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. Volcanic eruptions are known for their spectacular visual displays of vivid lava, as well as the devastating impacts they can have on the environment and the communities who live nearby. But they can also have far-reaching impacts across the globe. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-volcanic-eruptions-tropics-major-factor.html Earth Sciences Mon, 02 Nov 2026 12:40:06 EST news712840820 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 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 Plastic pollution is a growing threat to marine environments, with discarded waste reaching from coastlines to the deepest parts of the ocean. Now, a six-year study has revealed how quickly debris can accumulate on a beach in Ecuador, with one monitoring site collecting about 570 grams (1.25 pounds) of debris every week. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-survey-reveals-plastic-feet-deep.html Environment Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:50:02 EDT news709899131 Lakes may cover only a small fraction of Earth's surface, but new research suggests they play a bigger role in regulating the planet's climate than previously recognized. By reflecting sunlight back into space when covered in snow and ice, lakes in the Northern Hemisphere have a stronger cooling effect than the surrounding land. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-overlooked-lakes-northern-hemisphere-cool.html Earth Sciences Tue, 29 Sep 2026 08:00:07 EDT news709549225 Solar farms built around China's Gobi Desert could have the unexpected benefit of reducing the dust pollution reaching cities across northern China. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-solar-farms-generate-energy-pollution.html Earth Sciences Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:40:07 EDT news709460358 Lakes may look like picturesque stopping points along a river or stream, but they can have a big influence on what happens to carbon as it moves through a landscape. New research suggests that the more lake-rich a network of streams is, the more carbon is released into the atmosphere rather than carried downstream. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-lakes-theyre-carbon.html Earth Sciences Sat, 05 Sep 2026 08:20:01 EDT news707386128 Earth may have been pushed deeper into a global deep freeze by something surprisingly ordinary: salt. Around 700 million years ago, Earth entered periods of extreme glaciation known as Snowball Earth, when ice is thought to have spread across much or potentially all of the planet's surface. Scientists have long known that expanding ice could have helped drive this transition: As bright ice replaces darker ocean water, more sunlight is reflected back into space, causing the planet to cool further and allowing even more ice to form. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-salt-earth-frozen-world-million.html Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Sep 2026 07:40:06 EDT news707385271 Europe is no stranger to powerful windstorms, but some storms capable of causing serious damage have an unusual origin. Tropical cyclones can occasionally travel north from lower latitudes and reach Europe, where they can bring damaging winds and heavy rain even after losing some of their tropical characteristics. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-uk-ireland-greatest-rare-tropical.html Earth Sciences Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:00:07 EDT news707137390 Ancient Rome's greatest threat to food security wasn't the weather but the challenge of getting grain to the capital, according to a new study. By comparing hundreds of years of historical records with reconstructions of past climate, researchers found that periods of unusual heat, cold, drought or heavy rainfall rarely lined up with reported food shortages. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ancient-rome-food-shortages-logistics.html Archaeology Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:20:03 EDT news704705829 Millions of people living on tropical islands could face a future of increasingly dangerous heat as climate change drives longer and more intense periods of humid conditions. While rising temperatures are often discussed as the main consequence of climate change, humidity plays a crucial role in determining how much heat the human body can tolerate. When the air is already full of moisture, sweat evaporates less effectively, making it harder for people to cool down. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-small-tropical-islands-dangerous-humid.html Earth Sciences Fri, 24 Jul 2026 07:20:01 EDT news704017856 Africa is home to around 70% of the world's burned area—the total area of land scorched by wildfires each year—making it the planet's biggest wildfire hotspot. Yet despite this, satellite observations have revealed an unexpected trend over the past two decades: The amount of land burned across the continent has been steadily falling. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-africa-wildfire-season-shorter-scientists.html Earth Sciences Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:40:01 EDT news703496227 When a record-breaking drought and heat wave swept across China's Yangtze River Basin in 2022, forests across the region faced an extreme test. The event provided a rare opportunity for researchers to test how different forests respond when rising temperatures and water shortages strike at the same time. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-natural-forests-survive.html Plants & Animals Fri, 10 Jul 2026 15:40:01 EDT news702896047 The Southern Ocean has long stood out as an oddity in the global climate system. While most of the planet's surface oceans have warmed in response to rising greenhouse gases, waters circling Antarctica showed an unexpected tendency to cool during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This cooling coincided with a period when Antarctic sea ice briefly expanded before its more recent decline, adding to the mystery. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-antarctic-ozone-loss-drove-unexpected.html Earth Sciences Fri, 03 Jul 2026 13:20:01 EDT news702288123 Scientists investigating a proposed way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using seawater have found that adding too much alkalinity to neutralize acids can trigger chemical reactions that undermine the process. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-coastal-estuarine-carbon-technique-backfire.html Earth Sciences Sat, 27 Jun 2026 09:40:01 EDT news701342319 The Himalayas are often seen as one of Earth's great natural barriers, separating the heavily populated and industrialized regions of South Asia from the remote Tibetan Plateau. But new research, published in Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that this mountain range is not an impenetrable wall for air pollution. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-coal-pollution-earth-remote-mountain.html Earth Sciences Fri, 26 Jun 2026 18:00:01 EDT news701690585 Climate change is altering where and when rocks are most likely to fracture across Spain, according to new research that suggests warming temperatures are redistributing a key process responsible for breaking down mountain landscapes. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-climate-reshapes-spain-rockfall-frost.html Earth Sciences Mon, 15 Jun 2026 05:40:02 EDT news700479435 Large volcanic eruptions may have played a bigger role in triggering historical famines across China than previously understood, according to a new study that traced links between eruptions, climate disruption, and food shortages over more than four centuries. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-volcanic-eruptions-linked-famine-china.html Earth Sciences Sat, 06 Jun 2026 10:20:01 EDT news699624109 Freshwater from melting Antarctic glaciers may be influencing the Southern Ocean in ways scientists have largely overlooked. New research, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, has found that glacial meltwater is not confined to the ocean's surface, as previously assumed, but can also be detected much deeper in coastal waters along the Western Antarctic Peninsula. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hidden-meltwater-deep-antarctic-coastal.html Earth Sciences Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:00:06 EDT news699710011 Tropical forests, often described as the lungs of the planet, may be edging closer to a dangerous threshold as droughts become more frequent and widespread across the world's humid tropics. New research suggests these ecosystems are increasingly struggling to recover from prolonged dry conditions, raising concerns that some forests could eventually shift from absorbing carbon dioxide to releasing it back into the atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-droughts-tropical-forests-dangerous-threshold.html Earth Sciences Mon, 18 May 2026 08:40:01 EDT news698071491 Dramatic droughts linked to the decline of the Classic Maya civilization approximately 800 to 1000 CE may not have required any external trigger, according to a new climate modeling study. Instead, they could have emerged from Earth's own natural climate variability—shifts within the climate system that, when aligned, are capable of producing prolonged dry periods on their own. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ancient-maya-droughts-fueled-earth.html Earth Sciences Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:40:03 EDT news695476101 The Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, caused widespread population displacement and infrastructure damage. However, it has also led to an unintended environmental effect with notable changes in the country's landscape, according to a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters. Among the concerns are the complex impacts of wars on water resources. These repercussions can be direct, such as wastewater pollution and destruction of water infrastructure, or indirect, including increased deforestation, soil erosion, and abrupt cropland losses. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-conflict-driven-farmland-abandonment-syria.html Earth Sciences Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:40:02 EDT news694258051 As global temperatures climb, rainfall patterns are shifting in ways that could put water resources and agriculture under increasing strain, a new study published in Water Resources Research suggests. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-index-reveals-global-resources-extreme.html Earth Sciences Tue, 31 Mar 2026 09:40:05 EDT news694089365 Every time we do a load of laundry, tiny fibers of polyester escape from our clothes and slip down the drain. These microfibers, so small they can be invisible to the naked eye, are among the most common forms of microplastic in the ocean. Yet, new research published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans shows that most of them may not make it that far. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-rivers-tidal-currents-microfibers-oceans.html Earth Sciences Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:40:01 EDT news693227053 The future of one of Antarctica's most iconic glaciers could be far more dramatic than scientists previously thought. Using satellite calibrated ice sheet models, a team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh found that the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica could be shedding 180–200 gigatonnes of ice per year by 2067—a rate roughly comparable to the entire Antarctic ice sheet's current mass loss. That would represent a stunning acceleration in ice loss from a single glacier and underlines urgent concerns about future contributions to sea level rise. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-thwaites-glacier-rival-entire-antarctic.html Earth Sciences Sun, 15 Mar 2026 13:00:03 EDT news692613890 Our planet plunged into one of the most dramatic climate states in its long history, approximately 720–635 million years ago. During a period geologists call Snowball Earth, ice sheets crept from the poles all the way to the tropics, covering the oceans and continents in a nearly global freeze. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-salt-snowball-earth-million-years.html Earth Sciences Fri, 06 Mar 2026 16:00:02 EST news692011001 Greenland's largest glacier, Jakobshavn Glacier, may be edging closer to a critical threshold as meltwater runoff from the Greenland Ice Sheet accelerates in ways not seen in over a century, according to new research published in Climate of the Past. The study reconstructs more than 100 years of freshwater discharge flowing from the ice sheet into Disko Bay in western Greenland, revealing a striking and sustained change that began in the early 2000s. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-greenland-largest-glacier-scientists.html Earth Sciences Fri, 27 Feb 2026 10:20:01 EST news691407701 When the supercontinent Pangea began to fragment around 200 million years ago during the Early Jurassic, it reshaped the face of the planet. Vast new oceans opened, continents drifted apart and the familiar geography of today slowly emerged. For decades, many geoscientists have suggested that this dramatic breakup was fueled by an accumulation of heat beneath the supercontinent, a kind of planetary "thermal insulation" effect that caused the underlying mantle (the thick layer of rock between Earth's crust and its core) to grow unusually hot. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-earth-mantle-cooler-thought-pangea.html Earth Sciences Mon, 23 Feb 2026 07:00:01 EST news690808614 Extreme rainfall is reshaping coastal waters along South Korea's shoreline, flushing nutrients from land into the sea and fueling the growth of algal blooms. A new multi-year study, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, tracked water quality in and around a major river estuary and shows how intense downpours can shift where and when these blooms appear, with consequences for marine ecosystems and coastal communities. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-extreme-rainfall-worsening-algal-blooms.html Earth Sciences Sun, 15 Feb 2026 12:30:01 EST news690204955 China's sweeping efforts to clean up its air have delivered one of the biggest public health success stories of recent decades. Since the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan was launched in 2013, coal-fired power plants have been fitted with scrubbers, heavy industry has been modernized and pollution standards tightened, leading to an over 50% reduction in atmospheric particulate matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-china-emissions-policies-climate-problem.html Earth Sciences Tue, 10 Feb 2026 07:50:01 EST news689850775