Summertime in northern Australia means monsoon storms — and plenty of them. Tall, turbulent clouds associated with these storm systems form rapidly, release their energy in the form of rain, then tail away, leaving in their wake a surplus of moisture to feed the next system. This lifecycle–the formation of tropical convective clouds, their outflow into cirrus clouds, and eventual dissipation into water vapor–is a key component of tropical climate. However, the cloud properties and the exte
Today, scientists estimate that between one-third and one-half of our planet’s land surfaces have been transformed by human development
Now, a new study is offering insight into the long-term impacts of these changes, particularly the effects of large-scale deforestation in tropical regions on the global climate. Researchers from Duke University, Durham, N.C., analyzed multiple years of data using the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies General Circulation Computer Model
A new European Project named AWARE (A tool for monitoring and forecasting Available WAter REsource in mountain environment) has just started its activities.
AWARE is funded with the contribution of the European Commission – Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry – under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6 Aerospace).
The Project involves research institutes, universities and private companies from 5 European countries (Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerlan
Humans have been tinkering with greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere for at least 2,000 years and probably longer, according to a surprising new study of methane trapped in Antarctic ice cores conducted by an international research team.
The study showed wild gyrations of methane from biomass burning from about 1 A.D. to present, said Dominic Ferretti, lead study author and a University of Colorado at Boulder researcher with a joint appointment at the National Instit
The East Pacific Rise, a vast volcanic mountain range submerged in the eastern Pacific Ocean, is one of the fastest seafloor factories on the planet. Here, along a rocky spine that runs about 1,000 miles west of South America, oceanic crust is created from magma bubbling up from deep within Earth’s interior.
Forces that shape these young oceanic plates have come into clearer focus through research conducted by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Brown Univers
Scientists find link between Earth’s orbit and climate change 85m years ago
An oxygen-free ocean from bottom to surface is probably the worst scenario that marine higher life can experience. Are processes and feedbacks linking the atmosphere to the deep ocean capable to cause a rapid change from an oxygen-rich to an oxygen-free deep ocean? And what are the consequences for the global carbon cycle that ultimately drive marine and terrestrial ecosystems and climate variation
Was Miller-Urey experiment correct?
Using primitive meteorites called chondrites as their models, earth and planetary scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have performed outgassing calculations and shown that the early Earth’s atmosphere was a reducing one, chock full of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor.
In making this discovery Bruce Fegley, Ph.D., Washington University professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, and Laura Sch
An Earth System model developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign indicates that the best location to store carbon dioxide in the deep ocean will change with climate change.
The direct injection of carbon dioxide deep into the ocean has been suggested as one method to help control rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and mitigate the effects of global warming. But, because the atmosphere interacts with the oceans, the net uptake of carbo
The surface of comet Tempel 1, hit by a NASA space probe during a spectacular July 4 experiment, bears evidence of impact craters, suggesting that the comet has collided with asteroids or other space travelers in its journeys around the Sun.
Several dozen circular features that appear to be impact craters, ranging from 40 to 400 meters across, were spotted on Tempel 1 during the Deep Impact mission, according to first results from the mission team published by Science and released
Warming in the Arctic is stimulating the growth of vegetation and could affect the delicate energy balance there, causing an additional climate warming of several degrees over the next few decades. A new study indicates that as the number of dark-colored shrubs in the otherwise stark Arctic tundra rises, the amount of solar energy absorbed could increase winter heating by up to 70 percent. The research will be published 7 September in the first issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research-Bi
New results shed light on how Antarctica became the icy, barren continent that we know today. British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientists have discovered that 30-50 million years ago, South America and Antarctica split apart very rapidly. This formed the Drake Passage and resulted in a major global cooling. The findings are published in the latest issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Lead Author Dr Roy Livermore says ‘we deciphered the remarkable ‘herringbone’ pattern of
This season’s Antarctic ozone hole has swollen to an area of ten million square kilometres from mid-August – approximately the same size as Europe and still expanding. It is expected to reach maximum extent during September, and ESA satellites are vital for monitoring its development.
This year’s hole is large for this time of year, based on results from the last decade: only the ozone holes of 1996 and 2000 had a larger area at this point in their development.
Analysis of several different satellite records and surface monitoring instruments indicates that the ozone layer is no longer declining, according to a study by scientists working with the Center for Integrating Statistical and Environmental Science (CISES) at the University of Chicago.
In some parts of the world, the ozone layer has increased a small amount in the past few years, although it still well below normal levels.
The results will be published Aug. 31 in
For the first time, scientists have produced images of the oceanic crust and found that the upper and lower layers of the crust are likely formed from different magma pools. The images begin to answer some lingering questions about where new ocean crust comes from and whether it is all formed the same way.
Geophysicists Robert Detrick and Juan-Pablo Canales of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and colleagues used reflected seismic, or sound, waves to successfully image t
Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have created a computer simulation showing Earth’s climate in unprecedented detail at the time of the greatest mass extinction in the planet’s history. The work gives support to a theory that an abrupt and dramatic rise in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide triggered the massive die-off 251 million years ago. The research appears in the September issue of Geology.
“The results demonstrate how rapidly rising tem
Scientists have ended a 9-year-old debate by proving that Earth’s core rotates faster than its surface, by about 0.3 to 0.5 degree per year.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” said Xiaodong Song, a professor of geology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and corresponding author of a paper to appear in the Aug. 26 issue of the journal Science. “We believe we have that proof.”
Earth’s iron core consists of a solid inner core about 2,400 kilo
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