https://phys.org/earth-news/environment/ en-us The latest news on the environment, environmental issues, earth science and space exploration. Over 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of protected tropical forest—an area double the size of Wales—have been lost to wildfires since 2001. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-wildfires-destroyed-area-tropical-forest.html Earth Sciences Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:00:01 EDT news705925203 According to a new study led by researchers from Brazil and Germany, the main system that transports heat from one end of the Atlantic Ocean to the other may undergo sudden changes in intensity driven by climate change similar to what we are experiencing now, even when it is already weakened. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-sediments-brazil-northeast-coast-reveal.html Earth Sciences Fri, 14 Aug 2026 13:00:04 EDT news705931022 Respiratory infectious diseases and air pollution remain persistent global health challenges. Yet the tools used to monitor airborne threats are often expensive, power-hungry and difficult to deploy outside laboratories. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-butterfly-technology-air.html Environment Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:20:01 EDT news705923941 Three factors—spectacular images, a high death toll and strong personal ties—make it more likely that the media in one country will report on a natural disaster in another, according to a study by the University of Bonn, the University of Warwick and Imperial College London, which has been published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-climate-driven-droughts-rarely-international.html Environment Fri, 14 Aug 2026 10:20:01 EDT news705921028 Salt and sugar from the sea can rise as far as the free troposphere, thereby influencing both cloud formation and the Arctic climate. This is the finding of balloon measurements carried out by a team of researchers on Spitsbergen in autumn 2021 and spring 2022. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-arctic-balloon-samples-marine-sugars.html Earth Sciences Fri, 14 Aug 2026 09:40:01 EDT news705916225 An analysis of 103 European cities' climate-neutral plans for 2030 (including 22 capital cities) shows that municipalities are planning to rely on carbon removal to compensate for about a fifth of their emissions. This would mean removing roughly 61 million tonnes of emissions from the atmosphere—close to Austria's annual emissions. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-eu-cities-compensate-emissions-carbon.html Environment Fri, 14 Aug 2026 05:00:05 EDT news705752702 There's good news and bad news for folks who love a good coat of ice on the Great Lakes for the activities and businesses it supports. The good news is that, after decades of declining annual average ice cover, there's reason to believe that trend could slow or even temporarily reverse. That's according to new research from the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, or CIGLR, at the University of Michigan. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-great-lakes-ice-temporary-respite.html Earth Sciences Thu, 13 Aug 2026 17:40:07 EDT news705846181 Animals struggle to cool down in extreme heat and high humidity, and heat stress is rising in many regions around the world. This is especially true for people in tropical countries, including populous India. In a new paper in AGU Advances, researchers characterize the extent of India's "uncompensable heat stress" and project how the problem could worsen in the future. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-india-uncompensable-stress-monsoon-season.html Earth Sciences Thu, 13 Aug 2026 14:20:05 EDT news705839127 Heat waves are not all created equal. While some bring dry heat that rapidly dries out crops, others carry a lot of moisture that can prevent sweat from evaporating off the skin. In new research published in the journal Science Advances, scientists have identified another type of heat wave that they call a "snow-eater." https://phys.org/news/2026-08-category-western-snowpack-faster.html Earth Sciences Thu, 13 Aug 2026 12:40:07 EDT news705832968 Satellite images can be used to estimate how much carbon forests store as aboveground biomass (AGB) and how biomass varies in different forests. In a study published in the journal Nature, a team of researchers affiliated with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), the University of Maryland, NASA and the Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, Brazil, analyzed 16 million 2020 NASA-GEDI satellite estimates of biomass from forests in the Amazon, the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-satellite-reveal-tropical-forests-differently.html Earth Sciences Thu, 13 Aug 2026 12:20:12 EDT news705840962 Charting a better future will require redressing the problems of the past. That's one reason many countries have begun to return dispossessed land to Indigenous peoples. The goal of Indigenous land restitution is to empower disadvantaged communities and entrust land management back to the region's traditional stewards. In many cases, these programs also carry expectations of broad environmental benefits. However, there's been relatively little research testing this assumption. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-indigenous-restitution-empowers-communities-environmental.html Environment Thu, 13 Aug 2026 12:00:07 EDT news705840061 For several years, climate scientists have shown that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could come to a halt if the world warms too much. New research from Utrecht University shows that this picture is incomplete: The pace of warming also determines whether the AMOC stays stable. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-rapid-atlantic-circulation-2c-slower.html Earth Sciences Thu, 13 Aug 2026 05:00:06 EDT news705752641 The iconic grassland savannas of Africa are geographically extensive and important for both local fauna and the global climate. But where did they come from, and how will they change in the future? Ongoing warming, rising CO2 levels and shifting rainfall patterns are likely to profoundly change these ecosystems. These effects are difficult to predict because they can alter ecosystems in competing ways. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-african-grasslands-million-year-earlier.html Earth Sciences Wed, 12 Aug 2026 19:40:04 EDT news705763783 With approximately one-third of the world's population living within a day's walk of a coastline, sea-level rise poses a serious global threat. Every centimeter of sea-level rise could displace 1.5 million people, and current estimates range from half a meter (1.6 feet) to 2 meters (6.6 feet) by the end of the 21st century—which means that potentially hundreds of millions of people could be affected. A more reliable prediction of sea-level rise is crucial to prepare coastal infrastructure and communities around the world for these changes. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-glacial-collapse-antarctica-sea.html Earth Sciences Wed, 12 Aug 2026 19:00:02 EDT news705763441 New research involving the University of Liverpool has provided comprehensive insights into the largest flood event in Europe over the past millennium—the flood traditionally known as "St. Mary Magdalene's Flood" of 1342. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-europe-worst-medieval-highlights-successive.html Earth Sciences Wed, 12 Aug 2026 16:50:04 EDT news705769501 Before tropical cyclones can significantly strengthen, they generally must first become vertically aligned, with their rotating centers stacked through the atmosphere. New research using nearly three decades of NOAA Hurricane Hunter observations identifies four features that can help a tilted storm become aligned and more capable of intensifying. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-hurricane-hunter-reveal-early-tropical.html Earth Sciences Wed, 12 Aug 2026 11:20:05 EDT news705746009 River and canal ships generate roughly a quarter of the world's shipping carbon dioxide emissions, according to new research published in Nature Climate Change. And that's despite the fact that these bodies of water make up less than 1% of Earth's total navigable waterways. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-river-shipping-emits-quarter-global.html Environment Wed, 12 Aug 2026 11:20:03 EDT news705747097 In the Arctic, weather plays a key role in determining how much ice covers the ocean. Arctic cyclones are one weather phenomenon with a significant influence, causing unusually warm and stormy conditions that typically lead to significant ice loss. These conditions last particularly long when several cyclones rapidly follow one another. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-arctic-cyclone-clusters-batter-sea.html Earth Sciences Wed, 12 Aug 2026 10:00:06 EDT news705743702 After a heavy rain, rivers often turn brown with sediment, sand, silt and soil washed from the landscape that play a vital role in shaping rivers. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-rivers-sediment-intense-worrisome-pattern.html Earth Sciences Tue, 11 Aug 2026 19:00:01 EDT news705679501 Researchers say a spike in temperatures during an ice age 304 million years ago could inform what climate scientists are learning about rapidly changing conditions today. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-late-paleozoic-ice-age-event.html Earth Sciences Tue, 11 Aug 2026 18:00:01 EDT news705672841 Understanding how marine ecosystems respond to a warming ocean requires detailed records of past temperatures. An international research team led by Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) in Mainz has found a new way to reconstruct daily seawater temperatures over a four-month period. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-daily-ocean-temperatures-red-algae.html Environment Tue, 11 Aug 2026 17:20:04 EDT news705672115 From nuclear energy to lab-grown meat, the list of effective but unpopular climate solutions is long. A new University of Colorado Boulder study sheds light on why people reject or accept some proposed sustainability technologies: If it doesn't seem natural, they won't go for it. And that holds across political ideologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-naturalness-emerges-key-driver-climate.html Environment Tue, 11 Aug 2026 16:40:01 EDT news705670561 Salt marshes are coastal wetlands that are alternately inundated and exposed by tides. These marshes, like other coastal ecosystems, are hotspots of carbon cycling. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-radar-creeks-carbon-salt-marshes.html Earth Sciences Tue, 11 Aug 2026 15:00:05 EDT news705668881 While parks, playgrounds and hiking trails are generally thought of as "healthy" spaces, researchers from the University of Michigan have found that many of them overlap with old toxic waste sites or sit dangerously close to facilities that actively release hazardous chemicals. Their new study, published in Scientific Reports, looks at the proximity of 151,366 U.S. public parks to facilities in the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and Superfund sites (SFS). https://phys.org/news/2026-08-hazardous-sites-facilities-toxic-chemicals.html Environment Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:40:01 EDT news705663804 Prediction is the goal and test of all science, one might argue. Meteorologists have been curious about the inherent limits of weather forecasting ever since the dawn of numerical weather prediction in the late 1950s. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-weather-theoretical-day-ceiling.html Earth Sciences Tue, 11 Aug 2026 02:32:13 EDT news705634316 At a Massachusetts lab, pebble-sized pellets are transformed into forks and films that won't leave persistent microplastics in the environment. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-traditional-plastic-forks-microplastics-sugar.html Environment Mon, 10 Aug 2026 19:20:03 EDT news705587356 Climate change is largely to blame for water scarcity. The low water levels in European rivers this summer speak volumes in that respect. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-quality-scarcity-future-competition-limited.html Environment Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:50:01 EDT news705601681 A study led by Professor Jimmy Jiujiu Jiao from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Professor Meng Li from Shenzhen University has identified microbial fermentation as the likely main pathway for ammonium production in sediments beneath the Pearl River Delta, helping to explain the region's exceptionally high natural groundwater ammonium levels. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-fermentation-emerges-key-pathway-ammonium.html Earth Sciences Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:20:01 EDT news705593281 El Niños and La Niñas are the third-most dominant influences on Earth's climate, after the sun and the greenhouse effect. But they haven't been easy to decipher or to predict in terms of when they will happen and what exact effects they will have on the global climate. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-impact-super-el-nios-sea.html Earth Sciences Mon, 10 Aug 2026 16:00:08 EDT news705585565 Hot days could gain more than four additional hours of extreme heat by the end of the 21st century under a high-emissions scenario, according to a modeling study published in Nature Climate Change. The findings show that hourly assessments can capture heat exposure overlooked by daily metrics and could support more effective heat risk management and public health planning. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-climate-extra-hours-extreme-hot.html Environment Mon, 10 Aug 2026 15:40:05 EDT news705592861