https://phys.org/earth-news/ en-us Earth science research, climate change, and global warming. The latest news and updates from Phys.org As the climate gets warmer, the number of particles that make up clouds in the Arctic may increase or decrease, depending on the specific area. A new study indicates that the Arctic should be divided into three parts rather than considered as a whole. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-years-size-view-arctic-cloud.html Earth Sciences Thu, 22 Oct 2026 15:20:18 EDT news711900301 Two thousand years ago, the Arctic remnants of a once-vast ice sheet started to grow again. It was the beginning of a new glacial period, more conversationally known as the next ice age—but by the 1960s, summer temperatures were already so high that the ice sheet started to shrink. In other words, global warming ended a period of glaciation that had already begun. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-global-halted-emerging-ice-age.html Earth Sciences Thu, 22 Oct 2026 14:00:10 EDT news711882661 New research from the University of St Andrews has uncovered a previously unknown process that may have helped drive Earth into past ice ages. Published today (Oct. 22) in the Journal of Climate, the paper links ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere to changes in ocean circulation and sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere understood to drive down atmospheric CO₂. Linking these two key features of the ice ages has long been a challenge, given how far apart the two regions are. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-earth-hemispheres-ice-ages.html Earth Sciences Thu, 22 Oct 2026 14:00:06 EDT news711733921 From 2010 to 2024, the Amazon rainforest—the largest tropical rainforest on the planet—released an average of 1.17 billion metric tons more carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere than it absorbed each year. Wildfires were the main source, emitting approximately 1.47 billion metric tons of CO₂ per year—far exceeding the forest's absorption capacity of 300 million metric tons per year. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-wildfires-amazon-emit-billion-metric.html Earth Sciences Thu, 22 Oct 2026 13:00:20 EDT news711890465 Ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP31) meeting in Antalya, Turkiye, held in Nov. 2026, an expert writing in The BMJ's climate issue argues that accurate data on greenhouse gas emissions during armed conflict is urgently needed to hold militaries, governments and individuals accountable for the environmental impact of war. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-vital-militaries-accountable-environmental-toll.html Environment Wed, 21 Oct 2026 18:30:06 EDT news711793803 About 20,000 years ago, an enormous, floating ice shelf more than a mile (1.6 kilometers) thick helped lock in three of the largest ice sheets in northern Canada and Greenland. When that ice shelf disappeared, it helped unlock part of these ice sheets, which contributed to hundreds of feet of sea level rise, establishing modern coastlines as we know them. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-massive-ice-shelf-buttressed-age.html Earth Sciences Wed, 21 Oct 2026 17:20:08 EDT news711807181 Salt marsh sediment and vegetation can remain largely intact even during extreme storm surges. This was demonstrated in a large-scale experiment in which researchers transported sections of salt marsh to an experimental facility capable of producing the world's largest artificial waves. The results show how salt marshes can contribute to natural coastal protection, both in the Netherlands and beyond. The results were published in the journals Nature and Communications Sustainability. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-salt-marshes-powerful-allies-climate.html Earth Sciences Wed, 21 Oct 2026 16:40:01 EDT news711807002 Researchers at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) have reconstructed approximately 16,000 years of summer temperature changes from sediments collected at Lake Prokoško in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The findings show how the Western Balkans responded to rapid climate changes at the end of the last glacial period, how warmer and cooler phases unfolded during the Holocene, and how the impact of human land use became increasingly pronounced. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-reconstructing-years-summer-temperature-western.html Earth Sciences Wed, 21 Oct 2026 16:30:02 EDT news711818342 Climate change can look very different at the scale of a forest, field or hillside. A new review shows how changes in vegetation and atmospheric conditions can cause local microclimates to warm at very different rates from the regional climate—and why this matters for understanding how biodiversity will respond to climate change. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-life-earth-climate.html Earth Sciences Wed, 21 Oct 2026 12:20:23 EDT news711798782 The site of a former U.S. military base in Greenland was ice-free at a time when summers were a few degrees warmer than today, according to a new University at Buffalo–led study of ancient sediment recovered from beneath the site in the 1960s. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-forgotten-samples-greenland-cold-war.html Earth Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 19:40:01 EDT news711727681 The polar vortex, a swirling mass of cold air encircling the North Pole, is sometimes disrupted by sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events, unleashing waves of frigid air that penetrate farther south than usual. Temperatures across North America and Europe drop precipitously when this happens, but such events remain hard to predict, meaning we can't easily warn people when SSW is imminent. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-machine-reveals-potential-polar-vortex.html Earth Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 17:40:16 EDT news711721201 For scientists studying the ocean, finding the right data can sometimes be as challenging as figuring out what to do with it. Want to know seafloor depth, the location of underwater mountains or sea surface temperatures? The information exists, but it can take considerable time and computer coding to pull it together from different sources and get it into the proper format. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-seafloor-depths-fishing-free-software.html Earth Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:40:12 EDT news711719279 Fishers in the Northeast began noticing an unusual shift in the summer of 2023. Some familiar catches, including shortfin and longfin squid, declined, while cold-water species such as mackerel bounced back from years of decline. A new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans finds that a pulse of cold, fresh water brought unusually cold conditions to the region, disrupting fisheries from New England to the Mid-Atlantic. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-cold-pulse-northwest-atlantic-reshaped.html Earth Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 15:40:15 EDT news711718141 Biochar can store carbon in the soil and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—yet we still know too little about how long the biochar will persist. Now, researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have found a new way to measure this, using wood from the 1960s that was affected by nuclear weapons testing. The paper is published in the journal Radiocarbon. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-carbon-wood-stability-biochar-soil.html Earth Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 13:20:30 EDT news711713461 Can protecting elephants and whales help mitigate climate change? https://phys.org/news/2026-10-large-animals-mitigate-climate-complicated.html Earth Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 11:40:09 EDT news711708181 New research from the University of Aberdeen has revealed that periods of global warming can trigger long-lasting increases in wildfire activity, with ecosystems taking far longer to recover than previously thought. The study, recently published in Scientific Reports, provides the first detailed evidence of how wildfires responded to a major natural warming event around 65 million years ago, the Danian hyperthermal. This work offers important insights into the risks facing today's world as climate change drives more frequent and severe fires. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ancient-wildfire-world.html Earth Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 11:20:10 EDT news711708061 Rivers provide water for everything from growing crops and running factories to the taps in our homes, but droughts can leave them struggling to meet all these demands. A new study, published in Water Resources Research, suggests that changing how water is shared could help make limited supplies go further. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-river-reveals-ease-drought-unequal.html Earth Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 09:00:16 EDT news711638259 As governments prepare to gather in Yerevan, Armenia, this week for the U.N. Biodiversity Conference (COP17), new research identifies 13% of Earth's land area as hotspots for biodiversity conservation, highlighting where conservation efforts are most urgently needed. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-earth-biodiversity-hotspots.html Environment Mon, 19 Oct 2026 19:20:12 EDT news711648242 A new LMU study shows that three-quarters of the estimated global potential for new forests to capture CO₂ is threatened by significant social and institutional challenges. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-trees-climate-benefits-rights-livelihoods.html Environment Mon, 19 Oct 2026 17:40:01 EDT news711644822 A new study, led by IIASA researchers and coauthored by UNEP colleagues, finds that if governments fully implement their methane reduction plans, they could reduce global emissions by 11% between 2020 and 2030. This would reverse the current trend of increasing methane emissions, but would not be sufficient to achieve the goal of the Global Methane Pledge. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-fully-methane-reverse-emissions-growth.html Earth Sciences Mon, 19 Oct 2026 16:40:01 EDT news711643141 During the COVID-19 pandemic, air travel declined dramatically. Many view the disruption as a potential tipping point for reducing emissions from the aviation sector. However, once travel restrictions were lifted, passenger traffic quickly rebounded to prepandemic levels and, in many regions, even surpassed them. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-social-norms-infrastructure-climate-transitions.html Environment Mon, 19 Oct 2026 14:20:01 EDT news711628141 One-quarter of the world's data centers are located in areas where water demand exceeds supply for at least one month each year, according to a new global analysis. Researchers reporting in Environmental Science & Technology mapped data center locations against available water resources and found that, under a future climate scenario, the proportion of facilities in water-stressed areas could rise to one-third. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-centers-resources-limited.html Environment Mon, 19 Oct 2026 14:00:01 EDT news711628081 When Earth formed billions of years ago, its metallic core was wrapped in a global ocean of molten rock, which eventually cooled and crystallized to form the mantle. Today, when deep-rooted mantle plumes rise toward the surface and produce volcanic eruptions, the resulting lava can contain hydrogen from deep inside the planet. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-earth-core-leaking-hydrogen-billions.html Earth Sciences Mon, 19 Oct 2026 13:30:01 EDT news711633802 A new study led by researchers at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) reveals that glaciers worldwide could lose ice faster than previously projected. Published in Nature Communications, the research shows that accounting for daily weather variability leads to more realistic simulations of glacier melt and results in greater projected ice loss by the end of the century. The findings highlight the importance of short-lived weather events, such as the exceptional heat waves and extreme melt seasons recently observed in several glacierized regions around the globe. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-factoring-daily-weather-extremes-glacier.html Earth Sciences Mon, 19 Oct 2026 05:00:01 EDT news711375361 The world's oceans help slow climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere, but how much they take up can vary throughout the year. New research, published in Geophysical Research Letters, suggests these seasonal patterns are changing across the Indian Ocean, potentially affecting how it helps to regulate Earth's climate. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-indian-ocean-stronger-climate-buffer.html Earth Sciences Sun, 18 Oct 2026 11:20:01 EDT news711033430 When a massive environmental disaster strikes, do societies simply collapse and disappear? Or do people find a way to adapt, rebuild and recover? https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ancient-volcanic-eruption-resilience-today.html Earth Sciences Sat, 17 Oct 2026 13:00:05 EDT news711298328 The strong El Niño currently under way in the Pacific Ocean raises the specter of marine heat waves and coral bleaching once again threatening Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef. And now new research has revealed the complex interplay of atmospheric patterns and weather systems thousands of kilometers apart that can combine in a recipe potentially fatal for coral reefs. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-el-nio-storm-weather-disaster.html Environment Sat, 17 Oct 2026 07:00:07 EDT news711368357 A new University of Melbourne-led study has identified insights and evidence that could help mitigate the fast-rising climate impact of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). https://phys.org/news/2026-10-wider-approach-mitigate-rechargeable-battery.html Environment Fri, 16 Oct 2026 16:10:02 EDT news711378241 Most natural gas leakage in Indianapolis likely originates from homes and other buildings, not exterior pipelines and large-scale distribution infrastructure that deliver the fossil fuel, according to Penn State researchers who assessed nearly a decade of data. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-natural-gas-midwest-city-leaks.html Earth Sciences Fri, 16 Oct 2026 15:30:02 EDT news711377822 Most studies of how clouds are responding to climate change focus on clouds over the oceans, rather than over mountains. Those that do focus on mountain clouds tend to explore cloud microphysics rather than long-term trends in cloud phase. But understanding cloud behavior over regions such as the Tibetan Plateau, which supplies water to hundreds of millions of people, is critical—especially as diminishing snowpack and altered precipitation patterns threaten this critical water source. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-supercooled-clouds-highest-mountains-differently.html Earth Sciences Fri, 16 Oct 2026 14:10:01 EDT news711376981