Natural Disasters News

July 6, 2025

Top Headlines

Rainforest Deaths Are Surging and Scientists Just Found the Shocking Cause

July 3, 2025 — Tropical trees are dying faster than ever, and it's not just heat or drought to blame. Scientists have uncovered a surprising culprit: ordinary thunderstorms. These quick, fierce storms, powered by climate change, are toppling trees with intense ...

Fire Smoke Exposure Leaves Toxic Metals and Lasting Immune Changes

June 30, 2025 — Smoke from wildfires and structural fires doesn t just irritate lungs it actually changes your immune system. Harvard scientists found that even healthy people exposed to smoke showed signs of immune system activation, genetic changes tied to ...

New Orleans Is Sinking—and So Are Its $15 Billion Flood Defenses

June 28, 2025 — Parts of New Orleans are sinking at alarming rates — including some of the very floodwalls built to protect it. A new satellite-based study finds that some areas are losing nearly two inches of elevation per year, threatening the effectiveness of ...

A Giant Pulse Beneath Africa Could Split the Continent — and Form an Ocean

June 27, 2025 — Beneath the Afar region in Ethiopia, scientists have discovered pulsing waves of molten rock rising from deep within the Earth — a geological heartbeat that could eventually split Africa in two. ...

Wildfires Threaten Water Quality for Up to Eight Years After They Burn

June 24, 2025 — Wildfires don’t just leave behind scorched earth—they leave a toxic legacy in Western rivers that can linger for nearly a decade. A sweeping new study analyzed over 100,000 water samples from more than 500 U.S. watersheds and revealed that ...

Scientists Reveal the Hidden Trigger Behind Massive Floods

June 15, 2025 — Atmospheric rivers, while vital for replenishing water on the U.S. West Coast, are also the leading cause of floods though storm size alone doesn t dictate their danger. A groundbreaking study analyzing over 43,000 storms across four decades found ...

Scientists Uncover Why "stealth" Volcanoes Stay Silent Until Eruption

June 10, 2025 — Some volcanoes erupt with little to no warning, posing serious risks to nearby communities and air traffic. A study of Alaska's Veniaminof volcano reveals how specific internal conditions like slow magma flow and warm chamber walls can create these ...

Earth's Core Mystery Solved: How Solid Rock Flows 3,000 Kilometers Beneath Us

June 8, 2025 — Beneath Earth s surface, nearly 3,000 kilometers down, lies a mysterious layer where seismic waves speed up inexplicably. For decades, scientists puzzled over this D' layer. Now, groundbreaking ...

Lighting Up Earthquakes: How Scientists Watched Ruptures Evolve in Milliseconds

June 7, 2025 — Scientists have built a lab model that visually tracks how microscopic contact points between fault surfaces evolve during earthquake cycles, revealing the hidden mechanics behind both the slow ...

First Direct Observation of the Trapped Waves That Shook the World in 2023

June 3, 2025 — A new study has finally confirmed the theory that the cause of extraordinary global tremors in September -- October 2023 was indeed two mega tsunamis in Greenland that became trapped standing waves. Using a brand-new type of satellite altimetry, the ...

Coastal Flooding More Frequent Than Previously Thought

June 2, 2025 — Flooding in coastal communities is happening far more often than previously thought, according to a new study. The study also found major flaws with the widely used approach of using marine water level data to capture instances of ...

Researchers Use Deep Learning to Predict Flooding This Hurricane Season

June 2, 2025 — Researchers have developed a deep learning model called LSTM-SAM that predicts extreme water levels from tropical cyclones more efficiently and accurately, especially in data-scarce coastal regions, to offer a faster, low-cost tool for flood ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:53pm EDT

Fighting Fire With Fire: How Prescribed Burns Reduce Wildfire Damage and Pollution

June 30, 2025 — Wildfires are becoming more intense and dangerous, but a new Stanford-led study offers hope: prescribed burns—intentionally set, controlled ...

Predicting Underwater Landslides Before They Strike

May 30, 2025 — A new method for predicting underwater landslides may improve the resilience of offshore ...

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 ...

Does Outdoor Air Pollution Affect Indoor Air Quality? It Could Depend on Buildings' HVAC

May 30, 2025 — Researchers determined how much outdoor particulate pollution affects indoor air quality. Their study concluded pollution from inversion and dust ...

Thousands of Sensors Reveal 3D Structure of Earthquake-Triggered Sound Waves

May 30, 2025 — Earthquakes create ripple effects in Earth's upper atmosphere that can disrupt satellite communications and navigation systems we rely on. Scientists ...

When Climate Disasters Hit, They Often Leave Long-Term Health Care Access Shortages

May 30, 2025 — Immediate recovery efforts receive the most attention after severe natural disasters, yet new data from researchers at Drexel University and the ...

New Study Analyzes Air Quality Impacts of Wildfire Smoke

May 28, 2025 — With wildfires increasing in frequency, severity, and size in the Western U.S., researchers are determined to better understand how smoke impacts air quality, public health, and even the weather. As ...

Mathematical Prediction of Seismic Wave Propagation in Magma Containing Crystals and Bubbles

May 26, 2025 — Researchers have mathematically elucidated how the presence of crystals and gas bubbles in magma affects the propagation of seismic P-waves. A novel ...

Breakthrough AI Model Could Transform How We Prepare for Natural Disasters

May 22, 2025 — From deadly floods in Europe to intensifying tropical cyclones around the world, the climate crisis has made timely and precise forecasting more essential than ever. Yet traditional forecasting ...

How Property Owners Can Work to Prevent Flooding

May 22, 2025 — The risk of heavy rainfall and severe flooding increases with climate change. But property owners -- regardless of size -- often underestimate their own responsibility and are unaware of what ...

AI Is Good at Weather Forecasting. Can It Predict Freak Weather Events?

May 22, 2025 — Scientists found that neural networks cannot yet forecast 'gray swan' weather events, which might not appear in existing training data but could still happen -- like 200-year floods or ...

Enormous Boulder Washed Inland a Sign of Pacific Tsunami History

May 21, 2025 — Analysis has shown a boulder weighing almost 1,200 tons in Tonga is one of the largest known wave-transported rocks in the world, providing new insights into the Pacific region's history and ...

May 21, 2025 — Hurricane winds are a major contributor to storm-related losses for people living in the southeastern coastal states. As the global temperature continues to rise, scientists predict that hurricanes ...

Fool's Gold: A Hidden Climate Stabilizer

May 21, 2025 — Researchers look to extremes in the past to study how the system reacts to imbalances. They detail an overlooked mechanism for how the ocean can help stabilize massive releases of carbon into the ...

World's Rivers Remapped to Improve Flood Modeling

May 15, 2025 — A team has created the most complete map of the world's rivers ever made offering a major leap forward for flood prediction, climate risk planning, and water resource management in a warming ...

Satellite Data from Ship Captures Landslide-Generated Tsunami

May 14, 2025 — New research demonstrates shipborne navigation systems have potential to improve tsunami detection and ...

Tech Meets Tornado Recovery

May 14, 2025 — Traditional methods of assessing damage after a disaster can take weeks or even months, delaying emergency response, insurance claims and long-term rebuilding efforts. New research might change that. ...

Tiny Gas Bubbles Reveal Secrets of Hawaiian Volcanoes

May 14, 2025 — Using advanced technology that analyzes tiny gas bubbles trapped in crystal, a team of scientists has precisely mapped how magma storage evolves as Hawaiian volcanoes ...

The Ripple Effect of Small Earthquakes Near Major Faults

May 14, 2025 — When we think of earthquakes, we imagine sudden, violent shaking. But deep beneath the Earth's surface, some faults move in near silence. These slow, shuffling slips and their accompanying hum ...

Enhanced Activity in the Upper Atmosphere of Sporadic E Layers During the 2024 Mother's Day Super Geomagnetic Storm

May 13, 2025 — Researchers report on ionospheric sporadic E layer (Es) activity during the Mother's Day geomagnetic storm. The team found that the Es layers were significantly enhanced over Southeast Asia, ...

Health Care Workers, Firefighters Have Increased PFAS Levels, Study Finds

May 8, 2025 — Researchers looked at PFAS serum concentrations in health care workers for the first time and were surprised by what they ...

Study of Türkiye Gold Mine Landslide Highlights Need for Future Monitoring

May 8, 2025 — A new analysis of a fatal landslide that occurred on 13 February 2024 at the pler Gold Mine in Turkiye reveals that the site of the landslide had been slowly moving for at least four years prior to ...

All of the Biggest U.S. Cities Are Sinking

May 8, 2025 — Across America’s 28 biggest cities, the ground is shifting—literally. A new study using millimeter-precision satellite data reveals that almost all these cities are sinking, with some areas ...

Warming Climate Making Fine Particulate Matter from Wildfires More Deadly and Expensive

May 7, 2025 — Scientists say human-caused climate change led to 15,000 additional early deaths from wildfire air pollution in the continental United States during the 15-year period ending in ...

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 ...

Slickrock: Geologists Explore Why Utah's Wasatch Fault Is Vulnerable to Earthquakes

May 6, 2025 — Using rock samples collected from the Wasatch Fault, geoscientists combined experiments and analysis with examinations of fault rock textures. The team's research revealed significant clues ...

Scientists Discover Key to Taming Unrest at Italy's Campi Flegrei

May 2, 2025 — New research shows that elevation changes and earthquakes in Italy's Campi Flegrei volcanic area are caused by rising pressure in a geothermal reservoir -- not magma or its gases, as commonly ...

Eruption Loading: New Approaches to Earthquake Monitoring at Ontake Volcano, Japan

May 1, 2025 — A new study has investigated the use of a new monitoring technique for early warning of a volcanic eruption. The research team compared the earthquake signals during two eruptions of Ontake Volcano ...

Lava Flow Jigsaw Puzzle Reveals the Secrets of Shifting Continents

May 1, 2025 — Analysing lava flows that solidified and then broke apart over a massive crack in the Earth's crust in Turkey has brought new insights into how continents move over time, improving our ...

Zoo Life Boosts Object Exploration in Orangutans

Apr. 30, 2025 — A new study comparing wild and zoo-housed Sumatran orangutans reveals that life in a zoo significantly alters how orangutans interact with their environment. Researchers analyzed over 12,000 ...