Team studies beryllium-7 variations over Antarctic regions of the Southern Ocean
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 15-Jan-2026 17:11 ET (15-Jan-2026 22:11 GMT/UTC)
A Japanese research team has studied the variations in beryllium-7 concentrations in the surface air over the Antarctic regions of Southern Ocean. Beryllium-7 is a radioactive isotope of beryllium produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere. The team explored, over space and time, how the beryllium-7 is transported from the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface. Their goal was to better understand the mechanisms of atmospheric mixing on Earth.
An international team of scientists, including a senior researcher at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, has uncovered new evidence of ancient wildfires that reshapes our understanding of Earth’s turbulent Early Triassic epoch, about 250 million years ago.
In the summer of 2022, 20 islands in the Maldives were flooded when a distant swell event in the Indian Ocean coincided with an extremely high tide level. Now researchers from the University of Plymouth (UK) and Deltares, a not-for-profit applied research institute in the Netherlands, have warned that future predicted rises in sea levels - coupled with an increase in extreme weather events and wave conditions - could result in such flooding becoming far more common, perhaps happening every two to three years by around 2050.
Rainfall and flooding frequently disrupt the lives of urban residents worldwide, posing significant public health risks. Mumbai, India - renowned for the ferocity of its monsoon season - stands as a stark example of the human toll that extreme urban flooding can exact. But despite the growing recognition and urgency of these hazards, the health impacts of rainfall remain poorly understood, and those of sea level rise are entirely unquantified. A recent study led by Princeton University and the University of Chicago takes a closer look at the intersection between climate change, hazards, and public health in Mumbai, finding that deaths caused by rainfall and rising sea levels are almost ten times higher than the official statistics suggest.