A cargo ship off the coast of Venezuela. In response to environmental concerns, international regulations over the past two decades have required ships to switch to cleaner fuels in certain coastal regions. Credit: Wilfredor, Wikimedia Commons
AGU News
Save US forecasts: AGU Presidents to join weather & climate marathon livestream
From 4pm EDT next Monday, 1 June to 6pm EDT Wednesday, 3 June, more than 100 weather and climate scientists will speak continuously for 50 hours in protest of federal funding and staffing cuts. AGU President Brandon Jones and AGU President-Elect Benjamin Zaichik will participate on 3 June at 2:00 – 2:40 pm EDT. [YouTube livestream] [event contact: [email protected]] [AGU leadership contact: [email protected]]
Session highlights from the JpGU-AGU Joint Meeting 2026 in Chiba, Japan (and online)
Members of the news media interested in covering the Joint Meeting of the Japan Geoscience Union and AGU in Chiba, Japan from 24-29 May 2026, either online or in person, should complete pre-registration on the meeting press page. The meeting is accessible in English. Reporters can send registration questions to [email protected]. [Meeting website] [Meeting press page] [Info for online participation] [Info on session languages] [full program] [media advisory] [highlight sessions]
Featured Research
International laws successfully curbed maritime shipping pollution
Regulations on ship fuels have cut atmospheric pollutants along the US East Coast by at least 80% for vanadium, at least 67% for particulate nickel, and at least 53% for particulate sulfate. High-sulfur ship fuels emit these pollutants when burned, prompting the International Maritime Organization to enact regulations in 2012 and 2015 requiring ships to switch to low-sulfur fuels in certain North American coastal areas. The results, based on a 15-year dataset from monitoring sites along the East Coast and measurements from NASA flights over the northwestern Atlantic from 2020 to 2022, highlight the effectiveness of regulations for controlling maritime pollution, the researchers write. [JGR Atmospheres study]
Sudden streamflow shifts present a rising hazard in the Mississippi River Basin
In a future of moderately high greenhouse gas emissions, major tributaries in the United States’ Mississippi River Basin should expect more frequent “hydrologic whiplash,” sudden shifts between high and low streamflow. Observations and climate models project that, by the end of this century, wet-to-dry whiplash may get 115% and 137% more common on the Missouri and Arkansas Rivers, respectively, compared to the period from 1851 to 1880 during which each river might have seen only one or two such events, researchers estimate. Booms and busts in rainfall and snowmelt will likely drive most of the increase. Understanding these trends may help this economically vital region alleviate their impacts on water resources and infrastructure. [Geophysical Research Letters study]
Seaweed could sink CO2 as efficiently as direct carbon capture
Farming, harvesting, and sinking massive amounts of seaweed could lock away planet-warming carbon dioxide as efficiently as technologies that directly capture the gas from the air, according to new model simulations. To grow, seaweed sucks up carbon from the waters near the ocean’s surface, prompting the ocean to absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere to make up for it, thereby mitigating climate change. Sinking seaweed at least 2,000 meters at a speed of 1,000 meters or more per day can, in some parts of the Pacific, lock away the carbon inside it for up to 500 years. This strategy gets less effective if the seaweed sinks too slowly or shallowly, or in places where water circulates too quickly between the depths and the surface. [Earth’s Future study]
“Seed coating” tech could help restore degraded ecosystems
Seed coating technology, which wraps seeds in protective layers to help them germinate and grow, originated to improve crop yields — but a recent review of existing research indicates it could do the same for plants used to restore degraded ecosystems with salty, dry, or waterlogged soils. In these contexts, coatings can boost plant germination by over 23% and growth by over 43%. Coatings including micronutrients and oxygen-supply agents promote germination best, while those with beneficial microbes stimulate growth better, meaning it pays to match the right coating to the right species and environment. However, most coatings today are designed for grasses and legumes, highlighting the need to adapt the technology to suit restoration plants, the researchers write. [Earth’s Future study]
Crust-shattering asteroids may have primed young Earth for life
Early in our planet’s history, asteroids pummeled Earth’s surface up to 100,000 times more often than today, fracturing its crust. Heat generated from those impacts, and rising from Earth’s interior, spurred fluids to circulate through those fractures, creating hydrothermal systems that could have lasted millions of years — a type of environment in which, scientists think, life may have originated or undergone early evolution. New computer simulations of differently sized asteroids hitting young Earth at various speeds suggest those impacts likely rendered vast regions of the upper eight kilometers (five miles) of Earth’s crust highly permeable for its first 1.5 billion years, promoting that kind of hydrothermal activity over long spans of time. [AGU Advances study]