Scientists of the world unite.

BBC

Science in Action this week comes from the European Geophysical Union general assembly, an annual get-together of scientists to discuss current projects, working hypotheses and potential findings. Nearly 18,000 in attendance this year, there is much to learn.
AMOC – the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation - brings warmth to the north and cooler waters to the south in huge volumes. Climate modellers have expressed concern for its collapse (and subsequent weather chaos) as temperatures rise more generally, but others have said it is more resilient, a will-it-won’t-it discussion Science in Action has covered before. But just this week, Stefan Rhamstorf has announced that extending the models past 2100 can show a different picture. The odds, he tells science in action, have shifted from 10% to more like 50/50 if the Paris climate target is missed.
Has such climate change ever occurred before? And if so, what drove it? Hana Jurikova and colleagues have been using novel techniques to detect a link between atmospheric CO2 levels and rapid climate change in the geological past, and talks about how boron records in ancient brachiopods might give us a clue.
What of the 6.2 magnitude earthquake near Istanbul last week? Could it have been worse? Will the next one be the big one? Expert Patricia Martínez-Garzón of GFZ in Germany doesn’t quite allay the fears.
Could more lives be saved from landslides and flash floods if we could set up a warning system? Stefania Ursica hopes so, and has looked to animal behaviour to design a programme to scan networks of seismic monitoring stations’ output for the faint signals. Encoding different hunting and communication strategies – from nomadic whales to humming birds and bats, her new algorithm might be just the thing, though prediction will always be a different problem.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield with Sophie Ormiston
Production Coordinator: Josie Hardy
(Image: 3D Render of a Topographic Map of Western Europe with the clouds from January 27, 2025. Credit: FrankRamspott via Getty Images)