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Environment

October research news from the Ecological Society of America

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of four research articles recently published across its esteemed journals. Widely recognized for fostering innovation and advancing ecological knowledge, ESA’s journals consistently feature illuminating and impactful studies. This compilation of papers explores unexpected links between Arctic land and sea, how much beavers could counter the threat of wildfire, whether uniformity within a species is good for biodiversity and what happened after ...

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Environment

Cosmic dust record reveals Arctic ice varied with atmospheric warming, not ocean heat

A new record of Arctic sea-ice coverage – informed by the slow and steady sedimentation of cosmic dust on the sea floor – reveals that ancient ice waxed and waned with atmospheric warming, not ocean heat, over the last 300,000 years. The findings provide rare insights into how modern melting in the region could reshape the Arctic’s nutrient balance and biological productivity. The Arctic is warming more rapidly than any other region on Earth, driving a precipitous decline in sea ice coverage. This loss not only affects the region’s marine ecosystems and coastal communities, but it also has far-reaching implications on global ...

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Environment

Space dust reveals Arctic ice conditions before satellite imaging

Arctic sea ice has declined by more than 42% since 1979, when regular satellite monitoring began. As the ice grows thinner and recedes, more water is exposed to sunlight. Ice reflects sunlight but dark water absorbs it, advancing warming and accelerating ice loss. Climate models indicate that the Arctic will see ice-free summers within the coming decades, and scientists still aren’t sure what this will mean for life on Earth. Researchers have known for some time that fine-grained dust from space blankets the surface of Earth, falling from the cosmos at a constant rate and settling into ocean sediments. A study published Nov. 6 in Science shows that tracking where cosmic dust has ...

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Environment

In the US, Western rivers may be allies in the fight against climate change

For decades, scientists have generally thought that rivers emit more carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, than they take in. But a new analysis of every river network in the contiguous United States — including underrepresented rivers in deserts and shrublands — challenges this assumption, uncovering hints that many Western waterways may be soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The findings were published in Science and led by Taylor Maavara, an aquatic biogeochemist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. “Rivers ...

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Environment

New climate dataset warns both rich and poorest nations will see sharp drop in crop yields

A new dataset released via the Human Climate Horizons (HCH) data platform by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report Office, in collaboration with the Climate Impact Lab, warns that climate change is set to dramatically undermine agricultural productivity, with some of the greatest risks concentrated in countries least able to adapt. The dataset, sourced from a Nature study released in June by the Climate Impact Lab and collaborating institutions [press release], finds every additional degree Celsius of global warming ...

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Environment

FAU secures $1.4 million grant to save wildlife in Florida Everglades

Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science has received a five-year, $1,427,679 grant from the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to fund a project titled, “Dry Season Prey Concentrations in the Florida Everglades.” The project is led by Michelle L. Petersen, Ph.D., assistant research professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, and director of the Environmental Science Program in the School of Environmental, Coastal and Ocean Sustainability. Petersen and her team will collect and analyze critical data on aquatic prey and ...

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Environment

CABI scientists suggest an accidentally introduced parasitoid could save box trees from ecological extinction

CABI scientists, who have published their research in the journal CABI Agriculture and Bioscience, suggest that an accidentally introduced parasitoid could help save wild box trees from ecological extinction. The study highlights how an unidentified species of Eriborus (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) could be used as a classical biological control for box tree moth Cydalima perspectalis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) in Europe and North America. Scientists, which included those from the Natural History Museum Basel, Switzerland, ...

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Environment

Three new toad species skip the tadpole phase and give birth to live toadlets

PRESS EMBARGO! NOT FOR RELEASE UNTIL THURSDAY NOVEMBER 6 AT 12H00 NOON GMT Three new toad species skip the tadpole phase and give birth to live toadlets An international team of researchers have identified three new species of enchanting, pustular, tree-dwelling toads from Africa. Their solution for having offspring away from water? Skipping the tadpole phase altogether, and giving birth to live toadlets. The study is published today in the open access scientific journal Vertebrate Zoology. Most textbooks ...

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Environment

First study of its kind finds deep-sea mining waste threatens life and foodwebs in the ocean’s dim “twilight zone”

A new study led by researchers at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa published today in Nature Communications is the first of its kind to show that waste discharged from deep-sea mining operations in the Pacific’s biodiverse Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) could disrupt marine life in the midwater “twilight zone” — a vital region 200-1,500 meters below sea level that supports vast communities of zooplankton, tiny animals that serve as the ocean’s basic food building blocks. Specifically, it finds that 53% of all zooplankton and 60% of micronekton, which feed on zooplankton, would be impacted by the discharge, which could ...

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Environment

Trust and fairness are Brazil’s most powerful climate tools, finds new Earth4All analysis ahead of COP30

Ahead of the critical climate summit in Belém, a new report from Earth4All argues that Brazil’s greatest assets in tackling the climate crisis are not only its vast forests and renewable energy potential, but the power of trust and social cohesion. The study, Earth4All: Brazil, identifies possible future scenarios for the country and shows that policies promoting fairness, inclusion and institutional trust are decisive for accelerating decarbonisation and building resilience. Without them, progress risks stalling in the face of inequality and social division. “Our ...

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Environment

Duckweed offers promise and caution as nature-based solution for rice paddy pollution

A new study has revealed both the promise and the complexity of using duckweed as a biological tool for managing nitrogen pollution in rice agriculture. While this tiny floating plant can sharply curb certain harmful nitrogen oxide emissions, it may also unintentionally boost releases of ammonia and a potent greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide. These findings highlight the importance of smart, integrated strategies for sustainable farming and environmental protection. Nitrogen: Friend to Farmers, Challenge to Planet Rice feeds nearly half the world’s population, ...

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Environment

Paradox of rotating turbulence finally tamed with world-class ‘hurricane-in-a-lab’

From stirring milk in your coffee to fearsome typhoon gales, rotating turbulent flows are everywhere. Yet, these spinning currents are as scientifically complex as they are banal. Describing, modelling, and predicting turbulent flows have important implications across many fields, from weather forecasting to studying the formation of planets in the accretion disk of nascent stars. Two formulations are at the heart of the study of turbulence: Kolmogorov’s universal framework for small-scale turbulence, which describes how energy propagates and dissipates through ...

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Environment

New study reveals southern ocean’s winter CO₂ outgassing underestimated by 40%

A collaborative research team has discovered that the Southern Ocean releases substantially more carbon dioxide (CO2) during the dark austral winter than previously thought. Their new study reveals that this winter outgassing has been underestimated by up to 40%. The team comprises researchers from the Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources (SIO-MNR), and the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology (NIGLAS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Their findings were published in Science Advances on ...

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Environment

Proposed all-climate battery design could unlock stability in extreme temps

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Despite lithium-ion (Li) batteries’ role as one of the most widely used forms of energy storage, they struggle to operate at full power in low temperatures and sometimes even explode at high temperatures. Researchers at Penn State, however, have proposed a design that could hold the key to effective and stable power storage in a variety of climates. The research, which was published today (Nov. 5) in Joule, investigated a state-of-the-art Li battery design known as an all-climate battery (ACB). Previous design approaches ...

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Environment

From degradation to restoration: Remote sensing tracks Asia’s struggle for sustainable drylands

Across Asia's vast drylands, a new study reveals a critical imbalance between degradation and recovery. Researchers analyzed two decades of satellite data and developed an integrated ecohealth-neutrality framework to track how land ecosystems have changed from 2000 to 2020. The findings show that while ecohealth began improving after 2012, degradation still dominates, with about 22% of the region's land (196 million hectares) remains degraded, compared to only 13% (119 million hectares) showing recovery. This 8% “land debt” indicates the fragile balance between human activity ...

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Environment

Tie climate action to protecting a way of life to increase motivation, study says

People need to feel that climate change is affecting them now or that taking action is a patriotic act for their country to overcome apathy towards environmental efforts, a new global study has found. In a paper published in Communications Psychology today, a global team of researchers led by the University of Birmingham have found that motivational interventions to successfully make climate action more important to people include showing how climate change is happening now and affecting them or others like them. The research team worked with participants from six countries ...

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Environment

New modelling shows difficult future for the GBR under climate change

The most sophisticated modelling to date forecasts that under the current global emissions pathway the Great Barrier Reef could lose most of its coral by the end of the century, but curbing climate change and strategic management will help coral resilience. A research team led by The University of Queensland simulated different future climate scenarios driven by a range of plausible global emissions trajectories. Dr Yves-Marie Bozec from UQ’s School of the Environment said the comprehensive modelling of individual corals included ...

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Environment

More polar ocean turbulence due to planetary warming

A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change by an international team of scientists, from the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) at Pusan National University in South Korea, presents new evidence that ocean turbulence and a process known as “horizontal stirring” will increase dramatically in the Arctic and Southern Oceans due to human-induced Global Warming and decreasing sea ice coverage.​ “Shaken, not stirred” - it is widely known how James Bond prefers his Martinis. Stirring works by stretching a fluid into thin streaks, which eventually helps to create turbulence, ...

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Environment

Researchers improve marine aerosol remote sensing accuracy using multiangular polarimetry

Recently, a research group led by Prof. SUN Xiaobing from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, investigated the impact of multiangular polarimetry on the quantification of marine aerosol remote sensing applications. Their findings were published in the Optics Express. Aerosols are one of the most uncertain components in the quantification of climate radiative forcing, while polarimetry helps to improve the characterization of the microphysical properties of atmospheric aerosol. In this study, the team investigated the importance of the spectral range, the spectral band, the number of viewing angles, and ...

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Environment

Researchers develop high-performance biochar for efficient carbon dioxide capture

A team of researchers has announced a breakthrough in carbon dioxide (CO2) capture technology, unveiling a novel biochar material synthesized from corn straw using a microwave-assisted, two-step chemical activation strategy. This innovative approach, published in Sustainable Carbon Materials, promises a low-cost, scalable solution for addressing global greenhouse gas emissions and advancing climate change mitigation efforts. As atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise, reaching 422.5 ppm globally in 2024, the urgent need for effective capture and sequestration technologies has become more ...

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Environment

Can bamboo help solve the plastic pollution crisis?

A new research perspective highlights bamboo as a promising and sustainable alternative to traditional plastic materials, offering fresh hope in tackling one of the most pressing environmental issues of our time: global plastic pollution. Plastic waste, including microplastics and associated chemical contaminants, has emerged as a major threat to both ecosystems and public health worldwide. With more than 175 countries now endorsing international agreements to reduce plastic pollution, the quest for natural, sustainable substitutes is at the top of the global agenda. The recent launch of the “Bamboo as a Substitute for Plastic” ...

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Environment

PKU scientists uncover climate impacts and future trends of hailstorms in China

Peking University, November 4, 2025: A research team led by Professor Zhang Qinghong and Li Rumeng from the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Peking University (PKU) School of Physics, has found that hailstorms in China have surged since the Industrial Revolution, likely due to human-driven climate warming. The study, published in Nature Communications in September 2025, combines historical records, meteorological data, and artificial intelligence to track long-term hailstorm trends. Why It Matters: Hail can fall fast and hit hard. Apart from smashing crops and damaging homes, it may even endanger lives. After 2024’s record-breaking ...

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Environment

Climate intervention may not be enough to save coffee, chocolate and wine, new study finds

A new study published in Environmental Research Letters reveals that even advanced climate intervention strategies may not be enough to secure the future of wine grapes, coffee and cacao. These crops are vital to many economies and provide livelihoods for farmers worldwide. However, they are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns cause big variations in crop yields from year to year, meaning that farmers cannot rely on the stability of their harvest, and their produce is at risk. The researchers ...

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Environment

Breakthrough catalyst turns carbon dioxide into essential ingredient for clean fuels

A research team led by Dr. Kee Young Koo from the Hydrogen Research Department at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (President Yi Chang-Keun, hereafter referred to as KIER) has developed a world-class catalyst for the reverse water–gas shift reaction, transforming carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, into a key building block for eco-friendly fuels. The reverse water–gas shift (RWGS) reaction is a technology that converts carbon dioxide (CO₂) into carbon monoxide (CO) and water (H₂O) by reacting it with hydrogen ...

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Environment

New framework helps balance conservation and development in cold regions

Scientists have developed an innovative planning framework that could help protect fragile ecosystems in cold regions while supporting sustainable development. The study, published in Agricultural Ecology and Environment, introduces a new “connectivity–ecological risk–economic efficiency” (CRE) approach that integrates environmental, economic, and climatic factors into a single model for ecological security planning. Cold regions such as Northeast China’s Songhua River Basin are vital for ...

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