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

Earth Science

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 6-Jan-2026 22:11 ET (7-Jan-2026 03:11 GMT/UTC)

19-Dec-2025

Lessons from the Caldor Fire’s Christmas Valley ‘Miracle’

University of California - Davis
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Lake Tahoe communities of Christmas Valley and Meyers were spared during 2021's Caldor Fire. A UC Davis study reveals which pre-fire fuel treatments worked best to bring about the Christmas Valley "miracle."

Journal: Forest Ecology and Management
Funder: Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, League to Save Lake Tahoe, The Tahoe Fund, U.S. Forest Service

19-Dec-2025

New study guides climate modelers on partnering with Indigenous communities

University at Buffalo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A University at Buffalo researcher has developed a framework to help scientists incorporate community input into Earth system models, tools that simulate climate as well as chemical and biological processes.

Journal: AGU Advances
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

18-Dec-2025

 Strategic river sensors could have forewarned of Texas Camp flood disaster

American Geophysical Union
Reports and Proceedings

New research presented at AGU's 2025 Annual Meeting recreated the July 4 flood conditions of Texas's Guadalupe River and found multiple spots where local communities could have placed water level monitors to give early warnings about rising water.

18-Dec-2025

Science based energy choices: New perspective urges balanced path for prosperity, climate, and the environment

Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new perspective published in the inaugural issue of the journal Energy and Environment Nexus argues that the global conversation on climate, energy, and development must return to scientific first principles and the realities of human welfare. Drawing on more than four decades of work in thermodynamics, combustion, and energy systems, Professor Dongke Zhang calls for a science based approach to balancing economic growth, social well being, and ecological sustainability.

18-Dec-2025

Life on lava: How microbes colonize new habitats

University of Arizona
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Taking advantage of a "natural laboratory" in Iceland, a research team from the University of Arizona studied how microbes colonize fresh lava flows as soon as they cooled. The research provides insights into how a biological community is established over time, beginning the very moment new habitat is created.

Journal: Communications Biology
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate, Geological Society of America, American Philosophical Society, Heising-Simons Foundation

18-Dec-2025

Feedback loops accelerate warming, other atmospheric changes in Arctic

Penn State
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The climate is changing and nowhere is it changing faster than at Earth’s poles. Researchers at Penn State have painted a comprehensive picture of the chemical processes taking place in the Arctic and found that there are multiple, separate interactions impacting the atmosphere.

Journal: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

18-Dec-2025

AMS Science Preview: Volcanic rain, dust storms, and unstable Antarctic air

American Meteorological Society
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Early online research published in journals of the American Meteorological Society highlights topics including a change in airflow over the Antarctic Peninsula, rural heat, hot and dry extremes in India, a major upgrade to the UK's Global Seasonal forecasting system (GloSea6), and an unusual trigger of volcanic rain.