1/22/2026: Brightening clouds could cool the Arctic

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scattered clouds over a glassy ocean surface covered in icebergs

Clouds hang over the Chukchi Sea. Using salt particles to brighten Arctic clouds could potentially prevent warming there without impacting other regions, though researchers caution that this simulated result doesn’t account for all real-world factors and impacts. Credit: U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service

AGU News

Press registration is open for the 2026 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Glasgow, Scotland
Staff, freelance and student journalists, press officers and institutional writers are eligible to apply for complimentary press registration for the conference, which will convene 22-27 February. [media advisory][OSM26 Press][eligibility guidelines][preview conference hotels] 

Featured Research

Cloud brightening could cool the Arctic without affecting other regions, simulations indicate
Spraying sea salt particles into the low Arctic atmosphere could brighten clouds, significantly cooling the region and restoring Arctic sea ice, according to simulations using three separate Earth system models. The models assumed a “middle-of-the-road” greenhouse gas emissions scenario in which global warming reaches three degrees Celsius by 2100, with the goal of using marine cloud brightening to maintain near-current temperatures in the Arctic. The approach also showed minimal climate impacts beyond the Arctic from spraying salt particles — though the researchers stressed that their simulations didn’t account for impacts to communities, ecosystems, and atmospheric chemistry within the Arctic. [Earth’s Future study]

Climate change will increase soil erosion, especially in dry regions
As rainfall gets less frequent but more intense — the forecast for many regions due to human-driven climate change — soil erosion will increase, especially in drier climates and places with coarse soil. Researchers arrived at this result after feeding different rainfall scenarios into computer models to simulate the resulting soil erosion over time in different landscapes. The outcome echoes long-term observations from real-world monitoring, the team notes. Erosion can negatively impact soils’ abilities to regulate water, carbon, and nutrient cycles, as well as to provide habitat for plants and animals. [JGR Earth Surface study]

Climate change may dry out tropical America even more than previously thought
Annual rainfall across tropical America will likely decline as human emissions heat up the Earth, climate models project, exacerbating the risk of Amazonian wildfires, Panama Canal disruptions, and other impacts to agriculture, ecosystems, and water resources. However, in a new study, researchers say most models underestimate this effect. The team used real-world observations to correct for this bias in 42 climate models and found that every degree Celsius of warming caused a 46-millimeter drop in the region’s annual rainfall — 50% more than expected without the correction. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

A viscous fluid could mitigate earthquakes triggered by industrial activity
Fracking, geothermal energy production, storage of captured carbon, and other industrial activities beneath Earth’s surface commonly trigger earthquakes that can sometimes threaten lives and livelihoods. Investigating ways to minimize this hazard, researchers found that a shear thickening fluid — a mix of silica powder and ethylene glycol that gets more viscous as friction builds up around it — helped a simulated fault slip more stably and silently in lab experiments with a friction-generating machine. Injecting similar fluids into fault zones could help limit the magnitude of industrially-induced earthquakes, the team writes. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

In arid mountains, wildfire may augment the volume of snowmelt runoff
In the dry Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, winter snowpack evaporates significantly less where wildfire has razed entire stands of trees — leaving more snow available for water runoff. Researchers attribute the finding, based on data from monitoring towers, to the loss of canopy: snow piled on treetops increases the total snow surface area, allowing for more evaporation than in a burn zone with all its snow flat and stable on the ground. Areas where forests had only been thinned, in comparison, saw only minor drops in snow evaporation. While fire might keep more snow for runoff, the authors note that snow typically melts faster in burned areas, releasing that runoff more rapidly. This knowledge can help land managers understand how intensifying wildfires in western North America will impact the amount and timing of snowpack runoff available for people and plants, as well as hazards like flood risk. [Water Resources Research study]

The Antarctic, like the Arctic, will warm faster than lower latitudes
Under two degrees Celsius of global warming, the Antarctic will warm roughly 40% more than the Southern Hemisphere average, according to recent climate model simulations. Researchers say the effect primarily owes to how the region responds to ocean surface warming and will intensify as global warming continues. Scientists had already recognized that human-driven climate change disproportionately warms the Arctic, a phenomenon dubbed “Arctic amplification” — but its southern counterpart, Antarctic amplification, has remained uncertain. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Climate change may cause the oceans to release more ozone-depleting compounds
Climate change has set the oceans on track to release more brominated compounds, chemicals capable of efficiently destroying the ozone layer — up to 14% more in a moderate-emissions scenario and 40% more in a high-emissions scenario by 2100, according to model projections. Two key brominated compounds would together increase by up to 1.13 parts per trillion in the atmosphere, enough to make a dent in the stratospheric ozone budget, researchers say. Marine macroalgae and phytoplankton make these compounds naturally, but as climate change alters the balance of energy and nutrients entering and leaving the oceans, both the biological production of bromine and how it gets exchanged between the ocean and atmosphere are changing. [JGR Atmospheres study]

Marine snow grows faster and fluffier as it sinks
New observations highlight how abiotic and biotic processes influence the fall of tiny oceanic particles from the surface waters to ocean depths. [Eos research spotlight] [Global Biogeochemical Cycles study]

ALMA’s new view of the Solar System
High-resolution radio observations link the chemistry of local moons and comets to the birth environments of distant exoplanets. [Eos editors’ highlight] [AGU Advances study]

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1/15/2026: These pink reefs show surprising potential climate resilience

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A frilly, coral-like, crustose algae growing among other marine life on a reef

Coralline algae growing near Manawatāwhi (Three Kings Islands) in New Zealand. These calcified seaweeds act as reef-builders, providing habitat for marine biodiversity in coastal seas worldwide. Credit: Peter Southwood

AGU News 

“State of Science” report details Trump administration’s disruptions to US science
Eos, the science news magazine of the American Geophysical Union, today released “The State of the Science 1 Year On,” a special report assessing how the Trump administration’s first year in its second term disrupted the U.S. scientific enterprise and what actions may lie ahead this year. The report contextualizes key federal actions taken in 2025 across climate and energy, health and public safety, the federal scientific workforce, academia and research, and environmental protection. [Eos report] 

Press registration is open for the 2026 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Glasgow, Scotland
Staff, freelance and student journalists, press officers and institutional writers are eligible to apply for complimentary press registration for the conference, which will convene 22-27 February. [media advisory][OSM26 Press][eligibility guidelines][preview conference hotels] 

Featured Research 

A marine biodiversity habitat may prove unexpectedly resilient to climate change
A crusty, pink seaweed known as coralline algae grows in coastal seas around the world, helping build reef habitats that support a rich diversity of marine life. Scientists expect the impacts of climate change, particularly ocean acidification, to hit these reefs particularly hard. But a recent study found that, for about two-thirds of the year, a coralline algae reef off the west coast of Scotland already experiences pH levels as low as those expected by 2100 under a scenario of at least moderate greenhouse gas emissions. The researchers say this prolonged exposure offers hope that as pH lows get more extreme in the future, these algae — and the ecosystems they underpin — may show more resilience than previously thought. [JGR Biogeosciences study] 

Faced with water restrictions, many Americans would willingly pay to reuse water
In water-stressed regions, treating and reusing water can offer a valuable way to meet demand for this precious resource—so much so that rural Americans would pay, on average, $49 a month for water reuse systems if it meant avoiding restrictions on their water usage, according to a recent national-level survey study of over 3,000 individuals. That’s enough to sustainably fund water reuse programs in communities with small water systems, positioning water reuse as a viable solution in rural regions facing water restrictions. [Water Resources Research study] 

Canada’s air was cleanest in the 2000s. Massive wildfires have reversed the trend.
Air pollution regulations have cleared the air in industrialized eastern Canada since the 1980s, while in the west, wildfire has made summers increasingly smoky, a new study reports, mirroring previous findings from the United States. The record 2023 fires are part of a trend; as the climate warms, the future will be even smokier for North America. Wildfire smoke is less tractable than vehicle exhaust and industrial pollution, which regulators can tackle at the source tailpipes and smokestacks, and will require new approaches to policy, monitoring, and education as well as air-cleaning technologies to reduce unhealthy exposure. [Earth’s Future study] 

Logging too often, even at low intensity, leaves forest soils no time to recover
Forest soils need at least 10 to 15 years to recover after logging, a recent study finds. Some foresters maintain forests with a wide range of tree ages, returning every 5 years or so to take whichever trees are ready for harvesting. This strategy can maintain a healthier forest structure compared to operations that plant trees of the same age and return a decade later to harvest them all at once. However, more frequent visits by heavy logging machinery keep the soil compacted, reducing the diversity of its microbial life and increasing erosion and runoff. Samples from Mediterranean beech forests in southern Italy revealed that while soils recovered somewhat after five years, they hadn’t fully healed. The researchers suggest waiting 10 to 15 years between operations and taking precautions to minimize soil compaction during logging to make forestry operations more sustainable. [JGR Biogeosciences study] 

Besides carbon emissions, direct heat from human activities boosts climate warming
Greenhouse gases aren’t the only things warming the planet: industrial facilities, heating and cooling systems, vehicle exhaust, and even our own bodily metabolisms release heat directly into the environment. Under a high-emissions scenario, these heat sources could contribute an additional 0.6 °C (1.08 °F) to average summer temperatures in North America during the end of this century, making heatwaves more frequent, according to a recent modeling study. They would also alter atmospheric conditions and reduce cloud cover to make the eastern and northwestern United States and central Canada hotter and drier, increasing plant stress and wildfire risk. This highlights the need to mitigate heat at its sources through solutions like urban greening, low-emissions transportation, and energy systems that make use of recovered heat, the researchers write. [JGR Atmospheres study] 

Successful liquid lake conditions in a cold Martian paleoclimate
Simulations from a new lake model explain how liquid water could have been maintained over Mars in a cold climate, thus resolving a critical scientific gap in our understanding of Mars’ early history. [Eos editors’ highlight][AGU Advances study] 

Melting glaciers mix up waters more than we thought
Existing theory underestimates the mixing of freshwater and seawater by up to 50%. [Eos research spotlight][JGR Oceans study] 

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1/8/2026: Heat makes rivers’ microscopic cleaners falter

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Photograph of a river in foreground with trees and shrubs overhanging.

Parts of the San Saba River in Texas, USA, have experienced water temperatures up to 45.2°C (113.3°F). Riverbed microbes exposed to temperatures recorded there grew less active the hotter it got, indicating that climate change may make it tougher for some rivers to break down organic matter, especially where stagnant pools form. Credit: William L. Farr

AGU News

Ocean Science Meeting special hotel rates end next week
Staff, freelance and student journalists, press officers and institutional writers are eligible to apply for complimentary press registration. Book conference hotels at the discounted rate when you register by 14 January. (Press, please register before booking hotels to avoid conflicts with press registration!) [media advisory][OSM26 Press][eligibility guidelines][preview conference hotels]

Featured Research

As rivers heat up, their tiny, invisible recycling teams may slow down
Microbial metabolism doesn’t always crank faster at higher temperatures, a new study finds. Microbes living in streambed sediments break down organic matter and recycle nutrients, helping to maintain healthy water quality and nutrient balance in riversBut climate change could impede that gift by making rivers warmer, especially in the stagnant pools that form when rivers dry up. Researchers tracked riverbed microbes’ activity over 77 days at 20, 30 and 40 degrees Celsius and found that their activity slowed down at higher temperatures — contrary to common assumptions that heat speeds up metabolism. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

When shooting fluids underground, go slow and steady to minimize earthquakes  Industrial activities like geothermal energy production and underground carbon storage involve injecting fluids underground, which can trigger earthquakes. To find out how to mitigate this effect, researchers experimented in a lab with a piece of sandstone containing an artificial fault. Injecting water at high pressure caused faster fault slip and more quaking, as did injecting it in repeating cycles. Conversely, injecting water slowly and steadily minimized slipping and quaking. [JGR Solid Earth study]

Stratospheric aerosol injection could prevent some climate “tipping points,” but which will get priority?
Some scientists have proposed scattering sunlight-reflecting particles into the atmosphere as a supplementary way to mitigate climate change, in addition to reducing carbon emissions. A new modelling study finds this strategy could also protect various “tipping elements” — ice sheets, permafrost, rainforests, coral reefs, and other systems at risk of suddenly and irreversibly deteriorating due to climate change. Scattering particles at high latitudes would most effectively protect high-latitude elements (like the Greenland ice sheet) but leave lower-latitude elements less protected, while doing so at low latitudes would achieve the reverse. A particle deployment strategy designed to stabilize the overall global temperature, meanwhile, would offer medium-quality protection for elements at both latitudes. As such, the authors write, using this strategy may require weighing which outcomes to prioritize. [Earth’s Future study]

New Moon crater fractures mapped
When high-speed meteorites strike planetary bodies, the intense energy melts parts of the impact crater, creating “impact melt deposits.” As the molten rock cools, it contracts, causing fractures to split open along its surface. Since mapping these fractures manually can miss smaller melt deposits, researchers tried using a deep learning model to automatically detect fractures in satellite imagery of the Moon. The model discovered new impact melt deposits in Crookes crater. For the first time, it also mapped fractures in the Schomberger A crater, which could contain water ice due to the crater’s dark, near-polar location. [JGR Planets study]

Deaths from flooding down in Asia but rising in Africa
Improvements in infrastructure and emergency response have made floods and storms in Asia less deadly, according to an analysis of 2,000 of the world’s deadliest extreme climate events since 1988. While Asia’s upgrades have saved an estimated 350,000 lives since then, the research found, other regions have been less fortunate. Population growth has made African floods more deadly, and extreme temperatures are killing more Europeans as heatwaves become more common relative to cold snaps. Understanding how mortality from climate hazards changes over time can help us predict and prepare for future hazards, the researchers write. [Geophysical Research Letters study]

Marine heat waves can exacerbate heat and humidity over land
Researchers found the unprecedented 2023 East Asian marine heat wave increased land temperatures and humidity by up to 50%. [Eos research spotlight][AGU Advances study]

How a move to the shallows 300,000 years ago drove a phytoplankton bloom
And what that could mean for today’s ocean. [Eos research spotlight] [AGU Advances study]

What could happen to the ocean’s carbon if AMOC collapses
Mass glacier melting may have led this influential ocean current system to collapse at the end of the last ice age. A pair of modeling studies examines how such a collapse could affect dissolved inorganic carbon and carbon isotopes in Earth’s oceans. [Eos research spotlight] [Global Biogeochemical Cycles study and study]

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12/11/2025: Reindeer, algal blooms, undersea mountains and more hit stories coming to AGU25

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AGU News 

Register for AGU’s 2025 annual meeting for on-site and remote access to 20K research presentations in the Earth and space sciences 

Join us in New Orleans or online next week at the 2025 AGU Annual Meeting, 15-19 December at the Morial Convention Center. 

Recordings of the scientific program will be available to online participants on-demand within 72 hours of the sessions’ end and remain accessible to registered attendees until 14 April 2026. Press briefings will be live-streamed. 

Staff, freelance, and student journalists are eligible to apply for complimentary press registration through the end of the conference. Press officers and institutional writers covering the meeting are also eligible. 

[press registration] [press events] [scientific program] [virtual attendance] 

Featured Research 

Rivers have heatwaves, too– and they’re outpacing air heatwaves
Heatwaves may not hit rivers with nearly the intensity of air heatwaves, but they happen double to quadruple the frequency. These underwater heatwaves are driven by climate change through diminishing snowpack and changes in water flow. The new research found human activities like dams extended the heatwaves whereas agriculture reduced them. [Conference abstract – Presentation on Wednesday, 17 December] 

Air pollution is decreasing, but increasing natural hazards threaten to upset progress
Despite progress made in decreasing air pollution, hazards like wildfires, droughts, dust storms and even volcanic eruptions can decline air quality. Wildfires, droughts and extreme heat, among other things, are all expected to increase with climate change worsening, and those compounding effects can worsen air pollution in an unknown way. Using 10 years of data, researchers are creating a real-time automated process to see daily air pollution impacts that include multiple hazards at once, something often left out of air pollution prediction models. [Conference abstract – Presentation on Thursday, 18 December ] 

Even small companies can save lives by cutting emissions
Companies that have pledged to decrease and minimize their emissions could save potential lives by following through on those promises, even the companies with small environmental impacts. New research found over four million deaths could be saved depending on different emission scenarios of 3,000 companies: no decrease in emissions, some decrease, and hitting their pledged amounts within a shorter timeframe and the pledged timeframe of 2100. According to this study, some companies could impact thousands of lives, while others have a much smaller impact but could still mitigate potential losses. [Conference abstract – Presentation on Monday, 15 December] 

Warm ocean water is melting the Thwaites ice shelf from below
Along with steady warming of deep ocean water melting the Thwaits Eastern Ice Shelf from below, short bursts of heatwaves that alter sea ice are having a large impact. These bursts alter water density and disrupt ocean stratification, or the natural layering of water by heat and salinity. This disruption increases the melting speed of the ice shelf. [Conference abstract – Presentation on Tuesday, 16 December] 

Crusty snow delivered by climate change blocks reindeer from food in winter
As climate change plays out in snowy regions, warmer winter air can increase the likelihood of rain falling on existing snow. The snow then melts and refreezes, creating layers of ice that prevent foraging animals from nibbling the plants below. In northern Europe’s Fennoscandia peninsula, conditions for this phenomenon have been occurring more often and, in interior regions, earlier in the year since 1960. For winters when those shifts are especially prominent, researchers found, reindeer birthrates tend to drop the following summer. Areas with densely populated herds appear to take the hardest hit, likely because more reindeer must compete for limited food in their iced-over foraging grounds, the researchers note. [Conference abstract – Presentation on Thursday, 18 December] 

Chilean undersea mountains show how island nations can legally claim seafloors
When coastal nations want to claim seafloor resources farther than 200 nautical miles offshore, international law requires them to prove that seafloor is a true geological extension of their land. But for island nations on the summits of undersea volcanoes, this gets tricky: those volcanoes’ sides slope gradually to the seafloor, muddling where the island’s territory starts or ends. To solve this, researchers used depth maps to trace volcanic slopes and seismic and gravity data to tease out the signature of the thick, rocky crust below. Where the two cross, they argue, lies the true edge of an island. Testing the method on two Chilean islands revealed an undersea mountain range over 700 kilometers long and up to 90 kilometers wide — proof, the researchers say, that this method could help dozens of coastal and island nations claim sovereign undersea territory. What’s more, the method leans mostly on public data, making it accessible and transparent. [Conference abstract – Presentation on Monday, 15 December] 

Long drought may not cripple Amazonian forests completely — but it will remake them
Scientists expect worsening droughts to kill a lot of plant life in the Amazon. To get a clearer picture of what sustained, long-term droughts might do, researchers have subjected an Amazonian forest plot to simulated drought for over 20 years. As expected, trees — especially the largest ones — died at a higher rate over the first 15 years. However, the die-off reduced competition for water, leaving the survivors with more to drink: their sap flow and internal water content matched that found in drought-free forest. As deaths slowed down, the ecosystem stabilized in the final seven years, albeit in a much-altered form — one with less plant mass and, consequently, less carbon stored in wood. [Conference abstract – Presentation on Wednesday, 17 December] 

How California’s worsening wildfires might contribute to toxic algal blooms, too
Toxic cyanobacteria have been causing harmful algal blooms to develop more often and last longer in at least 71 lakes across California since 2002, with high-risk blooms occurring earlier in the year, researchers in the state have found. The team hypothesizes that wildfires, also on the rise in California, may play a role — specifically, by leaving burned landscapes more prone to sediment erosion into lakes, providing cyanobacteria with more nutrients to fuel the blooms. If so, fire monitoring could be a valuable tool for forecasting the risk of harmful algal blooms. [Conference abstract – Presentation on Friday, 19 December] 

Indonesia’s energy plans threaten its climate goals while barely reducing fuel imports
In its quest for energy self-sufficiency, Indonesia in 2023 produced Presidential Regulation Number 40, designed to boost annual bioethanol production. Put into effect in 2024, the regulation seeks to achieve this by converting at least 700,000 hectares, but potentially up to two million hectares, of land into sugarcane plantation. The caveat: this would occur in the country’s easternmost region, home to some of Earth’s densest remaining tropical rainforest. Using remote sensing and mapping tools, researchers assessed deforestation from the project’s first year, as well as its likely future impact on land use, oil demand, and resulting greenhouse gas emissions. The project would dramatically alter local landscapes and livelihoods, they found, as well as jeopardize Indonesia’s goal of becoming a net carbon sink by 2030 — but would barely make a dent in fuel imports. [Conference abstract – Monday, 15 December] 

12/04/2025: Water demand consistently overestimated in California

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San Luis Dam in California, U.S.
Credit: Bureau of Reclamation

Featured Research 

Californian water suppliers consistently overestimate water demand
A study of 61 water suppliers in California found that projections of water demand from 2000 to 2020 consistently overestimated actual demand — by 25% for five-year projections and by 74% for 20-year projections, on average. Water demand per capita, which suppliers typically assumed to be stable or growing, dropped nearly 2% per year over the study period. Researchers attribute this to an increase in rebate programs and mandatory regulations for limiting outdoor water use. As climate change makes water conservation more uncertain, they write, water suppliers should improve forecasting methods to avoid needless infrastructure costs and support sustainable water management. [Water Resources Research study] 

Record heat coming to these three world regions
Experts expect climate change to bring more extreme humid heat to many parts of the world, enough to approach the limits of human tolerance in some places — yet regional-level humid heat events have received little attention from scientists and the media. Looking at record humid-heat days from 216 regions around the world, researchers used climate models to assess the odds of those records getting broken under today’s climate conditions. They identified the eastern United States, eastern China, and much of Australia as particularly likely to see humid heat more extreme than in recent decades, highlighting these regions as potentially underprepared. [AGU Advances study] 

Using 400 years of Chinese historical records to project epidemics
Comparing weather records from the Ming and Qing dynasties in China, researchers examined the role extreme weather like floods and droughts played in epidemics. They found the impact was regional with the largest correlation between drought specifically and large-scale epidemics gradually decreases from northern China down to southern China. Additionally, epidemics historically had at least 32 years between outbreaks. [GeoHealth study] 

Climate change makes combined cyclone-heatwaves worse for coastal China
As climate change progresses, tropical cyclones and heatwaves increasingly occur back-to-back, exacerbating the damage either event would have on its own. Climate model simulations indicate that in a future with continued high emissions of greenhouse gases, China’s densely populated southeastern coast will likely experience stronger, broader, more frequent, and longer-lasting tropical cyclone-heatwaves, with temperatures 2°C warmer than 1980-2010 summer conditions. Researchers call for improved early warning systems and urban heat mitigation efforts to protect vulnerable populations in the region. [JGR Atmospheres study] 

Climate variations in tropical oceans drive primarily extreme events
Severe droughts and floods are primarily driven by climate variations in tropical oceans, with interannual and decadal patterns playing key roles. [Eos editors’ highlight][AGU Advances study] 

Heatwaves increase home births in India
Heatwaves in India are associated with increased home births, with differential susceptibilities across regions and populations, threatening maternal and newborn health. [Eos editors’ highlight][GeoHealth study] 

 

11/26/2025: That water on Mars might not actually be liquid

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A photograph of a volcano shaped like an ant hill with rising walls, a basin filled with bubbling orange and red lava, and a valley formed in the middle of the photo where the lava is spilling from the volcano. Smoke rises from the lava and partially blocks a tan dirt hill in the background.

The Fagradalsfjall volcanic eruption in Iceland
Credit: Creative Commons/Yuo7si

AGU News 

AGU honors journalists Brooke Jarvis, Roland Pease and Jonathan Blackwell for excellence in science journalism
AGU recognizes Brooke Jarvis 2025 Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Writing – Features for “Our Very Strange Search for ‘Sea Level’” published in The New Yorker magazine on 19 August 2024. Roland Pease and Jonathan Blackwell share the 2025 David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Writing – News for the radio story “An armada for asteroid Apophis?”, which aired on 26 April 2024 on the BBC World Service weekly radio program Science in Action. [announcement] [all 2025 AGU honors] 

Register for AGU25 in New Orleans 
Join 20,000 Earth and space scientists at AGU’s annual meeting in New Orleans, 15-19 December. Session recordings will be available to online attendees on demand. Registration is free for qualified journalists and media relations professionals. [press registration] 

Featured Research 

Bubble trouble: how bubbles move in magma
To have lava and a volcanic eruption, you must have bubbles! Like soda in a bottle, pressure (and bubbles) starts to build up in volcanoes before eruptions. A new study looks to answer how many bubbles form, where they start and how the bubbles move as an eruption occurs. The bubble model can help scientists better understand magma and volcanic eruptions. [JGR Solid Earth study] 

These spots in the Atlantic Ocean could ring alarm bells for the collapse of the AMOC
As the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation slows, researchers are looking for key measurement points and locations that could provide early warning signs for the end of the current. A new model projected certain indicators, like salinity, around southern parts of the Atlantic Ocean will be the strongest early signals. The AMOC is currently being observed in three places, and the new study suggests data from SAMBA are most useful for predicting estimates for AMOC tipping times. [Geophysical Research Letters study] 

Maybe that’s not liquid water on Mars after all
A “very large roll” of a radar instrument offers new insight into a highly reflective area near the Martian south pole. Along the southern tip of Mars sits a polar ice cap, and recent radar scans found strong reflections that could hint at water underneath the ice. However, for liquid to exist under the ice a very salty brine or volcanic vents would be needed to keep the water warm. [Eos research spotlight][Geophysical Research Letters study] 

Key driver of extreme winds on Venus identified
A new study suggests that a once-daily atmospheric tidal cycle may be a bigger driver of rapid Venusian winds than previously thought. [Eos research spotlight][AGU Advances study] 

From mantle flow to river flow: shaping Earth’s surface from within
The convection of the Earth’s mantle shapes its surface, carving fault networks into the lithosphere that can guide the course of rivers. [Eos editors’ highlight][Geophysical Research Letters study] 

Rethinking engagement with frontline communities
A new perspective from community-based organizations explains how scientists, funders, and other supporters can collaborate ethically and effectively while respecting community identities and priorities. [Eos editors’ highlight][Community Science study] 

Avoiding and responding to peak groundwater
A new review shows how rising demand, shrinking supplies, and policy decisions together shape when groundwater use peaks and what can be done to avoid long-term depletion. [Eos editors’ highlight][Earth’s Future study] 

 

11/20/2025: Increasingly salty soil could damage crops

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A photograph from the beachside of a lake. Half of the photo is of the open, clear blue sky and the bottom half is taken up by the blue lake. The left side of the picture has a large green tree covering over the lake.

The water reservoir at Lake Mendocino in California, United States, served as a case study for how water reservoir operators followed the rules, to the letter or by using previous experience to lead their decisions.
Credit: Alexey Komarov

Featured Research 

Adjusting for human bias when building water reservoirs
Preconceived ideas and previous experiences can change how water reservoir operators adapt to changes. A new study examined if operators were more likely to follow the rules to the letter or let past experiences help dictate their actions, whether consciously or subconsciously. They found that it was most likely that operators would let past events influence operations, which could lead to issues. In a case study from California, researchers found that years of drought led the operators to adjust to their usual water levels and left the reservoir at risk of flooding as a result. By knowing how operators may react to weather events, policies can be implemented to allow for these adjustments while planning to mitigate the potential unintended consequences. [Water Resources Research study] 

Storm systems can create clouds over a hemisphere away
Cirrus clouds are those light, wispy clouds made entirely of ice crystals. There are two types of cirrus clouds, anvil and situ, and it can be difficult for modeling to tell them apart. A new study separated the two clouds by investigating what caused the clouds to form. Anvil cirrus clouds form from storm systems in their own hemisphere. In contrast, powerful storm systems in one hemisphere can generate huge waves in the atmosphere that cause situ cirrus clouds to form in calm skies across the equator in the other hemisphere. This distinction can help future models better predict how global warming impacting storms patterns will affect weather even hemispheres away. [AGU Advances study] [Eos editors’ highlight] 

How algae helped some life outlast extinction
Cooler waters near Norway’s north provided a refuge for phytoplankton during the Great Dying around 252 million years ago when 81% of marine life died out. A new study found fossilized biomarkers that leave hints that something, most likely a type of phytoplankton, was alive in the cold waters around Svalbard after the Great Dying. These organisms likely fled volatile waters elsewhere as their biomarkers were largely absent before the extinction. [AGU Advances study][Eos research spotlight] 

Excessive ocean alkalinity enhancement could warp some phytoplanktons’ shells
Adding alkaline materials like limestone or basalt to the oceans could chemically increase their capacity to absorb planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — yet how this strategy will impact marine life remains uncertain. Researchers in a lab tested how this process impacted coccolithophores, tiny shell-building plankton that absorb carbon and provide nutrients for other marine life. As the rate of carbon entering the water rose with alkalinity, they found the coccolithophores used the extra carbon to photosynthesize and grow faster. However, the faster they grew, the less time and carbon they had to properly build their shells, resulting in malformed shells. This may imply an upper limit on how much alkalinity enhancement is safe for marine ecosystems, the researchers write. [JGR Biogeosciences study] 

Croplands may face threat of saltier soils as climate change amplifies droughts
Besides reducing water available for crops, drought can also make soil saltier, as evaporating water leaves behind its salt content in the upper layers of soil where farmers grow their crops. Nearly 15% of the world’s soils have gotten significantly saltier from 1980 to 2018, researchers have found. The trend is closely linked to more severe soil droughts: droughts lasting over six months play a major role turning un-salty soils salty, as occurred in nearly 7% of the world’s dry regions in the past 39 years. Salinization lowers soil fertility, which hampers crop growth, and degrades soil structure, making soil restoration more difficult. [Geophysical Research Letters study] 

A new way for coastal planners to explore the costs of rising seas
A framework featuring a range of plausible future sea level rise scenarios could help coastal planners prepare critical infrastructure. [Earth’s Future study][Eos research spotlight] 

The invisible brake: near‑surface cooling stalls giant dyke swarms
Sill-based pressure reconstructions show Mull’s giant dykes had eruption-capable pressures, but near‑surface groundwater cooling increased magma viscosity and stalled lateral propagation. [JGR Solid Earth study][Eos editors’ highlight] 

Taking carbon science out of orbit
NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite reveals an impressively dynamic picture of Earth’s carbon cycle, yet it may be prematurely decommissioned and destroyed due to budget cuts. [AGU Advances commentary][Eos editors’ highlight] 

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]