Earth Sciences

A team of scientists led by the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ), and Leipzig University has developed a new method to track Earth’s greenness—a key indicator […]

Volcanoes and wildfires can inject millions of tons of gases and aerosol particles into the air, affecting temperatures on a global scale. But picking out the specific impact of individual events against a background of […]

A key question in any discussion about climate is “How much rain fell?” But perhaps there is an even more important one. Like any household budget, the global water economy is based on “income,” that […]

The extraction of gas and oil by fracking—large-scale fracturing of underground rocks by injecting water, sand and additives—is generating growing concern in Argentine Patagonia. Neuquén province—home to the country’s largest hydrocarbon reserves—has experienced an increase […]

Thick cloud cover can completely obscure the surface of the Earth from satellite view, while thinner haze and shadows distort the image of rural and urban regions. As such, many remote sensing images for monitoring […]

Several studies have predicted that not all geomagnetic reversals have been discovered, but it was unknown in which periods they might be hidden. Researchers led by the National Institute of Polar Research used a statistical […]

Standing on the coast and looking out to sea, you cannot detect the changes with the naked eye. But in northern Germany, sea levels are rising, as is the risk of flooding for the lower-lying […]

When the supercontinent Pangea began to fragment around 200 million years ago during the Early Jurassic, it reshaped the face of the planet. Vast new oceans opened, continents drifted apart and the familiar geography of […]

Researchers at ETH Zurich have now discovered for the first time that large blackwater lakes in the extensive peatlands of the central Congo Basin are releasing ancient carbon. To date, climate researchers had assumed that […]

When we dream of landscapes, we might imagine rolling valleys or rugged mountains. But there is a whole landscape hidden from human view: the secret world of the seafloor.This post was originally published on this […]