YouTube video by American Resiliency

Newswise — Groundwater table depth (GWTD) influences how water moves through soils, rivers, and ecosystems. Hence, it also affects how water and energy move between the land and atmosphere. However, Earth system models often struggle to accurately represent groundwater at global scales. This study investigated whether using machine learning to calibrate models could improve the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) Land Model’s simulation of GWTD. Researchers developed a framework supported by machine learning. They started with a stand-in computer model that they had trained on land model simulations. They then combined the surrogate model with global observations of GWTD to adjust key parameters related to water runoff in E3SM. This approach improved how well E3SM modeled GWTD compared to simulations that used default parameters. In particular, it improved E3SM’s predictions within the 1 to 5 meter depth range. At this range, groundwater can influence surface processes. However, this representation of GWTD did not consistently improve how E3SM represented other variables related to water. These variables included soil moisture, runoff, and evapotranspiration. The Impact This study provided a test of how using machine learning to calibrate an Earth system model can improve how it simulates groundwater. It demonstrated that machine...

Newswise — Groundwater table depth (GWTD) influences how water moves through soils, rivers, and ecosystems. Hence, it also affects how water and energy move between the land and atmosphere. However, Earth system models often struggle to accurately represent groundwater at global scales. This study investigated whether using machine learning to calibrate models could improve the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) Land Model’s simulation of GWTD. Researchers developed a framework supported by machine learning. They started with a stand-in computer model that they had trained on land model simulations. They then combined the surrogate model with global observations of GWTD to adjust key parameters related to water runoff in E3SM. This approach improved how well E3SM modeled GWTD compared to simulations that used default parameters. In particular, it improved E3SM’s predictions within the 1 to 5 meter depth range. At this range, groundwater can influence surface processes. However, this representation of GWTD did not consistently improve how E3SM represented other variables related to water. These variables included soil moisture, runoff, and evapotranspiration. The Impact This study provided a test of how using machine learning to calibrate an Earth system model can improve how it simulates groundwater. It demonstrated that machine...

A new ice sheet model developed by glaciologists at the University of California, Irvine and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory projects that the melting of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica will cont...

#EarthSystem: "The authors found that each #glaciation of the past 900,000 y follows a predictable pattern. This natural pattern—in the absence of human greenhouse gas emissions—suggests that we shld ...

The world’s coral reef ecosystems almost all face a high risk of collapse in the next 50 years, mostly due to warming oceans and heat waves, according to a global assessment released Thursday.

#EarthSystem: "'At the end of the day, does it matter much if the start of the next ice age is 50, 100, or 200 thousand years into the future?' Ridgwell wondered." https://t.co/I1BcdiTLxl

From 2010 to 2024, the Amazon rainforest—the largest tropical rainforest on the planet—released an average of 1.17 billion metric tons more carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere than it absorbed ea...

Two thousand years ago, the Arctic remnants of a once-vast ice sheet started to grow again. It was the beginning of a new glacial period, more conversationally known as the next ice age—but by the 196...

Losing more ground in the fight against climate change, humanity is heading for a hotter world than experts projected last year—and the United States is a big reason for that, a new United Nations rep...

As governments prepare to gather in Yerevan, Armenia, this week for the U.N. Biodiversity Conference (COP17), new research identifies 13% of Earth's land area as hotspots for biodiversity conservation...

Nearly 200 nations kicked off crucial U.N. biodiversity talks in Armenia on Monday as governments face pressure to salvage a landmark nature pact whose goals are slipping out of reach.

The seventh annual report by an international coalition led by Oregon State University scientists says the Earth's climate system is quickly becoming unstable and that while signs of important societa...

Deforestation slowed worldwide last year, but the improvement is unlikely to last as the situation deteriorates in Central Africa and an exceptionally strong El Niño weather pattern intensifies, a new...

Governments can't keep "promising to protect nature while supporting its destruction through harmful subsidies and incoherent policies," said a Greenpeace campaigner as COP17 began in Yerevan. "Any mo...

Healthy ecosystems may give some of the world’s most vulnerable islands a better shot at survival, new research shows.

Scientists aren’t focusing on the systems that may be closest to tipping.

Nearly half of species are in decline, with farmland birds and seabirds the worst hit, conservation bodies say

The weather over the North Atlantic affects hundreds of millions of people. From winter storms over Europe to cold spells in eastern North America, many of these impacts are shaped by large-scale atmo...

Far from being a relic of the past, peasants are vital to feeding the world. They need to be supported, not marginalised

Chinstrap penguins on Zavodovski Island in Antarctica down by two-thirds since 2011, probably due to climate crisis

The idea that ecosystems carry plenty of backup, so if a small number of species become extinct there is little harm, has been greatly overestimated, according to the largest global study of its kind.

About 12.5 trillion tons (11.3 trillion metric tons) of ice from glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica have melted since 1979, which is enough frozen water to stack ice 5 feet (1.5 meters) deep across ...

Rotting food waste is causing up to 10 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions – five times more than the entire aviation sector, the UN’s environment agency warned this week.