A team co-led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities researcher Peter Makovicky and Argentinean colleague Sebastian Apesteguía has identified a 90-million-year-old fossil that provides the “missing link” for a mysterious group of prehistoric animals. 

ECMWF has launched a new round of Code for Earth data challenges, inviting innovators to develop open-source solutions to real-world weather and climate problems. This year’s challenges are related to wildfires, floods, machine learning reliability, and for the first time, a dedicated stream focused on joint challenges with African partners.

Concordia researchers show blaming beaver dams for flooding in Quebec’s Charlevoix region (2005, 2011) is unfounded. Advanced modelling found failed dams had minimal impact on flood levels. Fast runoff and log jams from intense rainfall were more likely causes, and beaver structures support river health rather than worsen flooding.

Concordia researchers used peatland cores from the Magdalen Islands to reconstruct 4,000 years of Atlantic storm activity, revealing ancient periods of heightened hurricane impact. The study links storm frequency to climate conditions, improving understanding of long-term patterns and future risks as warming accelerates storm impacts in Atlantic Canada.

Pinpointing when early land plants colonized terrestrial environments and began influencing Earth's systems is a core question in the evolution of the Earth system. A research team led by Prof. ZHAO Mingyu at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has uncovered evidence indicating that land plants may have started reshaping Earth's surface environments far earlier than previously recognized.

More thorough testing of methane and ethane emissions in Osaka, Japan, identified numerous natural gas-related large methane sources that were mostly overlooked in current predictions. These sources may be useful future targets for mitigating emissions.