Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano in Tanzania. Its summit has been sinking for at least a decade, new research finds. Such “deflation” could be indicative of higher risk of catastrophic collapse. Credit: Christoph Strässler/flickr

AGU News

WaterSciCon is next week!
Press can register for free throughout the Water Science Conference, from 24-27 June in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The program features the confluence of science, policy and community and sessions coupling research to applied workshops. Interested reporters and press officers should email [email protected] with credentials. [press information][scientific program][media advisory]

Featured Research

Achieving carbon neutrality would stop marine heatwaves in their tracks
Marine heatwaves can cause acute environmental damage and chip away at species’ ability to survive. They’ve become more frequent, widespread and severe. But achieving carbon neutrality would halt that growth, dramatically limiting the area of ocean exposed to “permanent” heatwave conditions, according to new research. [Earth’s Future research]

Summit of unique Tanzanian volcano is sinking
Ol Doinyo Lengai is an active volcano in Tanzania, neighbor to Mount Kilimanjaro. Its summit has been sinking for at least a decade, new satellite-based analysis reports. Summit subsidence or “deflation” can be an indicator of the risk of catastrophic caldera collapse. [Geophysical Research Letters research]

Almost all the water from Tonga eruption remains in stratosphere
Nearly all of the water that the 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption injected into the atmosphere was still in the stratosphere and mesosphere as of November 2023, a new study reports. The water vapor could impact temperature and ozone. [JGR Atmospheres research]

Urban heat islands speed up winds in city “canopy”
A city’s structures can slow down wind; with buildings and other structures, a city’s surface is rough. But the heat island effect can counteract that slowing. A new study models why that happens in the megacity Shanghai and finds heating can increase the wind speed in the urban “canopy” by about 30%. [Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems research]

Expecting the unexpected could help us prepare for climate extremes
Too little consideration of high-impact, low-likelihood events has left us unprepared for the worst of climate change, scientists say in a new paper. [Earth’s Future commentary][Eos research spotlight]

Low water levels in the Mississippi River in September 2023. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

AGU News

WaterSciCon press registration open
Registration is open for the Water Science Conference, a collaboration of AGU and the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) convening 24-27 June in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The program features the confluence of science, policy and community and sessions coupling research to applied workshops. Interested reporters and press officers should email [email protected] with credentials. [press information][scientific program][media advisory]

Featured Research

Louisiana’s 2023 “dire” water crisis: why it happened and could hit again
In the summer and fall of 2023, Louisiana faced two water crises: a severe drought and such low water levels in the Mississippi River that saltwater began to creep up the channel, threatening already stressed drinking water supplies. High evaporation rates were mostly responsible for the conditions, a new study reveals, with low precipitation playing a secondary role. [LSU press release][Geophysical Research Letters research]

Top 20% of Shanxi coal mines emit half of region’s methane
The Shanxi province is China’s most prolific coal producer; coal mining is one of the world’s top methane sources. Coal producers in the region emitted 1.2 million tons of methane each year between 2021-2023, with about half of all emissions coming from just 20% of the facilities, a new study finds. The results challenge previous, lower estimates. [Geophysical Research Letters research]

Peat patches could expand, store more carbon as Arctic warms
Rapid warming in the Arctic is thawing permafrost, which can release vast volumes of carbon. But warmer temperatures may also prompt peat patches to grow, storing carbon as they do, a new study suggests. Peatlands growth might partially offset carbon release from permafrost thaw. [JGR Biogeosciences research]

Carbon storage in US cover crops less feasible than previously estimated
Cover crops are often pointed to as an important potential path for carbon storage. A new estimate of the potential for cover crops’ carbon storage in U.S. agricultural lands finds the “realistic” carbon storage is about a third of what was previously estimated,  [Earth’s Future research]

Planted windbreaks are crucial to erosion control in African deserts
Africa’s most arid landscapes are at risk of blowing away, and as more areas succumb to desertification, the erosion risk grows. Planting vegetated windbreaks is a crucial way to slow down winds and decrease erosion risk, a new study highlights. [Earth’s Future research]

Under a high-emissions pathway, the US West could lose its springtime snow cover by 2100, according to a new JGR Atmospheres paper. Credit: knowsphotos/flickr

AGU News

WaterSciCon press registration open
Registration is open for the Water Science Conference, a collaboration of AGU and the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) convening 24-27 June in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The program features the confluence of science, policy and community and sessions coupling research to applied workshops. Interested reporters and press officers should email [email protected] with credentials. [press information][scientific program][media advisory]

Featured Research

The US West could see snow-free springs by 2100
“Snow droughts” occur when there is less snow on the ground than expected, leading to water shortages and heightened wildfire risk. Snow droughts in the West will worsen by five to nine times by 2100, primarily due to warmer temperatures, a new study finds. [JGR Atmospheres research]

Pikas create bare patches, warming permafrost in Tibetan Plateau
Pikas — the tiny, cute mammals often heard squeaking in alpine boulder fields — create bare patches of ground as they burrow. In shallow Tibetan soils with permafrost, that loss of vegetation led to a warming of 0.36 degrees Celsius. It’s a previously unexplored pathway for permafrost warming. [Geophysical Research Letters research]

Heatwaves during El Niño travel farther and more slowly
Heatwaves that occur under El Niño conditions tend to be more frequent, be more persistent, travel farther, and move more slowly than heatwaves under La Niña conditions, according to a new study that examined heatwaves from 1961 to 2020. The pattern held over all continents but was strongest in the tropics. [Geophysical Research Letters research]

More consistency in qualifying exams could help diversify geosciences
Scientists favor data-driven reasoning but administer graduate student qualifying exams, a critical milestone in a student’s career, with surprisingly little guiding data. Re-examining these exams may advance educational equity and quality. [AGU Advances research][Editor’s highlight]

Seals reveal new meltwater currents in Antarctic seas
By analyzing hydrographic information gathered by seals and an undersea glider, researchers found new meltwater currents, providing valuable insights into melt of the rapidly thinning West Antarctic Ice Sheet. [JGR Oceans research][Eos research spotlight]

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A new paper in Earth’s Future examines the inputs and outputs, costs and benefits of three categories of ocean farming: human fed (fish, crustaceans), sunlight fed (seaweed) and “unfed” (shellfish).
Credit: Liu et al. (2024) Earth’s Future https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EF003766

AGU News

WaterSciCon press registration open
Registration is open for the Water Science Conference, a collaboration of AGU and the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) convening 24-27 June in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The program features the confluence of science, policy and community and sessions coupling research to applied workshops. Interested reporters and press officers should email [email protected] with credentials. [press information][scientific program][eligibility]

Featured Research

Streams lose year-round flow in California
A survey of stream gauges in dry regions of California found 13% of 158 minimally-disturbed streams had lost perennial flow — a sign of the drying influence of a warming climate. Streams burdened by human development are generally drying faster but, in some cases, regulation has made water flow perennially in previously ephemeral streams. [Water Resources Research]

Landslides mark “recent” tectonic activity on Mars
In western Arabia Terra, Mars, a long fault system shows signs of repeated activity during the last 2 billion years, a time when the Red Planet was thought to have little tectonic activity. Four landslides of different ages tumble to the crater floor, triggered by tectonic processes that shorten the crust, thrusting up a chunk of the surface and creating a scarp up to 700 meters high. The total displacement would require about 3,300 marsquakes of the magnitude observed in the modern era, the researchers calculated. [Geophysical Research Letters research]

Farming the seas wisely has ecological benefits
Mariculture employing seaweed rafts, deep fish cages and shellfish rafts, hanging cages, and bottom sowing could turn ecological burdens into benefits with strategic selection of species, technology and location. Case studies off the coast of China, the largest mariculture producer, demonstrate combining approaches can mitigate water contamination from intensive fish farming – and feed a lot of people. [Earth’s Future research][special issue on Environmental Constraints to Increasing Complexity in the Biosphere]

Auroras signal more oxygen on Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede
in 2021, the Juno spacecraft passed within 1,053 kilometers of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, getting a close look at the flow of plasma and charged particles between the massive magnetosphere of the planet and the moon. All of that electron inflow from Jupiter excites a UV aurora in the thin atmosphere of the moon, suggesting it holds 10 times more oxygen than previously calculated, and that a unique oxygen-generation process may be in effect on the solar system’s icy moons. [JGR Planets research]

Alerting communities to hyperlocalized urban flooding
A high-accuracy, low-cost sensor network may change the way urban floods are detected and monitored. [Eos research spotlight][Water Resources Research]

The secret to mimicking natural faults? Plexiglass and Teflon
Researchers found an effective way to produce natural fault behavior in the laboratory. [Eos research spotlight] [Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth research]

Tiny satellites can provide significant information about space
Students and faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder use CubeSats to learn more about the near-Earth environment. [Eos research spotlight][AGU Advances research]

A new scheme to empower global air-conditioning energy modeling
An explicit air-conditioning adoption scheme and a global dataset improve urban energy demand modeling and unlock exciting capabilities in Earth system models. [Eos editors’ highlight][Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems research]

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Ice pinnacles on the East Rongbuk Glacier with Mount Everest (also known by its Tibetan name Qomolangma or Nepali Sagarmatha) in the background.
Credit: Mark Horrell CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

AGU News

AGU announces Kristen Averyt, Ph.D., as new EVP, Science
Averyt joins AGU from the Executive Office of the President, Council on Environmental Quality, where she served as Director for Drought and Western Resilience. [press release]

Astrobiology Science Conference 2024 – this week!
Check out a new commentary revisiting the potential for life on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus and related meeting sessions presented or chaired by the authors:

• Enceladus: Astrobiology revisited [JGR Biogeosciences][research spotlight]
• Biosignatures, chance and necessity in biochemistry [talk ]
• Pre-life chemistry on ocean worlds [session Friday 10 May]
• More about our solar system’s icy worlds [tips]
• Europa Clipper preview press panel [YouTube]

Press registration remains open through Friday, 10 May and grants access to session recordings viewable after the conference ends. To register, email [email protected] with your credentials. [media advisory and tips]

Solar Storms
Large geomagnetic storms are forecast for the weekend, emerging from a sunspot rivaling the source of the famous 1859 Carrington Event. Here’s some of the latest AGU science on space weather impacts:

• Airline crew radiation exposure should be individually monitored [Space Weather research]
• Scientists track down elusive record of strongest observed solar flare [Geophysical Research Letters research]
• Starlink and other low orbiting satellites vulnerable to moderate geomagnetic storms [Space Weather research]

Featured Research

Moisture trains deliver big snow to Antarctic ice sheet interiors
Spaceborne radar shows moisture arriving in atmospheric river-like systems at the southern continent, followed by extraordinary snowfall events over the Amundsen Sea, Ice Shelf and deep into the interior of the ice sheet. [JGR Atmospheres research]

Meltwater from Everest’s East Rongbuk climbing route will peak by 2060
Climbers on Everest’s northeast ridge route from Tibet follow the East Rongbuk Glacier to Camp 1 at the North Col. Researchers picked the relatively well-measured East Rongbuk to improve modeling of ice dynamics and predictions of future change for glacier “water towers” that supply critical water needs for mountain communities. The glacier will continually lose mass this century, the study found, with annual meltwater volume peaking around 2060 if high greenhouse gas emissions continue.  [Earth’s Future research]

Can ice melt on the surface of present-day Mars?
Unlikely, according to new research that applies recent advances in modeling turbulent air flow on Earth to the Red Planet to estimate how fast ice sublimates to gas on the cold surface — and if any conditions would allow for liquid water. The model has applications to simulating surface conditions on earth Earth, Titan, or exoplanets. [JGR Planets research]

How mantle movements shape Earth’s surface
Two new data sets help researchers tease apart the influences of plate tectonics and mantle movement on surface topography. [Eos research spotlight][JGR Solid Earth research]

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Cedar Fire 2003 slow recovery, California
Credit: Flickr user slworking2

AGU News

Astrobiology Science Conference 2024: Press events and tipsheets now available
#AbSciCon24 is next week, and a schedule of press events and our tipsheets are now available. To register, email [email protected] with your credentials. Events are primarily online, but some events are hybrid, and talks will be recorded and viewable after the conference. [AbSciCon24 scientific program][media advisory]

Featured Research

Hot, dry conditions stymie forest recovery after wildfires
After a wildfire sweeps across a landscape, tree recovery is often critical for reestablishing ecosystems and stabilizing soils. But warmer, drier conditions in the U.S. are leading to lower tree regeneration rates after wildfires as compared to the 1980s and 1990s, a new study finds. Recovery may be depressed for five to seven years following a fire. [JGR Biogeoscience research]

Airline crew radiation exposure should be individually monitored
Commercial airlines typically fly at high altitudes, where there is more exposure to radiation, putting flight crews at higher risk. A new study measured radiation dose rates on 45 flights and found that while radiation levels did not exceed the international health standard, adding individual radiation dosimeters could improve monitoring. [Space Weather research]

Retreating glaciers cause catastrophic Himalayan hazard chain
Warming from climate change can make glaciers retreat more quickly and generate more meltwater. Such conditions can create a catastrophic chain of events: ice collapses and begins to flow downhill, accumulating water, ice and rocks. That debris flow can travel for kilometers, causing damage and instability. [Geophysical Research Letters research]

Climate change fueled eastern heatwaves and western flooding in Asia
Summer 2022 brought deadly floods to western Asia, while eastern Asia sweltered through the worst extended heatwave in 70 years. An unusually strong western Pacific subtropical high caused the heat dome in the east and moisture convergence in the west, a new study finds. This pattern will likely intensify through the end of the century in this densely populated region. [Earth’s Future research]

Beneath the ice: Greenland’s geology revealed in new map
Advances in remote sensing offered an opportunity to redraw Greenland’s geologic map for the first time in 15 years. Some of the newly mapped structures offer insight into how ice flows from Greenland’s interior toward the coast. [Geophysical Research Letters research][Eos research spotlight]

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A sea wall in the low-lying island nation of Tuvalu, which faces growing flooding risks as climate change and sea level rise progress. A new Earth’s Future study models the nation’s flooding future and finds that today’s 50-year floods, covering nearly half the island, will occur once every 5 years by 2060. Credit: TCAP/UNDP

AGU News

Register for Astrobiology Science Conference 2024. It’ll be out of this world!
Join us in Providence, Rhode Island from 5-10 May for #AbSciCon24, where the international astrobiology community will share new research investigating life’s potential, from Earth’s extreme environments and distant past to our solar system’s icy moons and exoplanets. To register, email [email protected] with your credentials. [media advisory][press credentialing requirements][AbSciCon24 scientific program]

Featured Research

Tuvalu’s current 50-year floods, inundating half the island, will be ten times more likely by 2060
Low-lying island nations around the world are at high risk of inundation due to sea-level rise and storm-generated waves. One such nation is Tuvalu, in the South Pacific, which has already experienced severe flooding events and seawater intrusion. New modeling finds that climate change will make Tuvalu’s present-day “1-in-50 year floods,” covering >45% of land area, occur once every 5 years — ten times more likely. [Earth’s Future research]

Animals can be allies in carbon sequestration
Most models of the carbon cycle and carbon sequestration do not include animals, instead focusing on rocks, plants, microbes and the atmosphere. But animals affect their environments and carbon pathways, and new modeling shows that animals could play a larger role in ecosystems’ carbon cycles than previously thought. [JGR Biogeosciences research]

Climate-changed winds have made oceans less efficient at removing carbon
The oceans can take up carbon dioxide, acting as an important mitigating factor in climate change. In recent years, the oceans have been taking up more carbon as atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases increased. But without climate change, oceans — especially at high latitudes — would be taking up even more because of shifts in wind patterns, a new study finds. [Geophysical Research Letters research]

Half of marine habitat loss will be abrupt, challenging for adaptation
Warming ocean waters, and associated loss of oxygen, can stress or kill ocean-dwelling organisms. Species that can’t adapt as quickly as conditions are changing may become extinct. A new study of marine habitat loss from 1850 to 2100 finds that abrupt, not gradual, habitat changes will lead to approximately half of the marine habitat loss over that time. Most habitat losses will be between 1950 and 2040, mainly due to sudden warming at the surface. [Earth’s Future research]

“Pour points” funnel rainfall through the forest canopy
When rain falls in a forest, it doesn’t fall evenly. A new study shows that leaves and branches can funnel water into “pour points,” where rain is concentrated and can fall to the ground at rates up to 15 times that of rainfall. [Water Resources Research research][Eos editor’s highlight]

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