11/13/2025: Lunar lava tube sanctuary detection by gravity sensors

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Ape Cave at Mount St. Helens in Washington State. Credit: Jeff Hollett, public domain

AGU News

Don’t just reopen government. Recommit to science
AGU President Brandon Jones exhorts lawmakers in Congress to complete full-year appropriations for federal science agencies and ensure those funds are protected and used as intended. [From the Prow]

Featured Research

More frequent extreme flooding forecasted for US East Coast
Tropical cyclones have long battered the east and gulf coasts of the United States, but extreme coastal flooding from these storms is on track to shift from rare to common. Due to sea level rise and changes in the climate systems governing cyclones, flooding levels that historically struck only once every 100 years could become annual by the end of the century under moderate or high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Meanwhile, extreme floods that once happened every 500 years could occur at least every 60 years with moderate emissions and at least every 20 years with high emissions. The flooding characteristic of Hurricane Sandy could inundate New York City three to seven times more often—every 130 to 270 years, rather than every 960 years. [Earth’s Future study]

Underground moon tunnels could shelter lunar explorers – here’s how to find them
Future lunar explorers may one day take shelter from radiation, extreme temperatures, and micrometeorites in lava tubes — underground tunnels where lava once flowed, found on the moon and Earth alike. Now, researchers have hit upon a possible way to find those tubes. The team created a high-resolution, 3-D model of Ape Cave, a lava tube in Washington State, USA, and simulated how it affected gravity measurements. Similar measurements taken near the cave in real life matched their predictions. This implies, the team said, that gravity sensors could reliably detect lava tubes down to 26 meters deep on the moon as well, based on how the tubes affected gravitational measurements. [JGR Planets study]

Marine heatwaves reshape precipitation patterns
Most marine heatwaves experience reduced precipitation throughout their lifetime, but warmer events in the early stage can trigger increased precipitation after reaching peak intensity, causing faster decay. [Eos editors’ highlights][JGR Atmospheres study]

 

11/06/2025: Extreme floods could place HIV clinic care at risk

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photograph: a red-brown river snakes through terraced green hills.

The Red River flows through Yunnan on its way to the South China Sea. Red sediments give the river its distinctive color. In the past 1,500 years, humans have increased erosion in the river basin as well as the capacity of the landscape to absorb carbon dioxide through silicate weathering. Credit: 瑞丽江的河水/ Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0

AGU News

AGU25 annual meeting scientific program online
The online scientific program and schedule is now available for the December 2025 meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. [schedule] [press registration]

Featured Research

Hundreds of HIV care centers are at risk of disruption of services from climate change
Extreme weather events like floods and droughts present unique challenges to HIV care clinics and for those living with HIV in those regions. Clinics face the risk of losing access to needed medication, electricity, and regular day-to-day activities when faced with these weather events. Those living with HIV are at an increased risk of exposure to additional illnesses that can accompany floods or droughts and the potential loss of income, housing and security. The new study found almost 690 clinics face a moderate to high risk of both floods and droughts. Mozambique and South Africa had the most clinic at high risk for these multi-hazard events, with Southern Africa also housing the highest number of measured clinics. [GeoHealth study]

1,500 years of farming, deforestation boosted soil carbon capture capacity in Southeast Asia
When carbon dioxide in the atmosphere falls to earth via rainwater, it reacts with silica in rocks to form compounds that eventually flow to the sea, locking the carbon away. Human activities like farming and mining can augment this process — known as silicate weathering — by exposing more rock surface area and increasing soil erosion, boosting the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere. Using sediments in the South China Sea, researchers pieced together a 3,800-year history of weathering in the Red River Basin. They found that human activities have upped the region’s ability to sequester carbon through silicate weathering by 150% over the past 1,500 years. But erosive actions like agriculture and deforestation have driven up greenhouse gas emissions as well. [Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface study]

As CO2 concentrations rise, radio and navigation systems may falter
Layers of metallic ions — what scientists call “sporadic-E layers”— regularly form high in Earth’s atmosphere, where they sometimes disrupt high-frequency radio, navigation, and positioning systems. Researchers in Japan used an atmospheric model to simulate how increasing carbon dioxide concentrations might affect this phenomenon. Doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide from present levels, they found, changed atmospheric wind and chemistry in ways that promoted sporadic-E layers, making them stronger, longer-lasting, and lower-altitude. Changes like this could make radio and navigation systems less reliable in the future [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Beavers are not concerned about groundwater
But, scientists are! A new study illuminates the complex interactions of beaver dam induced ponding and floodplain inundation with shallow groundwater storage and flow patterns. [Eos editors’ highlights][Water Resources Research study]

Webb Telescope spies Io’s volcanic activity and sulfurous atmosphere
New James Webb Space Telescope images reveal cooling lava, volcanic sulfur monoxide gas, and sulfur gas emissions created by interactions between plasma and the moon’s atmosphere. [Eos research spotlight][JGR Planets study]

Voicing farmers’ concerns on the future of agriculture
A new study explores the deep, multi-faceted concerns of small- and mid-scale farmers about the direction of farming and food systems in the United States. [Eos editors’ highlights][Community Science study]

Serendipity in space: NASA’s eye in the sky
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission, proposed for early termination, has turned out to be a boon to forest and agricultural management. [Eos editors’ highlights][AGU Advances commentary]

 

10/30/2025: Slow shifts in Earth’s orbit may have triggered the Cambrian Explosion

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photograph of a trilobite fossil, captured obliquely. Light and shadow outline the imprint of the hard body parts and soft antennae

Trilobites, like this fossilized Olenoides serratus from the Burgess Shale, may be the most famously recognizable of the animal classes that arose and exploded into a great diversity of body forms during the Cambrian period. Credit: Smith609 at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5

AGU News

AGU25 annual meeting scientific program online
The online scientific program and schedule is now available for the December 2025 meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. [schedule] [press registration]

Judge stops shutdown-related RIFs indefinitely
On Wednesday in AGU’s case to fight the Administration’s illegal mass firings, our federal judge issued an order blocking the mass firings and reorganizations of government agencies until our case is resolved. [Read more in Eos]

Featured Research

Changes in Earth’s orbit may have kick-started the Cambrian Explosion
Experts think surges in oxygen in the ocean and atmosphere may have fueled the quick diversification of animal life called the Cambrian Explosion more than 500 million years ago. But the cause of the oxygen surges is not known. Using model simulations, researchers showed that slow periodic changes in Earth’s orbit shifted the distribution of incoming energy from the sun on similar cycles of several million years as the oxygen fluctuations. Climate change caused by these long-period orbital cycles, the researchers argued, could have impacted the weathering of Earth’s land surfaces, releasing pulses of nutrients which flowed into the oceans, prompting bursts of photosynthesis that released oxygen as a byproduct. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Regrowing forests may not help fight climate change as much as we thought
A new meta-analysis examined the impact of replanting trees on the output of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, but also less studied nitrous oxide and methane. They found that overall, replanting forests can be beneficial, helping to absorb carbon dioxide. However, maintaining healthy old growth forests and mitigating fossil fuel use went much further in combating climate change. [Global Biogeochemical Cycles study][Columbia Climate School press release]

Cities’ unused spaces could close nutritional gaps for citizens
Researchers used São Paulo as a case study to see how increasing access to urban gardens could change food scarcity in city settings. Areas chosen for these potential farms were evaluated for potential pollutants in the air, soil, and water, and only certain crops were considered to maximize output and viability. The study found almost 400 suitable areas for farms and if these areas were utilized fully with specifically chosen crops, they could help fill nutritional gaps for over one million people in São Paulo. [Earth’s Future study]

How plant-fungi friendships are changing
A new framework shows how much carbon plants allocate to their endosymbionts and how that amount might change in the face of warming soil and rising carbon dioxide levels. [Eos research spotlight][JGR Biogeosciences study]

New earthquake model goes against the grain
Subducting plates are stronger in certain directions than others, which may be a factor in how earthquakes occur and how seismic waves propagate. [Eos research highlight][Geophysical Research Letters study]

10/03/2025: Aging Europe will face rising flooding danger

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Photo: plumes of white clouds and brownish smoke against a blue sky.

Pyrocumulonimbus cloud during the Willow Fire in Arizona, 2004. Credit: Eric Neitzel / WikiCommons

AGU News

AGU25 annual meeting scientific program online
The online scientific program and schedule is now available for the December 2025 meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. [schedule] [press registration]

Featured Research

Simulation recaps how Creek Fire generated its own storms
Some wildfires burn so hot they create their own violent weather systems, injecting smoke as high into the stratosphere as volcanic eruptions. Pyrocumulonimbus storms form as plumes of hot air rise in powerful updrafts from the fires, cool and expand. Water condenses on smoke particles, forming clouds. For the first time, scientists successfully modeled the creation of these fire storm clouds in an Earth systems model, finding wildfire-driven vertical moisture transport is a key ingredient in these storms. This allows for predictions of where storms may break out during wildfires and how they might interact or change as climate change factors like increasing temperatures or decreasing rainfall change fire season. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Aging European populations at high risk as floods increase in coming decades
Financial and mobility limitations put people older than 65 at higher risk when fleeing rising floodwaters. Most of Europe is expected to see increasing numbers of elderly populations in comparison to other age groups. A new study found Western and Central Europe face the largest risk when it comes to flood dangers facing their elderly population. Major river basins like the Danube, Rhine and Loire are projected to have 100% to 300% more floods in the next 75 years. Of the elderly population, over half are at high risk during these floods due to being densely settled and in middle- or lower-income groups. [Earth’s Future study]

Clouds on Venus may contain water
Data collected from a mission to Venus 45 years ago helped scientists understand what Venus’ clouds are made of. Scientists found evidence that the hot, dry planets may have water and iron suspended in their clouds. Until now, previous research concluded the clouds consisted of mostly sulfuric acid, but a reanalysis of gases taken in by the mission probe as it moved through Venus’ clouds found they may contain water, oxygen gas and iron sulfates. [JGR Planets study]

Kicked up dust from roads can limit how well peatlands operate
The construction and use of roads through peatlands throws dust into the air, settling into the surrounding peat. Researchers took samples of topsoil from three peatlands in Canada with nearby roads. The dust affected the chemistry of the peat up to 200 m (656 ft) away from the road. Higher levels and long-lasting dust had the greatest impact on the peat. Low amounts of likely improved carbon collection in the low-lying planets and decomposing materials that make up the peatlands. However, high levels of dust accelerated the decomposition of the planets and released carbon at faster rates. [JGR Biogeosciences study]

New evidence for a wobbly Venus?
The orientation of wind-blown impact deposits on Venus is not consistent with modeled wind directions, suggesting Venus’s rotation axis may have changed. [Eos editors’ highlights] [AGU Advances study]

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07/25/2025: Extreme malaria outbreaks could double by 2100

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Anopheles stephensi sucks a blood meal from a human host. Anopheles mosquitoes are the primary insect vector for the microorganism that causes malaria. Credit: Jim Gathany/CDC, Wikimedia.

Featured Research

Ocean will hold onto carbon long after greenhouse gas levels drop
The ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the air, acting as a carbon sink for anthropogenic emissions. If efforts to control emissions and remove legacy carbon from the air are successful, the ocean will become a carbon source, outgassing stored carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere. Scientists modeled the response of the ocean to different rates of carbon removal, finding the ocean lags behind the atmosphere as it ramps down, which could complicate carbon capture planning. Slower removal allows the ocean to spend more time under climate change conditions, eventually causing larger outgassing. [JGR Oceans study]

Malaria epidemic threat rising as climate warms
Malaria rates have decreased since 2000, but researchers are warning warmer temperatures and more rain will encourage high densities of mosquitoes and raise exposure risk for people in some regions of Africa in coming decades. A projected increase in urban population density could further the potential for future extreme outbreaks. Scientists project that central and west Africa will see the highest epidemic risk starting as early as 2030 to 2060. [GeoHealth study]

Europewide database shows who gets the most lightning and hail storms
The database involves all hail and lightning storms that occurred across Europe over an 11-year time span. Researchers found that during the summer, mountain ranges like the Alps and Pyrenees experience more hail and lightning, and areas around the Mediterranean see more during autumn. The establishment of this dataset could help provide a basis for future research into hail and lightning storms in Europe. [JGR Atmospheres study]

New method tackles turbulence of hurricane landfall
As hurricanes reach the coast, wind speed changes because of the different topography and structures it must navigate around. Knowing the wind speeds as hurricanes reach land can help researchers to understand how much damage might occur and for classifying hurricanes based on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale’s 1 to 5 rating system. Researchers created the first simulation of how wind 10 meters above the ground interacts with topography changes once the hurricane reaches land. [Geophysical Research Letters study][University of Alabama press release]

A transatlantic communications cable does double duty
A new device enables existing submarine cable networks to measure deep-sea movements. It could ultimately help improve tsunami warnings and climate monitoring. [Eos research highlight] [Geophysical Research Letters letter]

Abrupt climate shifts likely as global temperatures keep rising
A computer vision technique modified to scan climate model data is helping scientists predict where and when rapid climatic shifts will happen in the future. [Eos research highlight] [AGU Advances study]

6/26/2025: Map shows where communities face compounding climate hazards

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Combinations of heatwaves with wildfires, flooding, and crop failure will be more common by 2100. Credit: NOAA

Featured Research

Combinations of heatwaves with wildfires and other climate hazards to increase by 2100
New models show that under current greenhouse gas emissions, communities will have to battle multiple climate hazards at once. An increase of paired heatwaves and wildfires will be seen globally. Heatwaves coupled with crop failures will be more prevalent in Africa and the Americas, and in combination with soil drought around the Mediterranean. [Earth’s Future study]

Massive, exposed rock beds may have caused Snowball Earth
Earth entered two Snowball climate events, where ice covers most of the Earth, between 1 billion to 540 million years ago. How exactly the Earth came to be covered in ice has remained a mystery. Now researchers argue that the weathering of an area of land made of fresh volcanic rocks that stretched from Alaska through Northern Canada to Greenland, may be to blame. The weathering process removes carbon dioxide from the air, lowering the temperatures in a reverse greenhouse effect. The authors say ancient Earth has the perfect climate for a snowball effect, with a large volcanic explosion, low climate temperatures, and no plants that existed yet to obscure the rock’s view. [Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets study]

Synesthesia in humans inspires a new way for driverless cars to navigate busy city streets
A new machine learning model called Synesthesia of Machines outperformed other path prediction systems for AI-driven cars in a new study. The new method, which uses multiple input methods like mmWave radar, LiDAR, RBG-Depth cameras and light detection, responded faster and more accurately during model testing for intelligent transportation systems in AI-driven cars. [Radio Science study]

The risk of health problems will only increase as Earth passes planetary boundaries
A review of the latest science on “planetary boundaries” found a direct association between health risks and a breach of nine critical thresholds the researchers say Earth must maintain or risk catastrophic environmental loss. The review found a correlation between issues including increased temperatures and pollution with higher cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and worsening health for vulnerable populations. [GeoHealth review]

What’s changed—and what hasn’t—since the EPA’s endangerment finding
A scientist-authored brief played a role in the 2009 determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health. With the finding now up for reconsideration, the same scientists revisit their opinion. [Eos research spotlight] [AGU Advances study]

Where do Antarctic submarine canyons get their marine life?
A new study investigates how much of the phytoplankton in the Palmer Deep submarine canyon is homemade and how much is delivered. [Eos research highlights] [JGR Oceans study]

Early apes evolved in tropical forests disturbed by fires and volcanoes
Fossils discovered at an early Miocene site in Kenya include a new type of early ape and offer clues about the environment inhabited by human ancestors. [Eos research highlight] [Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology study]

 

6/19/2025: Extreme heat may raise risks of early and preterm births

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Graphic of the Earth with South America centered shows average cloud fraction on a scale from white to blue. Location of Hadley Cell circulation is marked.

Marine storm cloud zones have shifted poleward and narrowed, and the changes are contributing to our planet’s growing energy imbalance. Credit: Michala Garrison/ NASA Earth Observatory

AGU News

AGU and IPCC partner to expand access to publications for work on Seventh Assessment Report
Access to AGU journals will provide critical climate research and data for co-authors from developing countries and anyone facing access barriers to content. [press release]

Heat wave science roundup

  • Heatwave-flooding double-disasters are increasing [Geophysical Research Letters study]
  • Current city planning can’t keep up with combined heat and drought events [Earth’s Future study]
  • Wet heat or dry heat? Humidity lags on hottest days as climate warms [Earth’s Future study]
  • Unhoused older adults struggle to cope with rising temperatures in Phoenix [GeoHealth study]
  • How urban greenspace compares in Beijing and NYC, and who benefits [Earth’s Future study]
  • Where to hang out to avoid heat-related emergency department visits [GeoHealth study]
  • Temperature-related deaths could rise five-fold by end of century in US [GeoHealth study]
  • Urban overheating risks are personal, study finds [Earth’s Future study][press release]

Featured Research

Extreme heat may raise risks of early and preterm births
Scientists looked at the births of nearly four million babies between 1990 and 2017 and found an association between preterm and early-term births during extreme heat waves, compared to the rest of the year. Heat-related preterm births (between 28 and36 weeks) were more commonly found in women over 35 whereas women under the age of 25 had a greater association with early-term births (between 37 and 38 weeks) during the hottest days of each year. [GeoHealth study][see also: flooding disasters]

Earth’s storm cloud zones are shrinking, and that means warmer oceans
Earth’s cloudiest regions form a band around the equator and in the middle latitudes, where converging winds generate storms. These bands have been contracting by 1.5% to 3% per decade since the turn of the century. The shrinkage lets more sunlight reach the surface, warming the oceans and tipping the balance of energy absorbed and energy reflected back to space. [Geophysical Research Letters study][NASA Earth Observatory graphics]

AI forecasts PM2.5 pollution at U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide
Fine particulates (PM2.5) bring serious, expensive risks for cardiovascular health. The U.S. State Department and EPA monitor air quality at 80 embassies. Researchers at NASA applied deep learning to satellite imagery, using the ground monitoring data for calibration to extend accurate 3-day forecasts to 269 embassy locations worldwide. [Earth and Space Science study]

Fracking high stress faults risks bigger earthquakes
Injecting fluids underground for fracking, wastewater disposal or geothermal energy raises pressure in the rock, which can cause small earthquakes. New research finds stress, pore pressure, and rock structure all affect earthquake magnitudes, and offers better interpretation of seismic signals to assess the risks from these projects. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Water density shifts can drive rapid changes in AMOC strength
High-latitude variations in density, which appear to be driven by changes in atmospheric pressure, can propagate to midlatitudes and affect the current’s strength within just a year. [Eos research spotlight][Geophysical Research Letters study]

How Greenland’s glacial troughs influence ocean circulation
Glacial troughs in Antarctica promote mixing of warm and cold water, affecting global climate. A new study explores whether the same is true in troughs along Greenland’s coastline. [Eos research spotlight][ Journal of Geophysical Research Letters: Oceans study]

5/30/2025: California’s earthquakes run late

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Aerial photograph of a dry grass plain, blue sky in background. A furrow of the San Andreas Fault runs vertically.

The San Andreas Fault cuts across southern California’s Carrizo Plain. Credit: Doc Searls

Featured Research

Cooling the Great Barrier Reef likely presents low risk of remote problems
A case study of the Great Barrier Reef, which has suffered coral bleaching from record high ocean temperatures in recent years, used the Community Earth System Model to investigate effects of interventions such as marine cloud brightening far from the treatment location under a spectrum of scenarios and intensities. Results suggest limited, localized cooling over the reef in summer has a low risk of remote impacts. The authors say their approach can be applied to risk management of climate interventions for other sensitive ecosystems. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Earthquakes on California’s faults tend to run late
California’s fault systems have had an outsized influence on earthquake forecast models. Intrigued that New Zealand’s earthquakes are rarely “late,” researchers examined the time of recurrence for 210 faults in five tectonically active regions around the world, drawing on data from 890 large prehistoric and historic earthquakes. California was the outlier, possibly because of the predominance of fast-moving slip-faults there. The researchers suggest a different calculation may be more useful for forecasters elsewhere.[Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth study]

On-the-ground solar storm nowcasting for the UK
Severe to extreme geomagnetic storms can induce currents in ground-based infrastructure, with unfortunate consequences. New nowcast and forecast codes estimate geomagnetically induced currents in Great Britain’s high voltage power transmission network, high pressure gas pipeline network and railway network using ground and satellite data.[Space Weather study]

River alkalinization and ocean acidification face off in coastal waters
Factors ranging from rainfall to nutrient runoff to changing mining and agricultural practices drove decades-long pH trends in the Chesapeake Bay. [Eos research spotlight][AGU Advances study]

AI pictures augment rock datasets key to subsurface engineering
Boosting digital rock images with AI-powered augmentation and quality analysis makes the invisible underground environment more accessible. [Eos editors’ highlight][Water Resources Research study]

5/22/2025: Who’s exposed to oil and gas wastewater?

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Oil production from submerged federal lands on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. Credit: Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement

AGU News

Weather & climate 100-hour science-a-thon next week
U.S. federally-funded climate scientists and meteorologists will hold a public-facing, nonpartisan 100-hour relay of virtual 20-minute talks sharing their work and why it matters for every American. Viewers will get a chance to interact with the speakers via moderated questions. [livestream Wednesday 28 May to Sunday 1 June]

Featured Research

Storm prediction gets 10 times faster thanks to AI
Forecasters hope new algorithms will lead to earlier warnings of when dangerous weather is on the way. [Eos research spotlight][Geophysical Research Letters study]

Who’s exposed to oil and gas wastewater?
Oil and gas extraction uses a lot of water — four trillion liters in 2021. Most of the contaminated wastewater (98%) is disposed into deep injection wells, but demand for fresh water means “produced water” is sometimes put to other uses, such as irrigation, livestock watering or road treatments. Contaminated water can also leak or spill. Information is spotty about exactly which chemicals contaminate the water and their toxicity, mobility and ultimate environmental fate. A review of what is known about human exposure identifies key knowledge gaps. [GeoHealth study]

Heatwave and flooding double disasters are increasing
Some atmospheric conditions have the potential to generate paired disasters, like heat + drought or heavy rain + wind. The conditions that bring extreme heat and extreme rain are typically opposing, but synchronicity has increased 34% since the 1980s and is rising. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Scientists reveal hidden heat and flood hazards across Texas
A wider swath of the Lone Star State may be affected by more heat and flood events than previous recordkeeping suggests. [Eos research spotlight][AGU Advances study]

Deforestation is reducing rainfall in the Amazon
Researchers found that between 2002 and 2015, a 3.2% reduction in Brazilian forest cover led to a 5.4% reduction in precipitation levels. [Eos research spotlight][AGU Advances study]

Heat and pollution events are deadly, especially in the Global South
Researchers found that the combination of heat waves and high PM2.5 pollution led to nearly 700,000 premature deaths in the past 30 years — most of which occurred in the Global South. [Eos research spotlight][GeoHealth study]

Earth’s last rapid global warming event had a long recovery
During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, global temperatures jumped 5 degrees Celsius in conjunction with a burst of carbon dioxide. New research suggests the recovery took more than 140,000 years — which may be bad news for our current carbon cycle situation. [Eos research spotlight][Geophysical Research Letters study]

Shade is not enough to cool old forests in a new climate
It’s usually cooler under a forest than outside the forest, but that natural temperature buffering didn’t make global warming any less strong during the last 45 years in an old-growth forest of Oregon. [Eos editors’ highlight][AGU Advances study]

 

5/15/2025: California almond harvest could halve by 2100

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close up photograph of almonds on a tree

Almonds maturing in California’s Central San Joaquin Valley. Credit: PAC55/Wikimedia

Featured Research

Unchecked climate warming may shrink California’s almond harvest 49% by end of century
Even under moderate warming, producers can expect a 17% yield reduction, but innovation in farming techniques could offset the damage, according to a new study that models the effects of temperature and humidity changes at each developmental stage. [Earth’s Future study]

Rise of electric vehicles shifts pollution concerns to brakes and tires
A case study in Tianjin city, China, inventoried the vehicle emissions that don’t spill out of exhaust pipes, finding fine particulates (PM2.5) release during wear on brakes and tires surpassed particulates produced from combustion engines. [Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres study]

Dust devils could dust solar panels on Mars
Dry whirlwinds roam the Red Planet, often rising hundreds of meters above the surface. When conditions are right, they lift bright, reflective dust off a layer of coarser grained surface material, leaving dark tracks that mark their passage for months after the vortex has passed. The first high-resolution global survey of dust devil tracks found they peaked in summer around 60 degrees north and south of the equator, coinciding with the peak of Mars’ dust storm season. The authors suggest placing solar-powered missions in the path of heavy dust devil traffic to take advantage of the occasional scouring. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Panama connected the Americas 4.1 million years ago
4.6 million years ago, the Central America Seaway still flowed between the Americas, but it was growing shallow. Half a million years later, thin channels may have carried animals across the isthmus, but the ocean basins were functionally separate on the ocean scale, say the authors of a new geochemical study. Isotopes bound in the fossils of tiny ocean animals record the end of exchange of seawater and nutrients between the oceans. Previous estimates put this date at 3.2 million years ago based on evolutionary divergence of related animals in the Atlantic and Pacific.  [Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology study].

New study questions Curiosity Rover’s methane detection on Mars
Curiosity’s detection of the gas, if atmospheric, could be an indicator of life on the Red Planet. But skeptics say further work is needed to rule out the rover itself as the source of the methane. [Eos research spotlight][Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets study]

The uncertain fate of the Beaufort Gyre
Climate models produce widely varying predictions for what will happen to this influential ocean current, but most models predict it will weaken or stop. [Eos research spotlight][Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans study]

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