https://phys.org/earth-news/ en-us Earth science research, climate change, and global warming. The latest news and updates from Phys.org Evapotranspiration is a critical link between water, energy, and carbon. Scientists need to understand it well to accurately predict weather, droughts, streamflows, and even carbon emissions. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-evapotranspiration-method-recover-tower-energy.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 23:00:01 EDT news698499823 NASA scientists have developed an artificial intelligence tool to take on a longstanding challenge in ocean waters. In a study recently published in the Earth and Space Science journal, researchers reported the tool was able to fuse data from multiple satellites and detect harmful algal blooms that occurred in western Florida and Southern California. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ai-tool-fuses-satellite-datasets.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 18:00:05 EDT news698513041 For decades, environmental debates have been framed around a stark trade-off: economic growth lifts people out of poverty but comes at the expense of forests, wildlife, and climate stability. More people and richer diets mean more farmland and less nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-economic-growth-income-countries-biodiversity.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 17:20:01 EDT news698507521 Scientists have uncovered new evidence that Earth's continents are continuously reworked deep beneath the surface, offering fresh insight into how continents have evolved over billions of years. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-earth-recycles-continents-deep-underground.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 17:00:07 EDT news698507281 Cities don't just change the landscape, they change the weather. According to a new study analyzing tens of thousands of rain events in Texas, whether urban areas make rain worse, lighter or simply different depends strongly on the type of storm. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-cities-storms-impacts-storm.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 16:40:05 EDT news698506981 New research shows, for the first time, an unprecedented and significant warming of equatorial Atlantic upper intermediate waters during the mid- to late Holocene. The paper is published in the journal Geology. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ancient-atlantic-oceans-centuries.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 16:40:01 EDT news698506201 Aerosols and clouds play a key role in Earth's climate budget. However, the extent to which they reflect solar energy depends heavily on how much water the particles can absorb. This so-called hygroscopicity has so far been represented in a simplified manner in climate models. An international research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) has now demonstrated through a global study that the models are not precise enough, particularly in urban regions. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-urban-aerosols-faster-polluted-air.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 16:00:10 EDT news698501755 By combining demand-driven life cycle assessment with a multi-objective optimization framework, researchers identified potential optimal solutions for reusable bubble tea packaging systems under actual market demand conditions. The results show that material selection and low reuse frequency dominate both economic costs and environmental impacts, while durability and logistics become increasingly important as reuse frequency increases. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-reusable-tea-cups-hidden-thresholds.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 15:20:09 EDT news698500012 New research from Singapore University of Technology and Design and the Singapore-ETH Centre finds that private cooling may protect people from heat while reducing the perceived urgency of broader urban climate solutions—a pattern the researchers call "behavioral insulation." https://phys.org/news/2026-05-air-conditioning-cools-homes-weaken.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 14:20:05 EDT news698499061 Sea level rise is a direct consequence of human-induced climate change: global warming. It is relentless and very hard to stop. It arises from human-induced warming and the consequential expansion of the ocean, plus the addition of more and more water from melting glaciers and ice sheets. It will continue long into the future. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-scientists-knowledge-sea.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 14:00:07 EDT news698493661 Old oil and gas wells may continue to affect the environment long after they have stopped producing, with new field evidence showing that their leakage footprint can be broader and more persistent than surface methane measurements alone reveal. A study led by researchers at The Lyell Centre, Heriot-Watt University, examined persistent methane leakage from a legacy petroleum well in British Columbia, Canada. The team found that while methane emissions at the ground surface were concentrated in a relatively small area and varied through time, the leakage also left a wider detectable signature in the shallow subsurface and surrounding soils. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-field-evidence-canada-wells-hidden.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 12:44:20 EDT news698499741 The world's forests form a vast network of carbon reservoirs, keeping carbon sequestered from the atmosphere where its presence is disrupting Earth's climate systems. Many corporate, national and state climate policies rely on forests' ability to store carbon—often tracked and funded through a system of "carbon credits" issued to polluting industries in exchange for protecting and restoring forests. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-carbon-underestimate-forests-climate.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 11:00:13 EDT news698407681 Plastic food packaging, caps and lids, and plastic bottles are the planet's predominant items of marine litter, according to the world's first overview of marine litter by usage type. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-food-plastics-dominate-marine-litter.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 11:00:06 EDT news698420042 India's weather agency warned on Wednesday of the risk of upcoming "extreme" heat made worse by the potentially powerful El Niño weather pattern, issuing heat wave preparedness guidelines as temperatures soared. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-india-issues-el-nino-looms.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 10:00:05 EDT news698487862 The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday considers a resolution reinforcing states' obligations to combat climate change, a long-awaited move toned down under pressure from major greenhouse gas emitters. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-pressure-mounts-nations-climate-lifeline.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 05:20:01 EDT news698472171 The mighty Congo River feeds millions of people along its course through the vast Democratic Republic of Congo but fishermen near the capital now find more plastic than fish in their nets. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-dr-congo-fishermen-resort-trawling.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 05:12:24 EDT news698472676 A 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck the Pacific region of southern Peru late Tuesday, injuring 27 people and damaging buildings, officials said. No deaths were reported. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-magnitude-earthquake-peru.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 05:08:46 EDT news698472503 The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season starts June 1, and while a developing El Niño might result in a tamer season than in the past few years, all it takes is one big storm hitting a populated area to make it a bad hurricane season. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-hurricane-federal-noaa.html Environment Tue, 19 May 2026 19:40:05 EDT news698413538 A recent study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences has uncovered a detailed mechanism through which intense storms over the Himalayas contribute to increasing moisture in the lower stratosphere—a layer of the atmosphere crucial to global climate regulation. The research, led by Ph.D. student Li Ming and Dr. Wu Xue from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, highlights the important role of gravity waves generated by deep convection. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-himalayan-storms-humidify-upper-atmosphere.html Earth Sciences Tue, 19 May 2026 19:20:05 EDT news698428501 A review paper led by researchers from the University of St Andrews highlights the transformative potential in the use of radar in polar research to predict future sea levels. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-radar-polarimetry-machine-glacial-ice.html Earth Sciences Tue, 19 May 2026 17:20:07 EDT news698421782 More than half the world's population now lives in cities that are often much hotter than their rural surroundings. Roads, buildings and paved surfaces absorb and store heat during the day, then release it slowly after sunset. This is known as the urban heat island effect. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-traffic-cities-warmer.html Environment Tue, 19 May 2026 15:40:07 EDT news698412482 Many people are migrating within countries across South Asia to cope with extreme weather. In Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal, people often move from rural homes to urban metropolises when their homes and livelihoods become damaged or threatened by cyclones and storms, floods and droughts. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-climate-hidden-household-politics-migration.html Environment Tue, 19 May 2026 15:20:06 EDT news698412422 Extreme heat and drought could damage harvests and worsen global food insecurity this summer. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-super-el-nio-trigger-global.html Environment Tue, 19 May 2026 15:00:05 EDT news698412362 Formula 1 auto racing is one of the most energy-intensive and logistically complex sports on the planet. The events involve cars, of course, but also long-haul freight, international travel, temporary event infrastructure, and a global calendar that keeps people and equipment moving almost constantly. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-formula-hard-netzero-carbon-emissions.html Environment Tue, 19 May 2026 13:20:09 EDT news698411042 According to NOAA, the global average sea level has risen 8–9 inches (21–24 centimeters) since 1880. The rate at which the sea level is rising is increasing, threatening coastal cities and ecosystems around the world. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-cloud-sun-centuries-sea.html Earth Sciences Tue, 19 May 2026 12:45:13 EDT news698413433 It may sound counterintuitive, but new research suggests that cleaning up air pollution could contribute to a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). This is the ocean current system that acts like a giant conveyor belt, moving warm surface water northward and cool deep water southward. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-climate-air-pollution-key-atlantic.html Earth Sciences Tue, 19 May 2026 12:40:02 EDT news698411936 It was the hardest field trip they had ever been on, but the result was both surprising and exciting. After hiking 9 kilometers with a 400-meter elevation gain and carrying heavy backpacks through very rocky terrain, the researchers spent more than 24 hours in the field and returned with sediment samples from the lake Stuptjørna. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-brutal-field-insights-arctic-winter.html Earth Sciences Tue, 19 May 2026 12:00:04 EDT news698408102 A new study of the largest dam removal project in United States history on the Klamath River in Oregon and California is offering new insight into a long-running water conflict by finding that farmers and conservation groups share priorities that may help guide decision-making on future river restoration projects. The work is published in the journal Society & Natural Resources. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-agriculture-common-ground-klamath.html Earth Sciences Tue, 19 May 2026 11:00:10 EDT news698403902 What do a thriving coral reef and a bustling city neighborhood have in common? More than you might think. A Perspective by Federico Botta and colleagues published in PNAS Nexus proposes a method for measuring urban vibrancy by studying cities the way ecologists study ecosystems, measuring the richness and abundance of human activities in urban spaces. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-urban-vibrancy.html Environment Tue, 19 May 2026 09:40:05 EDT news698400962 Scientists are jettisoning their worst and best case scenarios for a warming world as no longer plausible. That shows how modest gains in the fight to curb climate change have dialed back the most catastrophic of future heating but also confirmed that there's no chance to limit warming to the international goal set in 2015. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-climate-world-wont-hot-limit.html Environment Tue, 19 May 2026 09:24:41 EDT news698401408