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- 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.
- 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.
- 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."
- 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.
- The U.K.'s pothole problem could one day be tackled from beneath the road surface as researchers at the University of Surrey launch a pioneering trial that uses heat stored underground to keep roads cooler in summer, warmer in winter and less prone to damage.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- A team of paleontologists from China University of Geosciences (Beijing) studying penguin fossils from Seymour Island off the Antarctic Peninsula have demonstrated how ancient bird bones can act as chemical archives of past climate change. The researchers used nondestructive X-ray mapping to examine the elemental composition of penguin remains spanning millions of years. They uncovered key insights into how Antarctica shifted from a warm, humid environment to a cooler world. The work is published in the journal Fossil Record.
- 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.
- 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.
- On a perfect, crisp fall day with blue skies, scientists in yellow safety coats gather in the sprawling desert north of Reno. They watch as flames consume a burning bush and quickly spread through the surrounding grass. The fire is completely controlled and monitored by dozens of sensors as three enormous drones buzz directly overhead, following the curl of smoke as it dances in the light breeze.
- With extreme weather increasing around the world, scientists are working to help critical infrastructure, such as water management systems, adapt. On the U.S. West Coast, where both periods of prolonged drought and intense atmospheric river storms are common, effective water management can be particularly tricky.
- Emergency workers attempting to rescue survivors after a recent earthquake in Kyushu, Japan, also had to cope with extreme summer heat.
- 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.
- 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.
- Salt marshes are coastal wetlands that are alternately inundated and exposed by tides. These marshes, like other coastal ecosystems, are hotspots of carbon cycling.
- Locals and officials in Colombia have begun a massive search and rescue effort to find survivors of a powerful earthquake that struck near San José del Palmar in Chocó, with major damage observed in the cities of Cali, Manizales and Pereira.
- 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.
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