Drought Research News

November 13, 2025

Top Headlines

Meet the Desert Survivor That Grows Faster the Hotter It Gets

Nov. 9, 2025 — In Death Valley’s relentless heat, Tidestromia oblongifolia doesn’t just survive—it thrives. Michigan State University scientists discovered that the plant can quickly adjust its photosynthetic machinery to endure extreme temperatures that ...

Even Climate Fixes Might Not Save Coffee, Chocolate, and Wine, Scientists Warn

Nov. 4, 2025 — Even with futuristic geoengineering methods like Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, the fate of wine, coffee, and cacao crops remains uncertain. Scientists found that while this intervention could ...

Scientists Predict a Wetter, Greener Future for the Sahara Desert

Nov. 3, 2025 — UIC researchers predict that the Sahara Desert could see up to 75% more rain by the end of this century due to rising global temperatures. Using 40 climate models, the team found widespread precipitation increases across Africa, though some regions ...

Scientists Just Found Hidden Life Thriving Beneath the Arctic Ice

Oct. 21, 2025 — Melting Arctic ice is revealing a hidden world of nitrogen-fixing bacteria beneath the surface. These microbes, not the usual cyanobacteria, enrich the ocean with nitrogen, fueling algae growth that supports the entire marine food chain. As ice ...

A Tiny Mineral May Hold the Secret to Feeding Billions Sustainably

Sep. 24, 2025 — Rice, a staple for billions, is one of the most resource-hungry crops on the planet—but scientists may have found a way to change that. By applying nanoscale selenium directly to rice plants, researchers dramatically improved nitrogen efficiency, ...

Seagrass Found to Be a Powerful Carbon Sponge with a Surprising Weakness

Sep. 5, 2025 — Seagrass, a vital coastal ecosystem, may be one of the planet’s best natural carbon sponges—but its fate depends on how we manage nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. While moderate nutrient input can supercharge seagrass growth and boost ...

Mexican Cave Stalagmites Reveal the Deadly Droughts Behind the Maya Collapse

Aug. 16, 2025 — Chemical evidence from a stalagmite in Mexico has revealed that the Classic Maya civilization’s decline coincided with repeated severe wet-season droughts, including one that lasted 13 years. These ...

Ancient Predators and Giant Amphibians Found in African Fossil Treasure Trove

Aug. 14, 2025 — Over 15 years of fossil excavations in Tanzania and Zambia have revealed a vivid portrait of life before Earth s most devastating mass extinction 252 million years ago. Led by the University of ...

Bigger Crops, Fewer Nutrients: The Hidden Cost of Climate Change

July 10, 2025 — Climate change is silently sapping the nutrients from our food. A pioneering study finds that rising CO2 and higher temperatures are not only reshaping how crops grow but are also degrading their nutritional value especially in vital leafy greens ...

From Air to Stone: The Fig Trees Fighting Climate Change

July 6, 2025 — Kenyan fig trees can literally turn parts of themselves to stone, using microbes to convert internal crystals into limestone-like deposits that lock away carbon, sweeten surrounding soils, and still yield fruit—hinting at a delicious new weapon in ...

Extreme Weather Is Wiping Out Amphibians—Here’s Where It’s Worst

June 6, 2025 — Frogs, salamanders, and other amphibians are not just battling habitat loss and pollution they're now also contending with increasingly brutal heat waves and droughts. A sweeping 40-year study shows a direct link between the rise in extreme weather ...

Nitrogen Loss on Sandy Shores: The Big Impact of Tiny Anoxic Pockets

June 2, 2025 — Some microbes living on sand grains use up all the oxygen around them. Their neighbors, left without oxygen, make the best of it: They use nitrate in the surrounding water for denitrification -- a process hardly possible when oxygen is present. This ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:31am EST

MIT Finds Traces of a Lost World Deep Within Planet Earth

Oct. 17, 2025 — Researchers have discovered chemical fingerprints of Earth's earliest incarnation, preserved in ancient mantle rocks. A unique imbalance in potassium isotopes points to remnants of “proto Earth” ...

Research Shows How Solar Arrays Can Aid Grasslands During Drought

June 2, 2025 — New research shows that the presence of solar panels in Colorado's grasslands may reduce water stress, improve soil moisture levels and -- particularly during dry years -- increase plant growth by ...

2021's Hurricane Ida Could Have Been Even Worse for NYC

May 30, 2025 — Hurricane Ida wreaked an estimated $75 billion in total damages and was responsible for 112 fatalities -- including 32 in New Jersey and 16 in New York state. Yet the hurricane could have been even ...

'Future-Proofing' Crops Will Require Urgent, Consistent Effort

May 30, 2025 — A professor of crop sciences and of plant biology describes research efforts to 'future-proof' the crops that are essential to feeding a hungry world in a changing climate. Long, who has spent ...

Rock Record Illuminates Oxygen History

May 29, 2025 — A new study reveals that the aerobic nitrogen cycle in the ocean may have occurred about 100 million years before oxygen began to significantly accumulate in the atmosphere, based on nitrogen isotope ...

Climate Change May Make It Harder to Reduce Smog in Some Regions

May 26, 2025 — A modeling study shows that global warming will make it harder to reduce ground-level ozone, a respiratory irritant that is a key component of smog, by cutting greenhouse gas ...

May 22, 2025 — Hurricane winds are a major contributor to storm-related losses for people living in the southeastern coastal states. As the global temperature ...

Cover Crops May Not Be Solution for Both Crop Yield, Carbon Sequestration

May 20, 2025 — People have assumed climate change solutions that sequester carbon from the air into soils will also benefit crop yields. But a new study finds that most regenerative farming practices to build soil ...

First-of-Its-Kind Global Study Shows Grasslands Can Withstand Climate Extremes With a Boost of Nutrients

May 19, 2025 — Fertilizer might be stronger than we thought. A new international study found that fertilizer can help plants survive short-term periods of extreme ...

New Study Shows AI Can Predict Child Malnutrition, Support Prevention Efforts

May 16, 2025 — A multidisciplinary team of researchers has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that can predict acute child malnutrition in Kenya up to ...

Artificial Intelligence and Genetics Can Help Farmers Grow Corn With Less Fertilizer

May 14, 2025 — Scientists are using artificial intelligence to determine which genes collectively govern nitrogen use efficiency in plants such as corn, with the goal of helping farmers improve their crop yields ...

Climate Change Is Turning Coastal Lagoons Into 'Salty Soup'

May 14, 2025 — The impacts of human activity and climate change are coalescing to make coastal lagoons saltier, changing the microbial life they support and the function they play in their ecosystems, according to ...

Summer in the City: Urban Heat Release and Local Rainfall

May 12, 2025 — Stifling heat and sticky air often make summertime in the city uncomfortable. Due to the heat island effect, urban areas are significantly warmer than nearby rural areas, even at night. This, ...

It's Not Just El Niño: New Climate Phenomenon Impacts Hawai'i Rainfall

May 12, 2025 — El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is known to have a significant impact on climate across the Pacific, including Hawai'i, and adjacent continents. However, atmospheric scientists have now ...

Waxing and Waning Prairie: New Study Unravels Causes of Ancient Climate Changes

May 8, 2025 — A long period of drought in North America has been recognized by scientists for decades. A new study links the severe climate to a change in Earth's ...

The Atmospheric Memory That Feeds Billions of People: Newly Discovered Mechanism for Monsoon Rainfall

May 7, 2025 — Across the globe, monsoon rainfall switches on in spring and off in autumn. Until now, this seasonal pattern was primarily understood as an immediate response to changes in solar radiation. A new ...

Climate Change: Future of Today's Young People

May 7, 2025 — Climate scientists reveal that millions of today's young people will live through unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves, crop failures, river floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical ...

Western US Spring Runoff Is Older Than You Think

May 5, 2025 — Hydrologists show most streamflow out of the West's mountains is old snowmelt on a multi-year underground journey. New study finds that spring runoff is on average 5 years ...

Rainfall Triggers Extreme Humid Heat in Tropics and Subtropics

Apr. 29, 2025 — Scientists believe they have found a way to improve warning systems for vulnerable communities threatened by humid heatwaves, which are on the rise due to climate change and can be damaging and even ...

Extreme Monsoon Changes Threaten the Bay of Bengal's Role as a Critical Food Source

Apr. 28, 2025 — New research has revealed that expected, extreme changes in India's summer monsoon could drastically hamper the Bay of Bengal's ability to support a crucial element of the region's ...

Extreme Rainfall: A Long-Standing Hypothesis on Temperature Dependence Finally Settled?

Apr. 28, 2025 — Flash floods resulting from extreme rainfall pose a major risk to people and infrastructure, especially in urban areas. Higher temperatures due to global climate change affect continuous rainfall and ...

Major Dust-Up for Water in the Colorado River

Apr. 22, 2025 — Dust-on-snow is a major threat to water in the Colorado River, yet no snowmelt forecasts integrate dust-accelerated melt. Using pioneering remote sensing techniques, new research is the first to ...

How Activity in Earth's Mantle Led the Ancient Ancestors of Elephants, Giraffes, and Humans Into Asia and Africa

Apr. 21, 2025 — Millions of years ago, a fiery plume rising from Earth’s mantle reshaped continents, closing ancient seas and lifting land that would forever change life on our planet. This upheaval forged a ...

Extreme Drought Contributed to Barbarian Invasion of Late Roman Britain, Tree-Ring Study Reveals

Apr. 17, 2025 — Three consecutive years of drought contributed to the 'Barbarian Conspiracy', a pivotal moment in the history of Roman Britain, a new study reveals. Researchers argue that Picts, Scotti and ...

Nutrients Strengthen Link Between Precipitation and Plant Growth, Study Finds

Apr. 17, 2025 — A new study has investigated how the relationship between mean annual precipitation (MAP) and grassland biomass changes when one or more nutrients are added. The authors show that precipitation and ...

New Model to Evaluate Impact of Extreme Events and Natural Hazards

Apr. 14, 2025 — Engineers have created a sophisticated computer model that tracks how water moves in estuaries -- which is critical for evaluating climate variability and sea level fluctuation impacts for coastal ...

Hundred-Year Storm Tides Will Occur Every Few Decades in Bangladesh, Scientists Report

Apr. 11, 2025 — For the highly populated coastal country of Bangladesh, once-in-a-century storm tides could strike every 10 years -- or more often -- by the end of the century, scientists ...

Missing Nitrogen: A Dramatic Game of Cosmic Hide-and-Seek Deep Within Our Planet

Apr. 11, 2025 — Earth's rocky layers are mysteriously low in nitrogen compared with carbon and argon. A scientific team explored our planet's molten youth using advanced quantum mechanical simulations, ...

8 Million Years of 'Green Arabia'

Apr. 9, 2025 — A new study reveals the modern arid desert between Africa and Saudi Arabia was once regularly lush and green with rivers and lakes over a period of 8 million years, allowing for the occupation and ...

The Lush Past of the World's Largest Desert

Apr. 7, 2025 — The vast desert of the Arabian Peninsula was not always an arid landscape. A recent study reveals that this region was once home to a vast lake and river system. These favorable conditions fostered ...