9/17/2026: Rivers losing flow despite receiving more water

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A teal stretch of river at the base of white cliffs topped with trees and plants in the south of France.

A river flowing through a canyon in the south of France. A new study looking at trends in river flows and precipitation between 1951 and 2020 finds that some rivers levels are falling despite overall increases in rainfall. Credit: steinchen on Pixabay.

AGU News

Press registration is open for 2026 AGU Annual Meeting
Press registration is now open for AGU’s 2026 annual meeting in San Francisco, California, convening 7 to 11 December 2026 at the George R. Moscone Convention Center.  Staff, freelance and student journalists are eligible to apply for complimentary press registration until the end of the conference on Friday, 11 December. Press officers and institutional writers covering the meeting are also eligible for press registration.

Featured Research

Rivers losing flow despite receiving more water
A new study charting global flows and precipitation in over 10,000 rivers from 1951 to 2020 has found that 27% have flow trends that don’t match up with how much water they receive from snow and rainfall. 40% of these mismatched rivers get more precipitation now than they did 70 years ago yet are still trending towards lower water levels. Researchers suggest this mismatch may be more common in regions where more water evaporates back into the atmosphere after rainfall and where rainfall extremes are getting more frequent. Understanding what factors besides rainfall control these rivers’ flows will be crucial for predicting future water availability in a changing climate. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

New study finds tighter limits on life beneath the ocean floor
Scientists have long suggested that billions of tons of microbes inhabit cracks and crevices in rock for miles below ground. However, a new study suggests this may be an overestimate, particularly under the oceans. Researchers stitched together global measurements of the temperature gradients in Earth’s crust to find the total area potentially suitable for microbes, which have only been observed to survive up to 122 degrees Celsius. This limit occurs roughly 3 miles (5 kilometers) below land and 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) below the seafloor. This, combined with the biological limits of underground pressure, indicates there could be 5 to 15 times less microbial mass beneath the oceans than previously estimated. [JGR Machine Learning & Computation study]

Waves can supplement — or steal — energy in offshore wind farms
A new study has found that friction between wind and waves can increase or decrease wind speeds at offshore wind turbines by up to 6%, changing a wind farm’s power output. By simulating wave-wind interactions for turbines off the coast of Brazil, researchers found that high wind speeds create choppy seas that increase the water’s drag on the air above, slowing wind down at the height of turbine blades. On the other hand, powerful ocean swells can give the wind a boost from below, increasing potential power output. As offshore wind becomes a larger part of global power production, accurately predicting fluctuations in sea breezes for each wind farm will be key to managing energy supplies around the world. [JGR Oceans study]

Artificially reducing ocean acidity might not lead to long-term carbon storage
A new study finds that between 18 and 59% of the carbon that would be trapped by adding alkalis, substances that can consume acids, to the ocean could leak back out again by the year 10,000. Adding alkalis like quicklime or lye to the oceans would reduce the acidity of seawater, making it easier for carbon-trapping minerals to form and sink to the bottom. Scientists have proposed this could help achieve carbon neutrality by storing carbon on the seafloor for tens of thousands of years. A new study simulated 8,000 years of ocean evolution after adding five billion tons of slake lime per year — the same mass as about 11 Empire State buildings — from 2020 to 2070. Researchers find that adding alkalis could initially bring down atmospheric CO2, but the formation of carbon-trapping minerals would use up the alkalinity after a couple of hundred years, ultimately re-releasing some of the stored CO2. [Global Biogeochemical Cycles study]

The ocean has been “breathing” increasingly heavily over the past four decades
The ocean both absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and releases it back again in a kind of “breathing” pattern. But according to observations spanning 1982 to 2022, unusually deep inhalations and exhalations (ranking among the strongest 10% of such events from 1982 to 2011) have become more common and intense. While extreme carbon uptake events have gotten more frequent by 1.22 days per decade since 1982, extreme releases of carbon have risen nearly twice as fast, at 2.23 days per decade. Researchers say changes in sea surface temperature are the biggest factor driving these extreme “breaths” and project further increases under strong future warming scenarios. [JGR Atmospheres study]

Four in Five Researchers Report Harmful Interactions During Geoscience Fieldwork. A New Survey Suggests a Path Forward.
A new survey documents the prevalence of harmful interactions that occur during fieldwork. Many instances go officially unreported. [Eos research spotlight] [AGU Advances study]

Tiny Cyanobacteria May Be the Secret Heroes of Ocean Carbon Sequestration
Even when larger phytoplankton produce more carbon, much of it is lost on the journey to the ocean floor. [Eos research spotlight] [AGU Advances study]

Extreme Equatorial Storms are Larger and More Persistent Under Warming
Extreme storms in the tropical regions are expanding and becoming more persistent with climate warming, resulting in higher storm rainfall volumes while peak intensity remains unchanged. [Eos editors’ highlight] [AGU Advances study]

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9/10/2026: Forests are marching uphill, potentially destabilizing soil carbon where they arrive

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A high rocky peak with patches of snow rises behind a hillside covered in grass and trees under a blue sky.

A high Himalayan peak rises above a tree-covered slope. Climate warming is enabling forests to climb higher in mountainous environments, potentially destabilizing the storage of carbon in alpine soils. Credit: pehrlich on Pixabay

AGU News 

Press registration is open for 2026 AGU Annual Meeting
Press registration is now open for AGU’s 2026 annual meeting in San Francisco, California, convening 7 to 11 December 2026 at the George R. Moscone Convention Center.  Staff, freelance and student journalists are eligible to apply for complimentary press registration until the end of the conference on Friday, 11 December. Press officers and institutional writers covering the meeting are also eligible for press registration.

Arctic Report Card 2026 finds critical support from AGU
The Arctic Report Card, the annual peer-reviewed assessment of the state of the warming Arctic, will continue under its independent editorial team with new support from the American Geophysical Union. The partnership ensures the report’s continuity following the loss of core support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The editorial team, made up of three long-serving Arctic scientists, will continue to lead the Arctic Report Card’s scientific direction and content, with AGU providing critical infrastructure, distribution and convening support. The partners expect the details of this collaboration to evolve as a longer-term governance model is developed over the coming months. [AGU press release] [Eos commentary] [Arctic Report Card website]

Featured Research

Forests are marching uphill, potentially destabilizing soil carbon where they arrive
As the climate warms, forests previously confined to lower elevations can grow ever higher in mountainous regions. By gathering soil samples high in the Bhutanese Himalaya, researchers found that as trees encroach into alpine areas, the amount of carbon durably stored in the soil drops by almost 30%. The overall decline in stable soil carbon raises concerns that the lofty new forests may not be as reliable for long-term carbon storage as the high alpine ecosystems they are replacing. [JGR Biogeosciences study]

Water likely prevented young Mars from developing plate tectonics
Even small amounts of water in Mars’ early crust — less than half a percent, by weight — would have been enough to keep Martian rocks too light and buoyant to sink below those around them, according to recent model simulations. On Earth, puzzle pieces of planetary crust slide over or under each other due to some being dense enough to sink below others, a process known as subduction-driven plate tectonics. Water doesn’t prevent subduction on Earth due to differences in the material and thermal properties of the two planets’ crusts, the researchers say.  On early Mars, however, the likely presence of water on early Mars could have contributed to the lack of this phenomenon on the red planet. The finding held up across various types, temperatures, and thicknesses of Martian crust. [JGR Planets study]

Impacts can give a planet an atmosphere — or take it away
When a comet or asteroid strikes a planet’s atmosphere, two competing effects come into play. The impactor brings extraterrestrial material, including rock, water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen, some of which can add gas to the atmosphere. The force of the impact, on the other hand, can eject some of the planet’s existing atmosphere. By simulating the effects of pummeling early Earth, Mars and Venus with a realistic range of impactors zipping around the solar system, researchers found an enormous range of possible outcomes. Earth’s atmosphere tended to grow, whereas Mars’ could either grow or shrink. The study confirms that impacts are a crucial source of gases for planets’ atmospheres but highlights how much work remains to understand how Earth’s atmosphere ended up just right, compared to the punishingly thick Venusian and perilously thin Martian ones. [JGR Planets study]

Drones reveal hidden hazards in Icelandic town shaken by volcanos
Since November 2023, the town of Grindavík in western Iceland has been an epicenter of volcanic activity as molten rock works its way closer to the surface. The resulting tremors and earthquakes have opened sinkholes and fractures under streets and playgrounds. Many of these hazards don’t breach the surface, rendering them effectively invisible and thus even more dangerous. For the first time, researchers have deployed a combination of on-the-ground and drone-based geophysics measurements to map out unseen pits and voids up to nine feet (three meters) wide and as far as 30 to 60 feet (10 to 20 meters) below ground. This new technique could provide near-real-time info on urban hazards during volcanic activity, protecting towns from literally falling into the ground. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Moon soil gets more insulating as it ages
A new study has found that the oldest lunar soil — known as regolith — is two times worse at conducting heat than younger, fresher soil. The tiny fragments of rock on the moon’s surface weather constant bombardment by meteorites, cosmic rays and solar wind, which break them apart, fluff them up, and change their chemistry. With enough time, this riddles the soil with microscopic gaps filled with the vacuum of space, which works like millions of tiny insulating flasks that prevent heat from conducting from grain to grain. Since the insulating effect strengthens with soil age, infrared instruments on orbiting spacecraft can use it to map soil age Moon-wide. Based on these results, China’s Chang’e-5 mission will be landing on younger lunar soil than Chang’e-6, which will be important for interpreting the geology at each location. [JGR Planets study]

What will the future of Alaskan wildfire look like?
More and larger fires, including in areas of historically low fire activity, are likely but not a given. [Eos research spotlight] [Earth’s Future study]

The economic costs of solar storms
Though less present in the public consciousness than hurricanes and wildfires, space weather represents a real and potentially significant threat to society. [Eos research spotlight] [AGU Advances study]

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9/3/2026: Hot droughts trigger harsher rains

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Heavy rain falling on desert hills beneath a sky of dark clouds in the Mojave with a Joshua Tree in the foreground.

Heavy rain inundating California’s Mojave Desert. Extreme downpours right after hot droughts are more intense than the rains that follow cooler droughts, according to a new study.  Credit: Jessie Eastland via Wikimedia Commons.

Featured Research 

Hot droughts trigger harsher rains 
A new study finds that bursts of extreme rainfall occur 66% to 315% more often after hot droughts than after non-hot droughts. Based on weather data from 1979 to 2023, every hot drought has about a 45% chance of potentially damaging wet conditions ensuing. When this whiplash occurs, the resulting rain starts 10% sooner, gets 14% heavier, and lasts 12% longer on average compared to rains after cooler droughts. Researchers project that future greenhouse warming will make this drought-to-downpour whiplash more common, ramping up the strain on infrastructure, agriculture and ecosystems alike. [Earth’s Future study]  

Spacecraft nearer the Sun can help warn of solar storms 3 to 13 hours sooner  
Space weather like solar storms can fry satellites, damage power infrastructure, and cause communication blackouts. Currently, space weather predictions and warnings are based on observations from spacecraft close to Earth, which can only detect incoming events 10 to 80 minutes before they arrive. A new study used data from a satellite much further away — ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission, sent in part to take the closest-ever images of the sun — to successfully predict the effects of two 2024 space weather events 4.3 and 15.3 hours before they reached Earth. Future monitoring spacecraft could use a similar approach to provide hours — not minutes — of warning. [Space Weather study]  

Staying below 1.8 C of warming could spare 7% of the Amazon from higher fire risk 
A new study finds that extremely hot, dry conditions associated with a high risk of wildfires occurred on at least 3 days per year across over half of the Southern Amazon between 2001 and 2023, compared with just over a tenth of the region between 1979 and 2001. On average, the number of days of wildfire risk has also risen, with some areas now experiencing 30 or more high fire risk days per year. Researchers attribute the increase to human carbon emissions and predict that these extremes will become even more common by 2100. Compared to the current emissions trajectory towards 2.7 degrees C of climate warming, staying below 1.8 C would reduce the forested area with over 30 days of wildfire conditions per year in 2100 from 22% to less than 15%. [Geophysical Research Letters study] 

Deepest-ever Moon rock sample survived shock of becoming a meteorite 
In 2017, a meteorite dealer sold a moon fragment from the North African desert containing an unassuming brown blob whose mineral makeup suggests it comes from 55 miles (88 kilometers) below the moon’s surface — the deepest ever lunar sample from any mission or meteorite. Scientists feared that the shock of being thrown from the moon by a violent impact may have corrupted the sample, rendering it useless for understanding the chemical composition deep inside the Moon, which holds clues to the moon’s evolution. A new study has scrutinized the cracked and warped mineral grains of the meteorite and found that the damage doesn’t appear to be destructive — the sample still likely preserves the chemistry of the deepest part of the moon scientists have ever seen. [Journal of Geophysical Research Planets study]  

An Antarctic path to better sea-level rise projections, outlined by scientists 
80 scientists from 17 countries agree: we need a better understanding of how the Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing ice along its coastal margin to better predict sea level rise. The ice sheet, expected to continue shrinking as the climate warms, is the largest source of uncertainty in current sea-level rise projections. After reviewing current knowledge of the sheet’s coastal zone — where interactions between ice, land, and ocean can produce outsized impacts on ice loss — the scientists identified the most significant gaps in our understanding of those interactions, including the topography of bedrock below coastal ice. The team calls for coordinated international efforts to fill those gaps. [SCAR press release] [Reviews of Geophysics study]  

Did ocean motion carve Enceladus’s tiger stripes?
Wobbles of the moon’s icy shell may set off waves in the subsurface ocean that sculpt water-spewing fissures from beneath. [Eos research spotlight] [AGU Advances study]

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8/27/2026: Here’s how much major emitters have raised the risk of extreme weather

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The dark silhouette of an oil derrick in the foreground and a setting sun in the background

An oil derrick pumping crude oil out of the ground. A new study calculates how much the world’s biggest fossil fuel emitters, including countries like the U.S. and companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil, are contributing to increased extreme weather event risk. Credit: Zbynek Burival on Unsplash

Featured Research

Research Roundup: How urban environments are shaping extreme rainfall 

  • Tropical cities need to prepare for future intense rainfall as the climate warms [Earth’s Future study] 
  • How cleaner air is worsening Europe’s most extreme rainstorms [Geophysical Research Letters study] 
  • Growing coastal cities make tropical cyclones wetter downwind [JGR Atmospheres study]   

Here’s how much major emitters have raised the risk of extreme weather
Carbon dioxide emissions from the ten highest-emitting private fossil fuel producers, led by Chevron and ExxonMobil, made the 2021 heatwave in the U.S. Pacific Northwest 31% more likely and the extreme rains of 2022 in Pakistan 7% more likely. Meanwhile, the U.S.’s total carbon emissions up to 2020 have raised the odds of the most extreme heat events recorded since then by 50% for a third of the world. A new study proportionally links cumulative carbon emissions to increased chances of intense rain or heat, allowing scientists to infer major emitters’ contributions to the heightened risk of extreme weather events based on their known carbon emissions. The method may offer a way to gauge major emitters’ liabilities for the impacts of extreme weather, improving climate accountability. [Earth’s Future study]

Marine acidic heatwaves now up to four times more likely than by chance
Simultaneous marine heatwaves and extreme acidification events now strike four times more often in the low-to-mid-latitudes than scientists would expect by chance alone, according to a study of ocean observations from 1982 to 2024. Most of these combos span less than a few hundred thousand square miles for under a month, but notable exceptions exist: the “blob” that occupied over 4.8 million square miles of the northeastern Pacific in 2015 and the acidic heatwave that persisted in the Atlantic for almost a full year in 2023 and 2024. Scientists expect these double extremes, which stress marine life more than high heat or acidity alone, to grow more severe as baseline ocean conditions overall become warmer and more acidic. [Eos research spotlight] [AGU Advances study]

Plants are hiding their water stress by getting leafier
Drought frequency from 1981 to 2018 has been underestimated across two-thirds of the globe, according to a new study of plant water usage. During drought, plants can’t draw enough moisture from the soil to meet their needs, so they emit less water from their leaves through evapotranspiration than usual. By using satellite measurements of leafiness and plant water loss to account for this process, researchers found that plants struggled with water shortfalls 14% more of the time in 2018 than in 1981. This newly revealed water stress complicates the apparent growth spurt of plants in recent decades, attributed to CO2 emissions. More CO2 in the atmosphere encourages plants to increase their leaf area, making the Earth look greener in satellite images despite widespread underlying drought. [AGU Advances study]

Miniature Martian ruby and sapphire relatives likely forged by meteor impacts
The Perseverance Rover has stumbled upon tiny grains of corundum — a mineral that forms rubies and sapphires depending on its chemistry and color — within unassuming rock fragments strewn across the floor of Jezero Crater on Mars. Given corundum’s rarity on Earth, finding it on Mars came as a major surprise. Scientists think the crystals likely formed in the intense pressure and temperature conditions of a large impact, potentially the event that formed the 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) Jezero Crater itself. Sadly, the mineral won’t be much good for Martian jewelry as Perseverance’s measurements suggest each piece is likely only a tenth of the size of a flea. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

This rock-covered Utah glacier has enough ice to fill the Great Pyramid of Giza
To a casual observer, the rock glacier on Mount Timpanogos in the U.S. state of Utah looks like a blanket of rocks over snow. In fact, the structure is only 17% rock: underfoot, a billion metric tons of ice extend up to 150 feet down, occupying 1.5 million cubic meters or roughly the volume of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Researchers measured the glacier’s insides using tiny differences in the gravitational pull of rock versus ice at 232 spots on the glacier. Based on this result and previous studies of other rock glaciers, they extrapolated that the world’s rock glaciers harbor a total ice volume of roughly 48 gigatons, enough to fill 400,000 Olympic swimming pools. Understanding these glaciers’ internal makeup can help researchers estimate their impacts to mountain ecology and hazards to downhill communities as they evolve in a warming world. [JGR Earth Surface study] [University of Utah press release]

  • See also: How shrinking ice glaciers become rock glaciers — and regain some ice in the process [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Solar panels can cool crops — and workers
A new model simulates the benefits of agrivoltaic farming, in which solar panels and crops share the same land. [Eos research spotlight] [JAMES study]

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8/20/2026: Climate change will likely make boreal forests more deciduous, less evergreen

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Aerial view of green evergreen trees and yellow deciduous trees along the Yukon River in Alaska with hills in the distance.

Mixed deciduous and evergreen boreal forest on the banks of the Yukon River, Alaska. As forests recover from disruptions like fires and storms, warming temperatures give deciduous trees a leg up over evergreens in some areas, which researchers anticipate will change the makeup of forests in the future. Credit: United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Alaska on Wikimedia Commons.

Featured Research

Climate change will likely make boreal forests more deciduous, less evergreen
As climate change brings more fires, storms and other disturbances to boreal forests, warmer temperatures will likely give deciduous trees a leg up, allowing them to outcompete evergreens in some places as those forests regrow. How a forest regrows in the first decade after a fire or storm can predict a long-term shift to deciduousness with 90% accuracy, a new study finds. However, while deciduous trees may dominate certain areas for longer periods, they probably won’t take over permanently. The findings, from recent model simulations of forest recovery under climate scenarios through the next century, adds to a growing body of evidence that warming may restructure boreal forests by favoring deciduous trees where evergreens once reigned. [JGR Biogeosciences study]

Largest-known lunar shield volcanoes revealed
Researchers have identified two 50-mile-wide (80-kilometer-wide) shield volcanoes — a type of wide, rounded volcano with shallow sloping sides — on the Moon. The Prinz-Harbinger and Theophilus volcanoes are more than double the size of any previously known lunar shield volcano and around 25% larger than Earth’s most famous one, Mauna Loa. For these volcanoes to form, large volumes of magma must have collected close to the lunar surface, a process previously thought to be unlikely on the Moon. Researchers suggest large meteor impacts could have created networks of cracks that enabled magma to flow towards the surface. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Stacking droughts worsen wildfires
Flash droughts — events where the amount of water in the soil drops sharply below the previous 20 days’ average — can stack on top of multi-year dry conditions, creating a one-two punch that can desiccate vegetation and prime the land for fire. A new study examining global fire and moisture data from 2002 to 2021 shows that fires that burned under combined flash and standard drought moved 3% faster, grew 21% larger and lasted 8% longer on average than fires during long-term standard drought conditions alone. Researchers suggest that monitoring for flash droughts could improve early detection of high fire risk conditions, especially as climate change drives up temperatures and makes sudden dry conditions more common worldwide. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

This CubeSat lost a week of its life to a solar storm, falling 1.5 miles towards Earth
A Slovenian CubeSat satellite known as TRISAT drifted over 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) closer to Earth in four days during the powerful geomagnetic storm of May, 2024, cutting about a week off its operational lifespan. Satellites’ orbital tracks naturally shrink over time, but geomagnetic storms can heat and expand the Earth’s upper atmosphere, increasing drag on satellites and causing them to slip back towards Earth. In a recent study, researchers write that low-orbit satellites without their own propulsion systems, like CubeSats, take the biggest hits: TRISAT saw its orbital decay rate more than double during the 2024 storm’s peak impact. Besides shortening satellites’ operational lifespans, accelerated orbital changes like this can make it harder for scientists to accurately predict satellites’ orbits and safely manage satellite traffic. [Space Weather study]

A goldilocks zone to maximize wetlands’ warming-mitigation abilities
Temperate wetlands have the greatest cooling effect on the climate when water levels hover near the soil surface, a recent study finds. Leave it too dry or too flooded, and the system doesn’t store as much carbon, while inundation up to a point can cause wetlands to belch more methane, another greenhouse gas. The findings come from data on gas movement at 43 wetlands across a range of climates around the world. Because wetlands play both cooling and warming roles — absorbing CO2 but releasing methane — land managers hoping to maximize the net cooling effect may want to focus on managing water tables, such as by rewetting degraded wetlands, the researchers write. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Extreme Heat May Drive Asthma Risk in Baltimore, Especially at Night
A new study paints a fuller picture of how heat affects respiratory health, especially in Baltimore’s socially vulnerable neighborhoods. [Eos Research Spotlight] [GeoHealth study]

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8/13/2026: Keeping food scraps out of landfills could reduce US methane emissions by 6%

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A pile of food scraps not yet decomposed, perceived from above

Most food waste in the U.S. goes to landfills, where its decomposition contributes nearly 10% of the nation’s emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. Credit: Niwrat on Wikimedia Commons

Featured Research 

Keeping  food scraps out of landfills could reduce US methane emissions by 6% 
Food and yard waste sent to rot in landfills contributes almost 10% of the U.S.’s annual methane emissions. A new study finds that reducing that waste by 75% through interventions like donating edible food, processing waste in specialized digestion facilities, and composting could cut total methane emissions by 6% — equivalent to 30 megatons of carbon dioxide per year, or 5% of total U.S. agricultural carbon emissions in 2022. Currently, only 13.5% of food waste stays out of landfills. Researchers note that increasing this percentage by a factor of five will require major nationwide investment in composting facilities, curbside compost collection and public awareness of how to reduce and dispose of food waste. [Earth’s Future study]  

Warming climate will intensify sudden rainstorms in tropical cities 
A new study projects that intense rainfall events lasting less than an hour in tropical cities will hit two to three times more often and deliver up to 17% more water by 2100 under 4.5 degrees Celsius of warming. This cloudburst-style rainfall can trigger flash floods and other hazards, especially in cities where paved surfaces and buildings prevent water from infiltrating into the ground. Researchers recommend that tropical cities build pipes and flood infrastructure to withstand more extreme conditions, particularly across Asia and Africa, where 90% of population growth by the end of the century is expected to occur. [Earth’s Future study] 

The abyssal ocean is warming 3.7 times faster than 40 years ago 
In the abyssal zone below 13,100 feet (4,000 meters), the ocean’s heat absorption increased from 5.4 terrawatts in 1988 to 20.2 terrawatts — about 1,600 times the heat used to keep all U.S. homes warm each year — in 2018. The finding comes from a new study using the largest-ever set of ocean temperature measurements by depth. To date, Earth’s oceans have absorbed 90% of the excess heat from human-caused climate change. Understanding how that heat is distributed throughout the oceans’ 352 quintillion gallons of water helps scientists monitor changes in ocean circulation and sea level rise resulting from climate warming.  [Geophysical Research Letters study]  

  • See also: The layer of cold, deep water around Antarctica is shrinking [Geophysical Research Letters study] 

Extreme flooding on land helps coastal waters sequester carbon
During extreme flood years, 30% to 40% more organic carbon got buried in sediments in the coastal East China Sea than during normal years, according to a new study of a three-century sediment record from the Sea’s inner shelf. Floods wash nutrients and carbon from the land down the Yangtze River to the sea, feeding blooms of phytoplankton, which take up carbon dioxide into their bodies as they photosynthesize. On geologic timescales, this helps lock away carbon dioxide as phytoplankton bodies and droppings sink to the seafloor. Scientists expect extreme flooding events to intensify under climate change, meaning coastal seas may play a stronger role in global carbon sequestration. [Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology study]

Alaskan fjords fossilize 3,000 years of storms
Alaska’s Aleutian Islands are famed for their savage storms — but the most intense ones likely occur less often today than in the past. A new study dug up 60 feet of sediment from the bottom of the Skan Bay fjord to look back on three millennia of fossilized storms preserved by tiny variations in the sizes of mud and silt particles. The 56 storms recorded in the rock suggest that intense storms were seven times more frequent during the 750 – 1250 A.D. Medieval Climate Anomaly — a window of warmer, drier climate in Europe and North America — and have been on the decline in the thousand years since. Scientists use “paleotempestual” records like this to understand how larger climate trends impact storm frequencies, helping to make climate change projections more accurate. [Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology study]

Many Americans underestimate health risks of extreme weather, new study finds
The research examines the “risk perception gap,” or the difference between climate-related mortality estimates and public perceptions of climate risk, across U.S. counties. [Eos research spotlight] [GeoHealth study]

Super-Earths may be solid deep inside their mantles
New estimates show that a mineral likely common in these rocky planets’ interiors is resistant to melting, even at high temperatures. [Eos research spotlight] [AGU Advances study] 

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8/6/2026: Tree canopy losses associated with mortality in Chicago

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Tree-lined streets and a variety of residential buildings surrounded by vegetation in a Chicago neighborhood, with the city skyline on the horizon.

A leafy neighborhood in Chicago, looking towards the city. A new study has found that neighborhoods with growing canopy cover see fewer annual deaths from a wide range of diseases compared to neighborhoods where tree cover is shrinking over time. Credit: Shep McAllister on Unsplash.

Featured Research

Tree canopy losses associated with mortality in Chicago
Death rates drop in Chicago neighborhoods where tree cover expands year-to-year and rise in those where it declines, including from heart, lung, musculoskeletal and mental health diseases. Researchers estimate that growing the city’s canopy by 0.03% (about 14,000 trees) per year would be associated with 105 fewer annual deaths, with hotter neighborhoods benefiting the most from added tree cover — though, they note, the study did not prove a direct causal link between canopy changes and mortality. Crucially, the team found that the total amount of canopy at any given time appears less important than how much the canopy changed over the 2011 to 2021 study period: in the hottest neighborhoods, on Chicago’s South and West sides, mortality rose as canopy fell despite a relatively high baseline of tree cover. [GeoHealth study] [Northwestern University press release]

In heat and drought, planted and natural forests may be stronger together than alone
When extreme heat and drought both struck the Yangtze River Basin at once in 2022, the region’s forests didn’t all react the same way. In most areas, human-planted forests took hard hits during the extreme event but bounced back quickly the following year, while their natural counterparts suffered less but took longer to return to full health. The more extreme the conditions, researchers noticed, the greater the difference: natural forests’ superior height, mass and diversity granted resilience upfront, while planted forests’ youth conferred recovery potential. Managing forests to maintain the diversity found in natural areas, rather than planting monocultures, may capture the best of both worlds as climate change continues, the researchers write. [Water Resources Research study]

Warming helps Arctic plants in the early season but hurts them down the road
High temperatures tend to boost Arctic plant growth early in the growing season but stifle it later in the year if heat and dry soils persist, according to a recent study of Arctic ecosystem productivity between 2000 and 2022. Although regional and interannual differences exist, the researchers wrote, the overall pattern makes taiga and tundra more vulnerable and weakens their carbon storage abilities as climate change warms the Arctic at a disproportionate rate. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Storms erode a New Jersey beach twice as often as 47 years ago
At a beach in Sandy Hook, New Jersey, U.S.A, storms large enough to eat away over 86 square feet of beach area in 48 hours now happen two to three times a year, up from one or two times a year in the late ‘70s. Researchers on the beach used radar to find buried layers of coarse sand, shells and pebbles — evidence of erosive storms from 2009 to 2019 — then ran simulations to see what kind of storm conditions likely produced those layers and how common those conditions have gotten over time. The team hopes their method can help other coastlines unpack their storm histories to improve beach management as strengthening storms and rising sea levels stress coastal communities. [Earth’s Future study] [Rutgers University press release]

Sand and gravel mining consumes riverbeds to feed global concrete appetite
In 2024, the world turned about 28 billion metric tons of sand and gravel — by far the most-mined solid materials on Earth — into concrete. Urbanization, population growth and infrastructure development have driven demand above the capacity of natural systems to replenish the resource, according to a new review that digs into where mining is happening and its social and environmental consequences. Taking too much risks riverbanks collapsing, water quality degrading, groundwater levels dropping and salt water intruding into coastal waterways. Though demand is global, China and India currently consume the most and extraction is most intensive in Asia and Africa. [Reviews of Geophysics review] [Eos Editor’s Vox] [Nanyang Technological University press release]

How Water Flows Toward Cities During Hurricanes
Topography is a key factor exacerbating compound flooding, while coastal wetlands help protect cities. [Eos Research Spotlight] [Geophysical Research Letters study]

How Does Social Vulnerability Evolve After a Tropical Cyclone?
An initial rise in the social vulnerability index is followed by a decrease, but that decrease comes with a catch. [Eos Research Spotlight] [GeoHealth study]

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7/30/2026: Ship-stranding Arctic ice was forecastable — and will strike again

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A research vessel at sea, surrounded by sea ice

A NOAA research vessel trapped in sea ice near Alaska. Increasingly mobile sea ice is a growing hazard for the shipping industry as climate change enables boats to use the Chukchi Sea as a new, faster route between Europe, Asia, and North America. Credit: Crew and Officers of NOAA Ship MILLER FREEMAN

Featured Research 

Ship-stranding Arctic ice was forecastable — and will strike again
With 80 more ice-free days per year today than in 1979, the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea is attracting attention as a potential faster route for intercontinental shipping. Climate change has made the sea ice there thinner, allowing boats to pass more easily, but also more mobile as a result, raising the risk of sinking and stranding — as the crew of the Norseman II discovered when three- to five-foot-thick ice trapped them for two weeks in 2024. A new study found that the sudden influx of windblown ice that stranded the Norseman II could have been predicted using satellite imagery, weather data, and simulations of ice and ocean movement. With more vessels set to navigate this changing sea in the coming years, the study’s authors recommend that researchers collaborate with ship operators to communicate ice hazard forecasts. [Geophysical Research Letters study] 

Lightning strikes scramble rocks’ magnetic signatures
Electrocuting volcanic rocks with a lightning-like current can make them up to 490 times more magnetic, according to a new study. When volcanic rocks form, some iron-rich minerals interact with Earth’s magnetic field as they crystallize from lava or magma, locking in a magnetic fingerprint. Lightning can deliver a current of 80,000 amps — 6,400 times what’s needed to run a high-power blender. This generates a combined magnetic field and heat pulse, short-lived but strong enough to scramble rocks’ magnetic signatures and even create entirely new, microscopic, magnetic minerals. Researchers suggest zapping rocks in the lab can help geologists identify lightning-affected rocks to not only find signs of past storms but also interpret the magnetic fingerprint to tell where rocks formed. [JGR Solid Earth study]

Listening for wildfires with infrasound
Wildfires generate low-pitched sound imperceptible to humans but audible to infrasound detectors from as far as 1.8 miles (3 kilometers) away. A new study deployed arrays of sensors to listen for planned sagebrush fires and found that the sound of burning vegetation can be used to locate and track fires as they progress. This works even when the fire is more a smolder than a blaze and with as few as three infrasound detectors, although using more detectors allowed researchers to track fires from further away. Unlike satellite- and aircraft-based sensors, infrasound detectors can monitor continuously over large areas at low cost without being affected by smoke or tree cover, making them valuable to future fire monitoring, researchers say. [Geophysical Research Letters study] 

Algae sought sanctuary in dark dirt on Snowball Earth
A new study finds that prehistoric algae could have survived average temperatures as low as -60 degrees Celsius (-76 F) by clustering on patches of dark land, potentially explaining how photosynthetic organisms withstood Earth’s ‘snowball’ phases 600 million years ago. Earth has had at least two snowball periods when low atmospheric carbon dioxide and a dimmer sun created such cold conditions that almost the entire planet froze over. Researchers calculate that darker areas of remaining bare land absorbed just enough heat from the sun to melt any ice that crept into them from snowfall or the edges of glaciers. These snowmelt sanctuaries could have covered between 0.1% and 12% of the Earth, creating a way for algae to eke out an existence. [JGR Atmospheres study] 

Mapping the hidden landscape beneath Greenland’s ice
Researchers have peered through Greenland’s ice sheet to reveal a hidden landscape which records at least two million years of the island’s glacial history. Using satellite observations and measurements from the surface, a new study extrapolated lumps and bumps at the top of the ice to map out a vast network of frozen valleys and mountain ranges in the bedrock below. The map is so detailed that it’s possible to distinguish different rock formations through patterns in the valleys under the ice, as well as the now ice-covered mountains where Greenland’s modern ice sheet likely started to form. [Geophysical Research Letters study] 

What Australian lakes showed us about Martian hydrology
Studying the hydrology of the Yilgarn Craton reveals how the Red Planet may have evolved. [Eos research spotlight] [Earth and Space Science study] 

Redesigning farmland through community collaboration in California
A community-led project in California shows how collaboration can reshape farmland to improve water resources, restore native plants, and create recreational space. [Eos editors’ highlight] [Community Science study] 

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7/23/2026: As Africa’s dry season shrinks, so does its wildfire burn area

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A firefighter shooting a jet of water at a fire amid a tangle of smoldering vegetation and clouds of smoke

A firefighter battling a 2017 grassland fire near Cape Town, South Africa. As the dry season across Africa shortens, wildfire-burned area is decreasing each year in both of the continent’s hemispheric regions. Credit: StevenTerblanche on Wikimedia Commons.

Featured Research

As Africa’s dry season shortens, its wildfires burn less widely
Since 1990, Africa’s dry season has shortened enough that its wildfires burn millions of acres less land each year. The dry season’s arrival has lagged by roughly 1.75 days per decade from 1990 to now in the northern hemisphere and by 0.4 days per decade in the southern, with increased rainfall at the start of the dry season keeping plants and soils wetter for longer. Understanding how shifts in rainfall timing affect wildfires can help improve fire prediction and management efforts in the context of climate change, researchers say. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Electrification and energy efficiency could cool L.A. streets by 0.65 degrees Celsius
In the densest urban areas of Los Angeles, vehicles, buildings and human bodies generate enough heat to make their surroundings more than 4 degrees Celsius hotter. A new study projects that initiatives like switching to electric cars and making buildings more energy efficient would cool the city by 0.65 C on summer days. With cars contributing around half of Los Angeles’ current heat emissions, widespread electric vehicle adoption could help cool neighborhoods near highways as much as 0.95°C, reducing the public health threat of heat in the city. [JGR Atmospheres study]

If you live in the US, your rain may come from farther away than it used to
In watersheds of the Southwest and southern Great Plains of the United States, moisture in the atmosphere now travels from 30 to 50 miles farther away than it did 35 years ago before finally falling as rain, lingering in the sky an extra two to four hours. A greater portion of that rain now also originates from evaporation over the oceans, rather than over land. As the climate warms, the atmosphere can hold more water vapor for longer periods. Understanding changes in how water moves through the sky can help us understand where and how much of that water will become available for human use, researchers say. [Geophysical Research Letters study] [University of Wyoming press release]

Mine waste can boost wetland carbon storage
In the six years following a mining industry environmental disaster impacting Brazil’s Rio Doce estuary, researchers have found a silver lining — the soil in Rio Doce is changing, shifting towards minerals that hold onto carbon for longer. In 2017, the collapse of the Fundão dam unleashed the equivalent of 380,000 truckloads of iron-rich mine waste into waterways. Since then, researchers observed a 61% increase in carbon stably bonded to iron and a 25% increase in carbon trapped in other longer-lasting minerals. The researchers suggest that carefully managed addition of iron during wetland restoration projects could help other estuaries securely lock away more carbon in their soils. [JGR Biogeosciences study]

Coastal towns with eroding beaches may need to move inland sooner than thought
Rising seas and worsening storms have led many coastal communities to start adding sand to their eroding beaches, a strategy called “beach nourishment.” But this may only delay the inevitable. A case study of Hutchinson Island, Florida concluded that eventually retreating inland is the only way to meet criteria the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commonly uses when funding beach nourishment projects. Balancing goals like maintaining recreational opportunities and mitigating housing damage could require Hutchinson Island residents to move inland in roughly fifty years — a few decades sooner than most studies would recommend, as the authors say previous research doesn’t fully account for uncertainties in how environmental and economic forces will change in that time. [Earth’s Future study]

Students enable widespread water monitoring in India
High school students and other volunteers monitored water for pollutants just as well as professionals. [Eos research spotlight] [Community Science study]

Making weather and climate information reach the communities that need it
Many at-risk communities remain unreached by forecasts due to barriers in language, access, and trust in information systems. A new study looks at how to overcome these. [Eos editors’ highlight] [Community Science study]

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7/16/2026: Climate change primed Italian glacier for fatal 2022 collapse

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A caved-in portion of a glacier on a steep, rocky mountain slope

Remnants of the 600-foot-wide Marmolada glacier in the Dolomites, Italy, after the 3 July, 2022, collapse that killed 11 mountaineers. Credit: Provincia autonoma di Trento via Wikimedia Commons

Featured Research 

Climate change primed Italian glacier for fatal 2022 collapse
On 3 July, 2022, ice collapsing from the Marmolada glacier in the Dolomites killed 11 mountaineers. A new study finds that unusually high temperatures in May and June weakened the ice and caused meltwater to build up under the glacier, which helped connect existing cracks to carve off a chunk of ice the size of 25 Olympic swimming pools. Researchers warn that climate change will weaken other glaciers, putting mountaineers and alpine communities at greater risk as temperatures rise. [Geophysical Research Letters study] 

  • See also: Post-Collapse Ice Cliff Backwasting at the Marmolada Glacier Observed by Terrestrial Radar Interferometry [JGR Earth Surface study] 
  • See also: Briton survives huge avalanche – and he filmed it [Sky News YouTube video] 

In a changing climate, too much rain threatens India’s monsoon crops
Seasonal monsoon rains are critical to agricultural productivity in India, delivering 80% of annual rainfall. But too much rain can be equally bad, particularly if it arrives in high intensity bursts, waterlogging crops and washing away nutrients. Monsoon rains are becoming increasingly erratic as the climate warms, shifting where and when rain falls, with more episodes of heavy rain. Modeling based on three decades of crop yields in India predicts yield declines in staple monsoon crops like cotton and soybean. Peanut, pearl millet and sorghum yields rise until they hit an optimum rain threshold around 2040, then sharply decline. Farmers will need region-specific solutions including resilient crop varieties, drainage and optimized sowing schedules to adapt to future monsoons. [Earth’s Future study] 

Expanding forests may worsen water stress in arid China
More than any other factor, forest growth in China reduced river flows from 1980 to 2020 in over 50 watersheds as forests expanded in many regions due to climate change and tree-planting efforts, according to a review of research. Trees draw water up through their roots and release it through their leaves, cooling the air and reducing flood risks but leaving less water for human use. This effect is strongest during the growing season, when plants guzzle the most water. New model simulations further showed that between 1980 and 2020, tree water uptake worsened water losses from climate change in over 130 Chinese water basins, impacting at least 17 basins even more than climate change itself. To balance water conservation with forest growth goals in water-stressed regions amid climate change, solutions may include prescribed burning, plantation thinning, and focusing on native tree restoration. [Water Resources Research study] 

Antarctic changes are slowing down global ocean circulation
New research shows the deepest layer of the Southern Ocean is shrinking faster than scientists realized, losing 3% of its volume in the waters nearest the pole between 2002 and 2023. This cold, dense Antarctic Bottom Water fills 40% of Earth’s oceans, driving currents and regulating climate as it flows off the seafloor shelf around Antarctica into other ocean basins. The rate of shrinking has quadrupled from 2002 to 2015, which researchers suggest could be linked to the rapid decline in Antarctic sea ice since 2016. [Australian Antarctic Program Partnership press release] [Geophysical Research Letters study] 

Deer to blame for half of wild ruminants’ methane emissions
The digestive workings of ruminants — wild animals like deer, moose and llamas that ferment fibrous plants in their guts — create perfect conditions for bacteria to brew methane. A new study combining up-to-date estimates of global animal populations and gut gassiness found that the world’s wild ruminants contribute 3 million tons of methane to the atmosphere per year (around 38 times less than livestock) with more than 50% of global ruminant emissions coming from just six species of deer. [JGR Biogeosciences study] 

Patterned frozen soils get their shape from gravity and funky physics
An enigmatic feature of frozen soils can be explained in part by non-Newtonian fluid physics. Enter the Oobleck. [Eos Research Spotlight] [AGU Advances study] 

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