Granular sea ice needs to be twice as porous as columnar ice to allow water to flow through it—up to 10% brine by volume.
Modeling
Posted inResearch & Developments
Why the IPCC Seems Poised to Eliminate Its Most Extreme Emissions Scenario
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body whose mission is to “provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies” will likely update the emissions and land use scenarios used in the models it considers in its bellwether assessment reports.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Keeping Humans in the Loop Improves Flood Forecasting
Artificial intelligence and machine learning can improve flood predictions—but human expertise still matters for accurate warnings, new research says.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Small and Large Grains Move Differently in Water
A shift in perspective: flume experiments show that grain entrainment is far more complex than traditional models suggest.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How Much Will Western Wildfires Worsen Under Warming?
A new study reevaluates the use of vapor pressure deficit, or VPD, in climate models to predict increases in area burned by wildfire across the U.S. West.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Tracing Water’s Hidden Journey Through the Earth’s Living Skin
Water’s natural fingerprints reveal how it’s stored, mixed, and released through the Earth’s Critical Zone, potentially improving Earth System models in a rapidly warming world.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Let’s Not Forget About Long Droughts
Why do conceptual hydrologic models struggle to model long-term droughts? A new study investigates.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Want to Predict Wildfire Severity? Look to the State of Vegetation
A new study connects satellite data on vegetation condition, topography, and weather conditions to examine the predicted versus actual burn severity of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Drone Imagery Reveals Marked Variability in Antarctic Snow Roughness
Multi-temporal UAV oblique photogrammetry reveals significant fine-scale variability in Antarctic snow roughness driven by surface type, measurement scale, model choice, and meteorological conditions.
Posted inOpinions
The Genesis Mission Needs Hydrology: Here’s How to Incorporate It
By positioning water security as one of the “most challenging problems of this century,” the Genesis Mission can become the sandbox in which AI reshapes how the United States measures, models, and manages water.