https://phys.org/earth-news/environment/ en-us The latest news on the environment, environmental issues, earth science and space exploration. Emotional mechanisms are frequently used to inspire good environmental behavior. But how effective are they at inspiring actual sustainable change? Perhaps not as much as previously believed, according to a new study that challenged participants to put their money where their mouths are. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-anger-compassion-spur-climate-donations.html Environment Mon, 14 Sep 2026 18:40:01 EDT news708619502 Methane emissions from the New York City metropolitan area are largely driven by natural gas use, according to a new study published today in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics by researchers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of the Columbia Climate School. The findings may offer cities an overlooked pathway for reducing methane emissions while potentially saving consumers millions of dollars lost to wasted natural gas. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-unused-natural-gas-nyc-million.html Environment Mon, 14 Sep 2026 15:40:06 EDT news708609640 Floods, wildfires, conflicts, earthquakes, economic shocks, hurricanes or epidemics: These unexpected and often dramatic events affect people's lives and jobs, destroy crops, wipe out livestock and stored food, contaminate water, block roads, cut off communities and severely affect access to markets and food. This is a distressing picture—one expected to get much worse in the near future because of climate change and an increasingly polarized world. Yet science says no: These natural and human-made shocks do not have to lead to more hunger by default. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-countries-disasters-food-crises-analysis.html Environment Mon, 14 Sep 2026 15:00:11 EDT news708604742 Microplastics are a modern environmental menace and a potential threat to human health. These tiny pieces of plastic, measuring from 1 to 5,000 micrometers, come mainly from larger plastics as well as sources such as paints and cosmetics. They are found in almost every corner of the planet, and a new study published in Science suggests rivers may be carrying far more of them into the ocean than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rivers-microplastics-world-oceans-previously.html Earth Sciences Mon, 14 Sep 2026 14:10:01 EDT news708612492 Researchers have shown how dramatic sea-level rise over a 5,000-year period profoundly changed the coasts of northern Italy, Slovenia and northern Croatia. Successive shaping and reshaping of coastal features influenced the lives of Mesolithic and Neolithic people and the development of local communities. Land that hunter-gatherers once roamed and farmers later tended now lies deep beneath the sea. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-prehistoric-coastal-northern-adriatic.html Earth Sciences Mon, 14 Sep 2026 12:40:09 EDT news708602221 Snails carry weather records on their backs that could be used to map prehistoric cyclones, a University of Queensland study has shown. The project led by School of the Environment researchers examined the rings on the shell of a Biggenden Banded Snail (Figuladra bayensis) collected from Coalstoun Lakes National Park in southeast Queensland. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-snail-shells-weather-capsules.html Earth Sciences Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:00:04 EDT news708594242 Plans to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels depend on reaching net-zero emissions and, in many cases, actively removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air. While this helps limit extreme weather, sea level rise, ecosystem loss and the risk of triggering irreversible climate tipping points, a new study, published in Science Advances, finds that reducing CO2 levels may have an unexpected effect. Climate simulations used in the study suggest that the Southern Ocean around Antarctica may switch from being an important carbon sink to being a prolific source of carbon. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-southern-ocean-flip-carbon-source.html Earth Sciences Sat, 12 Sep 2026 13:20:01 EDT news708343671 When will the glacier in your valley disappear? Will the glacier you visited as a child still exist in 2050? And how much difference would limiting global warming make? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-glacier-website-users-explore-worldwide.html Earth Sciences Fri, 11 Sep 2026 16:00:02 EDT news708346743 For the first time, important features of the Antarctic coastal zone have been mapped at high resolution around the continent by training an artificial intelligence tool to accurately recognize grounded icebergs in satellite radar images. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-antarctic-wide-grounded-icebergs-reveals.html Earth Sciences Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:40:02 EDT news708340082 Northern India experiences some of the world's worst winter air pollution, with dangerous episodes often prompting emergency control efforts. In major cities like Delhi, the Air Quality Index has reached levels above 999—over 30 times the World Health Organization's safety limit. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-seasonal-northern-india-months-severe.html Earth Sciences Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:20:04 EDT news708340021 Switching to a more sustainable diet could halve food-related emissions in cities such as Amsterdam, while in cities such as Dhaka and Delhi, the focus should be more on making food production more sustainable as they widen food access. A new database by Leiden researchers shows that different cities need different approaches to achieve a more sustainable food system. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-global-database-reveals-cities-food.html Environment Thu, 10 Sep 2026 19:40:04 EDT news708272342 Historical records of the deadliest storms and heat waves may be a poor indicator of the scale and impact future weather disasters could have, scientists at King's College London warn. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-future-catastrophic-weather-worse-history.html Environment Thu, 10 Sep 2026 18:20:01 EDT news708252174 Dozens of glacial lakes have formed across northern India in the last three decades, while existing lakes have expanded rapidly, highlighting the need to monitor a landscape reshaped by climate change. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-himalayan-glacial-lakes-downstream.html Earth Sciences Thu, 10 Sep 2026 17:30:01 EDT news708277862 The historic droughts of 2023 and 2024 in the Amazon reduced river flows and altered the region's rainfall composition. Daily monitoring in Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, revealed these changes through the use of isotopes, which act as a kind of water "fingerprint." This method demonstrated how El Niño and warming in the North Atlantic affected the origin of moisture and precipitation dynamics. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-isotopes-reveal-early-drought-central.html Earth Sciences Thu, 10 Sep 2026 16:30:01 EDT news708274981 Peatlands store large amounts of carbon. However, when they are drained, they can become substantial sources of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂). https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rewetting-peatlands-curb-driven-emissions.html Earth Sciences Thu, 10 Sep 2026 13:20:05 EDT news708254702 In early 2017 and 2023, California experienced two catastrophic and record-breaking floods that caused billions of dollars in damage, triggered mudslides and forced thousands of people to evacuate. Why this happened left scientists scratching their heads. Both disasters struck during La Niña conditions, which normally bring drier-than-normal weather to California. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-atmospheric-events-world-triggered-devastating.html Earth Sciences Thu, 10 Sep 2026 11:50:01 EDT news708256790 New research shows that warming-induced emissions—greenhouse gas emissions from natural sources driven by rising temperatures—could amplify global warming by approximately 20%–30% and add an estimated 0.2°C–0.4°C of warming this century on top of anthropogenic warming under different scenarios. These major additional drivers of warming are largely unaccounted for in current climate projections and policies. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-unaccounted-climate-feedback-loops-amplify.html Environment Thu, 10 Sep 2026 05:00:03 EDT news708090421 Estuaries across the United States are facing the same trends of warming waters, algal growth and declining oxygen concentrations that threaten water quality and fish populations, regardless of geographic location, according to new research led by a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) faculty member. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-estuary-quality-trends-100m-implications.html Environment Wed, 09 Sep 2026 15:20:10 EDT news708173221 The Anthropocene became part of the zeitgeist after Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen launched the idea in 2000. This is the notion that a crescendo of human impacts has recently propelled Earth out of the relatively stable climatic conditions of the Holocene epoch, during which human civilization developed and flourished, to produce a new kind of planet. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-anthropocene-geological-epoch-idea-world.html Earth Sciences Wed, 09 Sep 2026 13:20:06 EDT news708170815 Canada's last epishelf lake drained into the Arctic Ocean following the 2020 breakup of the Milne Ice Shelf and will not recover, a new study confirms. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-canada-epishelf-lake-good.html Earth Sciences Wed, 09 Sep 2026 13:00:06 EDT news708168302 UC Riverside environmental engineers have identified key chemical reactions that occur when ultraviolet light is used to destroy "forever chemical" pollutants in water, providing a roadmap for developing more effective cleanup technologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-chemicals-fluoride-uv-treatment-revealing.html Environment Wed, 09 Sep 2026 12:00:06 EDT news708166501 Carbon emissions from the petrochemical industry could increase by 50% by 2050, according to new research from the University of Sheffield. The study, published in Nature Sustainability, provides the most detailed data to date on emissions from one of the world's biggest emitters of carbon dioxide. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-petrochemical-industry-emissions-climb-global.html Environment Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:00:35 EDT news708165422 Today's best weather computers would still have struggled to accurately predict the weather for the D-Day landings, University of Reading research shows. The new research, published in the journal Weather ahead of the release of the D-Day film "Pressure," used AI models to produce 50 different forecasts of the storm that famously pushed back the Allies' invasion of Normandy in June 1944. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-d-day-weather-falters.html Environment Wed, 09 Sep 2026 04:24:58 EDT news708146669 Researchers have developed a method for extrapolating sea surface temperatures from sparse data that is significantly more accurate than other commonly used computational methods and slightly more accurate than the best-performing AI model, while taking a fraction of the time to train. The work has implications for both short-term weather forecasting and longer-term climate predictions. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-sparse-method-sea-surface-temperatures.html Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Sep 2026 18:20:04 EDT news708102301 Radiation from space is constantly entering Earth's atmosphere, but how much of it reaches the altitudes used by commercial aircraft depends not only on height and location, but also on the activity of the sun. A new study based on high-altitude balloon measurements over southern Israel has mapped these changes through the atmosphere and found that radiation levels at aviation altitudes rise as solar activity falls. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-cosmic-flight-altitudes-sun.html Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Sep 2026 17:40:03 EDT news708100801 Researchers at The University of Manchester have developed a new physics-based artificial intelligence approach that, for the first time, enables accurate global-scale predictions of how dissolved organic carbon moves between seawater and marine sediments, a crucial but previously unquantifiable component of the planet's carbon cycle. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-physics-based-ai-global-carbon.html Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Sep 2026 16:40:03 EDT news708097002 Climate change is driving rapid declines in seaweed forests globally, outpacing restoration efforts and undermining seaweed restoration as a viable carbon dioxide removal strategy, according to an essay by Karen Filbee-Dexter at the University of Western Australia and colleagues, published Sept. 8 in the journal PLOS Biology. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-climate-erase-million-hectares-kelp.html Environment Tue, 08 Sep 2026 14:00:08 EDT news707991661 How will global access to food, water and energy evolve in coming decades? A new study coauthored by MIT researchers suggests the answers could be very different depending on region, resource and income. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-large-disparities-access-food-energy.html Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Sep 2026 13:20:01 EDT news708086041 Drylands are defined as regions where rainfall is low relative to the atmosphere's ability to draw water from soil and plants. Expanding boundaries of these regions are frequent concerns in climate change considerations. While they can support large populations and ecosystems, dryland expansion can worsen water scarcity, land degradation and desertification. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-response-dryland-expansion.html Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Sep 2026 13:10:02 EDT news708087695 Marine heat waves are a consequence of climate change and are increasingly altering marine and coastal regions worldwide. An international study led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon now shows that many coastal seas absorb more CO₂ from the atmosphere during these extreme events than under normal conditions. The effect is particularly pronounced in polar and subpolar shelf seas of the Northern Hemisphere, where sea ice is declining as temperatures rise. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-marine-boost-coastal-uptake-analysis.html Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:20:06 EDT news708077221