiian-islands.html Earth Sciences Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:24:03 EDT news285931436 In the last few decades, glaciers at the edge of the icy continent of Antarctica have been thinning, and research has shown the rate of thinning has accelerated and contributed significantly to sea level rise. https://phys.org/news/2013-04-climate-glacier-antarctica-upper-bound.html Earth Sciences Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:00:21 EDT news285142632 (Phys.org)—As earth's climate warms, scientists have tried to understand why the poles are heating up two to three times faster than the rest of the planet. Airborne dust, it turns out, may play a key role. https://phys.org/news/2013-01-earth-rapidly-poles.html Earth Sciences Thu, 10 Jan 2013 06:29:25 EST news277021755 (Phys.org)—Detailed observations of Saturn's moon Titan have now spanned 30 years, covering an entire solar orbit for this distant world. Dr Athena Coustenis from the Paris-Meudon Observatory in France has analysed data gathered over this time and has found that the changing seasons of Titan affect it more than previously thought. Dr Coustenis presented these results at the European Planetary Science Congress in Madrid on Friday 28th September. https://phys.org/news/2012-10-saturn-moon-titan-seasonal.html Space Exploration Mon, 01 Oct 2012 08:24:29 EDT news268298662 A University of Utah study suggests something amazing: Periodic changes in winds 15 to 30 miles high in the stratosphere influence the seas by striking a vulnerable "Achilles heel" in the North Atlantic and changing mile-deep ocean circulation patterns, which in turn affect Earth's climate. https://phys.org/news/2012-09-north-atlantic-achilles-heel-upper.html Earth Sciences Sun, 23 Sep 2012 13:00:21 EDT news267600423 (PhysOrg.com) -- Why does Titan, Saturn's largest moon, have what looks like an enormous white arrow about the size of Texas on its surface? https://phys.org/news/2011-08-giant-arrow-shaped-cloud-saturn-moon.html Space Exploration Tue, 16 Aug 2011 07:58:02 EDT news232700257 (PhysOrg.com) -- As spring continues to unfold at Saturn, April showers on the planet's largest moon, Titan, have brought methane rain to its equatorial deserts, as revealed in images captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. This is the first time scientists have obtained current evidence of rain soaking Titan's surface at low latitudes. https://phys.org/news/2011-03-cassini-seasonal-methane-titan-surface.html Space Exploration Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:52:37 EDT news219595920 The rain band near the equator that determines the supply of freshwater to nearly a billion people throughout the tropics and subtropics has been creeping north for more than 300 years, probably because of a warmer world, according to research published in the July issue of Nature Geoscience. https://phys.org/news/2009-07-earth-prominent-rainfall-feature-northward.html Earth Sciences Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:10:01 EDT news165675816