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Categories: Geoscience: Severe Weather, Paleontology: Fossils

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Scientists uncover the intricate dance between drought, wildfires and invasive species in Southern California's coastal sage scrub ecosystems.

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On a research cruise focused on marine mammals and seabirds, scientists earned an unexpected bonus: The first-ever documented sighting of a hoary bat flying over the open ocean.

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Understanding cloud patterns in our changing climate is essential to making accurate predictions about their impact on society and nature. Scientists published a new study that uses a high-resolution global climate model to understand how the clustering of clouds and storms impacts rainfall extremes in the tropics. They show that with rising temperatures, the severity of extreme precipitation events increases.

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In a new study, researchers broke down how human-induced greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions influence rainfall in the United States. Greenhouse gas emissions increase rainfall, while aerosols have a long-term drying effect as well as short-term impacts that vary with the seasons. As aerosols decrease, their long-term drying effect will likely diminish, causing rainfall averages and extremes to rapidly increase.

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If storms become stronger in the future due to climate change, more nitrogen may be released from the bottom of coastal seas.

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To learn about the first organisms on our planet, researchers have to analyze the rocks of the early Earth. These can only be found in a few places on the surface of the Earth. The Pilbara Craton in Western Australia is one of these rare sites: there are rocks there that are around 3.5 billion years old containing traces of the microorganisms that lived at that time. A research team has now found new clues about the formation and composition of this ancient biomass, providing insights into the earliest ecosystems on Earth.

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In a new study, paleontologists describe the oldest-known leaf-nosed bat fossils, which were found along the banks of the Panama Canal. They're also the oldest bat fossils from Central America, preserved 20-million years ago when Panama and the rest of North America were separated from southern landmass by a seaway at least 120 miles wide.

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A new studyshows wildfires lead to an increase of anxiety-related emergency department visits in the western United States, amplifying the concerning parallel trajectory of two escalating public health crises -- mental health and climate change.

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By analysing ancient DNA, an international team of researchers have uncovered cases of chromosomal disorders, including what could be the first case of Edwards syndrome ever identified from prehistoric remains.

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Until recently, Orthacanthus gracilis could have been considered the 'John Smith' of prehistoric shark names, given how common it was. Three different species of sharks from the late Paleozoic Era -- about 310 million years ago -- were mistakenly given that same name, causing lots of grief to paleontologists who studied and wrote about the sharks through the years and had trouble keeping them apart. But now a professor has finished the arduous task of renaming two of the three sharks -- and in the process rediscovered a wealth of fossil fishes that had been stored at a museum for years but had been largely forgotten.

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Palaeontological analysis shows that a renowned fossil thought to show soft tissue preservation is in fact just paint. The fossil discovered in 1931 was thought to be an important specimen for understanding early reptile evolution. While not all of the celebrated fossil is a forgery, scientists urge caution in how the fossil is utilized in future.

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New research has shown that the tropical subsurface ocean gained oxygen during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (commonly referred to as PETM). During this short-lived interval of time in Earth s history that occurred 56 million years ago the average temperatures rose by up to six degrees within a few thousand years.

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A new study explores the weight great fossil sites have on our understanding of evolutionary relationships between fossil groups and quantified the power these sites have on our understanding of evolutionary history. Surprisingly, the authors discovered that the wind-swept sand deposits of the Late Cretaceous Gobi Desert's extraordinarily diverse and well-preserved fossil lizard record shapes our understanding of their evolutionary history more than any other site on the planet.

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Widespread 20th-century reforestation in the eastern United States helped counter rising temperatures due to climate change, according to new research. The authors highlight the potential of forests as regional climate adaptation tools, which are needed along with a decrease in carbon emissions.

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Scientists examined hundreds of birds in museum collections and discovered a suite of feather characteristics that all flying birds have in common. These 'rules' provide clues as to how the dinosaur ancestors of modern birds first evolved the ability to fly, and which dinosaurs were capable of flight.

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Snail shells are often colorful and strikingly patterned. This is due to pigments that are produced in special cells of the snail and stored in the shell in varying concentrations. Fossil shells, on the other hand, are usually pale and inconspicuous because the pigments are very sensitive and have already decomposed. Residues of ancient color patterns are therefore very rare. This makes a new discovery all the more astonishing: researchers found pigments in twelve-million-year-old fossilized snail shells.

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Nearly 400 exceptionally well-preserved fossils dating back 470 million years have been discovered in the south of France by two amateur paleontologists. The discovery provides unprecedented information on the polar ecosystems of the Ordovician period.

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The rivers of Australia, which once flowed across its now dry interior, used to host a range of bizarre animals -- including a sleek predatory lobe-finned fish with large fangs and bony scales. The newly described fossil fish discovered in remote fossil fields west of Alice Springs has been named Harajicadectes zhumini by palaeontologists.

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A new study has found similarities between long-term climatic changes in South Australia and temperate agricultural areas in Argentina -- highlighting similarities across these Southern Hemisphere countries. As temperature records tumble, and the threat of bushfires and dry conditions looms large, researchers renew the urgency of calls to make more concerted efforts to prepare for climate extremes in South Australia.

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For more than 50 years, the National Hurricane Center has used the Saffir-Simpson Windscale to communicate the risk of property damage; it labels a hurricane on a scale from Category 1 (wind speeds between 74 -- 95 mph) to Category 5 (wind speeds of 158 mph or greater). But as increasing ocean temperatures contribute to ever more intense and destructive hurricanes, climate scientists wondered whether the open-ended Category 5 is sufficient to communicate the risk of hurricane damage in a warming climate.