Earth Sciences

Across much of the Western United States, winter 2026 was the year the snow never came. Many ski resorts got by with snowmaking but shut down their winter operations early. Fire officials and water supply […]

Earth’s magnetic field acts as a vital shield against radiation arriving from space, but it is not constant. A new international study has examined how a reduction of the magnetic field similar to the Laschamps […]

Researchers have used artificial intelligence to develop a new tool for assessing earthquake damage, a leap that could ultimately help first responders in making critical rescue decisions, suggests a new study. The team’s AI, called […]

Fires are a recurring phenomenon in central South America, often intensified by drought and deforestation. In 2024, wildfire activity reached its highest levels in 20 years, affecting vast areas of the Amazon rainforest and the […]

Rising sea surface temperatures in coastal waters are driving 50 to 64 percent of the increase in large-scale humid heat waves, according to new research. The study, from researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate […]

The technology used to predict sand and dust storm (SDS) severity has for decades systematically overestimated when and where sediment is transported across Earth’s surface, a new study shows. Existing models, which draw on satellite, […]

Cycles in the growth and decay of Antarctica’s ice sheets once shaped marine biological productivity thousands of miles away in the subtropical ocean, according to new research led by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. […]

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), which include GPS, are traditionally used for positioning, timing, and mapping information. In an open-access study published Feb. 27 in Geophysical Research Letters, MIT Haystack Observatory scientists report using existing […]

In 2016, Antarctic sea ice, which had previously shown record expansion, shifted rapidly toward unusually low levels. This abrupt shift left scientists scratching their heads, wondering why it had vanished so quickly despite years of […]

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is second only to carbon dioxide in driving up global temperatures. But it doesn’t linger in the atmosphere for long thanks to molecules called hydroxyl radicals, which are […]