The study of Earth’s systems, including its physical structure, natural processes, and interactions between the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. Earth sciences investigate phenomena such as weather, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions to understand our planet’s past, present, and future.
Researchers have identified a physically interpretable signal that distinguishes stable polar-vortex states from states approaching a regime transition inside an artificial-intelligence emulator. The result could provide a method for studying precursors to sudden stratospheric warmings, but the signal has so far been demonstrated only in an idealized atmospheric model and is not a real-world warning system.
A decade-long prospective experiment in California found that selected short-term earthquake forecasting models remained statistically consistent with the number, locations and magnitudes of earthquakes recorded after their forecasts were issued. The test subjected 27 models to future observations rather than earthquakes already known during model development, providing an unusually long real-world assessment of whether operational-type forecasts retain statistical reliability outside retrospective testing.
A forecasting method built only from the historical record of Arctic sea-ice extent has achieved September hindcast skill comparable with models used by the Sea Ice Prediction Network, giving researchers a simple test of whether more complex physics-based and AI systems are actually extracting additional predictive information. The Random Analogue Predictor (RAP), developed by Faiq Raees and Francesco Paparella, was evaluated at lead times of up to nine months and showed negligible bias with root-mean-square error no greater than 0.6 million km² (232 000 mi²).
A weaker cross-hemispheric Atlantic overturning circulation persisted for centuries after North Atlantic Deep Water formation stopped in an extreme-warming climate-model experiment. The result shows that continued overturning after the loss of deep-water formation can represent a prolonged reorganization of the global ocean rather than a stable surviving circulation.
Kīlauea’s summit repeatedly swelled as magma accumulated between lava-fountaining episodes, creating a measurable deformation pattern that scientists used to narrow the timing of subsequent fountains. A study published in Science on October 8, 2026, documents the relationship across an eruption sequence that produced 54 episodes after beginning in December 2024.
A crocodilian fossil collected in Egypt nearly a century ago has been assigned to a new genus after researchers found that it was not closely related to the living false gharial, as its original classification had implied. The reclassification identifies a separate branch of long-snouted crocodilians that inhabited the ancient Mediterranean about 45 million years ago, adding evidence of a more diverse prehistoric ecosystem.
New uranium-lead measurements from zircon recovered inside Oklahoma’s buried Ames impact structure place its youngest dated material at 369.7 ± 5.9 million years, nearly 100 million years later than the Ordovician age long assigned to the crater. The result does not provide an exact collision date, but it sets a much younger upper age limit for impact-related zircon recrystallization and shifts Ames toward a different period of Earth history.
A new Science Advances study finds that much of the disagreement among climate models over late-century eastern equatorial Pacific warming can be traced to two background properties: the strength of Pacific trade winds and effective climate sensitivity. Together, they explain about 74% of the model spread, offering a clearer physical reason why some models produce a much stronger El Niño-like shift than others.
Hydrothermal input to five lakes in Yellowstone’s Lower Geyser Basin was greatest during wetter periods and lowest during dry intervals with reduced snowpack, according to a 15 000-year environmental reconstruction. The lake sediments also record increased wildfire activity during warmer, drier periods, according to a study summarized by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Yellowstone Volcano Observatory on September 21, 2026.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) FLEX satellite is now in orbit after launching with Copernicus Sentinel-3C from French Guiana at 01:21 UTC on September 15, 2026. FLEX was built to measure solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), the extremely faint light emitted by vegetation as chlorophyll absorbs sunlight during photosynthesis, giving scientists a new way to observe how plants are functioning from space.
