Research briefs

During a 100-year geomagnetic storm, 3.5 million people and 91,000 businesses are predicted to lose power, with daily economic losses of $1.22 billion.

New research shows the most destructive tsunami from Tonga’s 2022 Hunga eruption was triggered by caldera collapse, not an explosion. The collapse generated detectable underwater sound waves that could help provide earlier warnings of volcanic tsunamis.

UC Riverside scientists have developed a way to identify where Earth’s biggest earthquakes are most likely to occur, offering a powerful new tool for improving disaster preparations in some of the most dangerous seismic regions.

Research shows that the Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average. The sea ice is melting, exposing more open ocean and throwing the ecosystem out of balance.

For past 50 years in B.C., clear-cut logging has been the primary method of timber extraction. Floods are frequent and more expensive now, and unlike the storms that help trigger them, clear cutting and the associated cumulative impacts are manageable.

A study finds that weak sea-surface temperature gradients reduce ocean cooling beneath tropical cyclones, allowing storms to intensify. Researchers say incorporating these small-scale ocean features into forecasting models could improve cyclone warnings.

More and larger fires, including in areas of historically low fire activity, are likely but not a given.

A new, international scientific review warns that major gaps in knowledge along Antarctica’s coasts – where the ice sheet and the Southern Ocean interact – are now one of the biggest obstacles to reliably projecting future global sea level rise