EurekAlert! News by Subject: Earth Science - News by Subject: Earth Science

Earth Science

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 3-Nov-2025 03:11 ET (3-Nov-2025 08:11 GMT/UTC)

Can tiny ocean organisms offer the key to better climate modeling?

University of Pennsylvania
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Tiny ocean organisms living in oxygen-poor waters turn nutrients into nitrous oxide—a greenhouse gas far more powerful than carbon dioxide—via complex chemical pathways.

Penn’s Xin Sun and collaborators identified the how and why behind these chemical reactions, showing that microbial competition, not just chemistry, determines how much N₂O is produced.

Their findings pave the way for more reliable climate models, making global greenhouse gas estimates more effective, predictable, and easier to understand in response to natural and man-made climate change.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: Simons Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, Spanish Agency for Research, University of Basel

Neutron scanning of coral fossils reveals Earth’s hidden climate history

University of Sydney
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A University of Sydney student has developed a completely new way to peer inside coral fossils to recover lost records of past climate change. The method opens the door to recovering climate information from coral samples once written off as too altered to be useful

Journal: Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems
Funder: Australian Research Council, Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering

2023 ocean heatwave ‘unprecedented but not unexpected’

University of Exeter
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The June 2023 heatwave in northern European seas was “unprecedented but not unexpected”, new research shows.

Journal: Communications Earth & Environment
Funder: Natural Environment Research Council

Chemists at Paderborn University discover new way of breaking down climate-damaging ‘laughing gas’

Universität Paderborn
Peer-Reviewed Publication

‘Defying climate change calls for new approaches in breaking down greenhouse gases’, Professor Jan Paradies of Paderborn University said. The chemist and his team have now moved a step closer to this goal: the scientists have successfully managed to reduce ozone-damaging nitrous oxide (‘laughing gas’) to its harmless constituent parts using metal-free catalysis at low temperatures. The results were published in the internationally renowned Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Journal: Journal of the American Chemical Society

Twin threat: Cascadia and San Andreas faults may be seismically linked

Oregon State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Two fault systems on North America’s West Coast – the Cascadia subduction zone and the San Andreas fault – may be synchronized, with earthquakes on one fault potentially triggering seismic events on the other, a new study found.

Journal: Geosphere

Tracking flood frequency key to protecting B.C. communities: UBC study

University of British Columbia
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study from the University of British Columbia shows that even modest increases in river flows can dramatically raise flood frequency, with major implications for infrastructure and community safety. The researchers call for a shift in flood management – from focusing solely on rare, large floods to tracking how often floods occur.

Water first: Study urges prioritizing irrigation and water management over genetic drought tolerance

Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

As climate change intensifies droughts worldwide, a new perspective published in Agricultural Ecology and Environment argues that the most effective defense against crop failures is not genetic engineering but better water management.

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