Across the western U.S., wildfires are becoming larger and more severe — and even trees that initially survive are dying in subsequent years, making it harder for forests to regenerate, according to new research from Portland State University.

In a paper published in Science China Earth Sciences, a team of scientists present a novel application of data-driven AI model to real-time predictions of the 2023–2024 climate conditions in the tropical Pacific. As configured, this AI-based model can adequately represent the coupled ocean-atmosphere interactions, with its prediction procedure being executed in a rolling manner, in which the related key fields during multi-month time intervals (TIs) are taken for input predictors serving as initial conditions. Sensitivity experiments are conducted to examine how prediction skills are affected by the input predictor specifications, including TIs. A comparison with other dynamic coupled models is also made to demonstrate the prediction performance for the 2023–2024 El Niño event.

A study conducted by researchers from the University of Plymouth and Plymouth Marine Laboratory, who have spent more than a decade examining the impact of artificial light at night (ALAN) on the world’s coasts and oceans, has shown that more than one-fifth of the global ocean – an area spanning more than 75million sq km – has been the subject of ocean darkening over the past two decades. Ocean darkening occurs when changes in the optical properties of the ocean reduce the depth of its photic zones, home to 90% of all marine life and places where sunlight and moonlight drive ecological interactions.

Contrary to widespread assumptions, the largest shark that ever lived – Otodus megalodon – fed on marine creatures at various levels of the food pyramid and not just the top, as an international research team led by Goethe University Frankfurt has now discovered. The scientists analyzed the zinc content of a large sample of fossilized megalodon teeth, which had been unearthed above all in Sigmaringen and Passau, and compared them with fossil teeth found elsewhere and the teeth of animals that inhabit our planet today.

Jonathan Ajo-Franklin, a leading mind in applied geophysics and Trustee Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Rice University, has been awarded the 2025 Reginald Fessenden Award by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. The honor recognizes a “specific technical contribution to exploration geophysics” that represents a major scientific or conceptual advancement — a distinction that places Ajo-Franklin among the most influential innovators in the field.