A recent study published in Nature has explored how the South Asian Summer Monsoon (SASM) responds to warming under six climate scenarios, spanning from the past to the future. Led by researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the study develops a unified framework based on thermodynamic (moisture-driven) and dynamic (wind-driven) processes that govern changes in the SASM, suggesting that insights from past warm climates can inform our understanding of the future SASM.

Archaeopteryx is the fossil that proved Darwin right. It’s the oldest known fossil bird, and it helps show that all birds— including the ones alive today— are dinosaurs. And while the first Archaeopteryx fossil was found more than 160 years ago, scientists are continuing to learn new things about this ancient animal. In a new paper in the journal Nature, researchers described the features of the latest Archaeopteryx fossil to be shared with the public scientific record: the Chicago Archaeopteryx, which went on display in 2024 at the Field Museum. Thanks to the incredibly detailed work by the scientists who prepared the specimen, this fossil preserves more soft tissues and fine skeletal details than have ever been seen in Archaeopteryx. In particular, a set of feathers never before seen in this species help explain why it could fly when many of its non-bird dinosaur cousins could not.

The increasing frequency of once-in-a-decade agricultural and ecological drought has underscored the urgency of studying hydrological changes. A research team from the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-informatics of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has collaborated with international experts to analyse the estimated changes in land water storage over the past 40 years by utilising space geodetic observation technology and global hydrological change data. This innovative method has revealed a rapid depletion in global soil moisture, resulting in a significant amount of water flowing into the oceans, leading to a rise in sea levels. The research provides new insights into the driving factors behind the alarming reduction in terrestrial water storage and rise in sea levels. The findings have been published in the international journal Science.

University of Texas at Arlington researcher Yunyao Li has been selected by NASA to develop a system that gives communities early warning when wildfire smoke may make the air unsafe to breathe.

As the most seismically active regions in the world, oceanic subduction zones show contrasting seismicity in different regions. A review by a team from Nanjing University explored the relationships among the thermal structure, metamorphism, deformation and fluid activity of oceanic subduction zones. The thermal structure of subduction zones not only controls dehydration depths of hydrous minerals, but also affects the mechanical coupling state of the subduction plate interface, eclogitization of the subducted oceanic crust, and phase transition of olivine in the subducted lithospheric mantle. Fault stick-slip behavior is the major mechanism of shallow earthquakes (<70 km), while dehydration embrittlement of hydrous minerals and other mechanisms may trigger intermediate-depth earthquakes (70–300 km). The amounts of earthquakes decrease sharply below 160 km in warm subduction zones, but below ~300 km in cold subduction zones where hydrous minerals release water at greater depths. Cold slabs could carry water down to depths >300 km, resulting in localized water enrichment in the mantle transition zone. More studies are needed to decipher how the fluid activity triggers slow earthquakes and deep-focus earthquakes. The review is published in Science China Earth Sciences.