Even as dramatic water-related disasters such as floods and storms intensified in some parts of the world, more than three-quarters of Earth’s land became permanently drier in recent decades, UN scientists warned today in a stark new analysis. Some 77.6% of Earth’s land experienced drier conditions during the three decades leading up to 2020 compared to the previous 30-year period, according to the landmark report from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

In a paper published in Science Bulletin, Chinese scholars (Chao Yang and Qingquan Li) from Shenzhen University, together with more than ten domestic and foreign institutions, used scenario assumptions to estimate the potential carbon sink of roof greening in 102 major Chinese cities, indicating that roof greening in these cities possibly afford a large potential carbon sink and benefits to China's carbon neutrality goals.

Hail is the result of raindrops being propelled into the coldest parts of the atmosphere. Eventually, stones fall back to Earth, where scientist have been studying for decades how they form. Now, with the help of CT scans, researchers could see the insides of the icy stones without breaking them for the first time. This way they have observed the entire internal structure of exceptionally large hailstones, which might provide important information about future extreme hail events.