Scientists have long recognized the importance of oceans in our climate. In fact, the unique physical characteristics of our oceans are largely responsible for making the Earth a livable environment. Oceans are major “climate-controllers” because of their large heat capacity. For instance, it requires four times the amount of energy to raise the temperature of water by one degree than it does soil. As a result, over a long period, oceans can store and transport heat from one location to another. Fur
A team of Australian astronomers have developed a way of forecasting the weather on Mars – without putting their toes in space and created beautiful images of our neighbouring planet.
Their discoveries will help us determine if Mars was a kinder place for life in the past. And by forecasting the Martian weather they hope to be able to reduce the risks to spacecraft, such as the recent failed Beagle mission and possible future manned missions to Mars.
Sarah Chamberlain of the
Quake researchers ’look’ deep inside fault with cold war-era gravity sensor
Using classified technology developed by the military during the Cold War, a team of geoscientists led by Rice University’s Manik Talwani is conducting a first-of-its-kind experiment on California’s famed San Andreas fault this week. The researchers will gather data that could give scientists a much clearer picture of the fault’s “gouge zone,” a region 2-3 kilometers beneath the eart
Caring for more than 180,000 Sudanese refugees gathered in the desert landscape of eastern Chad, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has begun using satellite data to identify hidden water resources and site new camps.
By permission of the Chadian government, there are currently nine United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) camps in place. UNHCR has transferred the vast majority of the refugees from the volatile border to the camps. Thousands more have co
Scientists conclude that, 65 million years ago, a 10-kilometer-wide asteroid or comet slammed into what is now the Yucatán peninsula, excavating the Chicxulub impact crater and setting into motion a chain of catastrophic events thought to precipitate the extinction of the dinosaurs and 75 percent of animal and plant life that existed in the late Cretaceous period.
“The impact of an asteroid or comet several kilometers across heaps environmental insult after insult on the world,” said
The smudges of dark blue on this Envisat-derived ozone forecast trace the start of what has unfortunately become an annual event: the opening of the ozone hole above the South Pole.
“Ever since this phenomenon was first discovered in the mid-1980s, satellites have served as an important means of monitoring it,” explained José Achache, ESA Director of Earth Observation Programmes. “ESA satellites have been routinely observing stratospheric ozone concentrations for the last decade. “
About 25 miles beneath the Earth’s surface is a discrete boundary between the planet’s rocky crust and the mantle below that geologists call the Moho. But in the southern end of California’s San Joaquin Valley, the Moho just isn’t there, reports a team of geologists.
“The Moho is missing,” said team leader George Zandt, a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson. It’s the first report of such a disappearance in California.Zandt said the
A new Envisat viewing mode means that icebergs can be routinely tracked on their long trek around Antarctica, with regularly updated images of polar regions now available to highlight ice movements.
The Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument on ESA’s Envisat can see through the polar storms and winter darkness that keep Antarctica hidden from optical satellite sensors. ASAR works in a variety of different modes: its latest, operational since February, is called Glo
Dark-colored river runoff includes nitrogen and phosphorus, which are used as fertilizers in agriculture. These nutrients cause blooms of marine algae called phytoplankton. During extremely large phytoplankton blooms where the algae is so concentrated the water may appear black, some phytoplankton die, sink to the ocean bottom and are eaten by bacteria. The bacteria consume the algae and deplete oxygen from the water that leads to fish kills.
For the first time, scientists may now de
Over the past six weeks, scientists aboard the research vessel “Polarstern” of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research have been investigating changes in ocean temperature and sea ice cover in the area of Fram Strait between Spitsbergen and Greenland.
In this area significant exchange of water masses between the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean takes place. The ongoing process of global warming throughout the past years has also altered conditions in Fram Stra
What do the Amazon Basin and Sahara Desert have in common? They are intricately linked by dust and climate and both belong to a family of hotspots or “Achilles’ heels” that have a profound impact on the global environment, says Professor John Schellnhuber, speaking at the EuroScience Forum in Stockholm today.
Dust from the Sahara Desert fertilises the Amazon, increasing the abundance of life there, says Professor Schellnhuber, IGBP* Science Ambassador and Director of the UK-based
People in Georgia’s Dodge and Bleckley counties have for years picked up small pieces of natural glass called “Georgiaites,” which were produced by an unknown asteroid or comet impact millions of years ago. Just where these small, translucent green objects came from, however, was unclear.
Now researchers at the University of Georgia, studying a kaolin mine in Warren County, have found a layer of tiny grains, which indicate that the grains and the Georgiaites were products o
University of Arizona scientists have discovered that meteorites, particularly iron meteorites, may have been critical to the evolution of life on Earth.
Their research shows that meteorites easily could have provided more phosphorus than naturally occurs on Earth — enough phosphorus to give rise to biomolecules which eventually assembled into living, replicating organisms.
Phosphorus is central to life. It forms the backbone of DNA and RNA because it connects these molec
There’s nothing quite like going into the deep freeze to learn more about planet Earth.
That’s where Jihong Cole-Dai, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at South Dakota State University, and graduate students Drew Budner and Dave Ferris will find themselves when they head to Antarctica in December.
In a collaborative research project with the University of California-San Diego and funded by the National Science Foundation, they will collect ice cores from the
While the Earth is moistened by rainfall, scientists believe that the water in soil can, in turn, influence rainfall both regionally and globally. Forecasters, water resource managers and farmers may benefit once this connection is better understood.
A NASA researcher led an effort that used a dozen computer models to locate “hot spots” around the world where soil moisture may strongly affect rainfall during northern hemisphere summertime. The results appear in the August 20 issue
NASA, Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientists have assembled in the Arabian Desert to study tiny airborne particles called aerosols and their effect on weather and climate. The scientists are collaborating with researchers from the United Arab Emirates Department of Water Resources Studies and 20 other U.S., European and South African research laboratories to decipher the complex processes controlling the area’s climate.
The United Arab Emirates Un
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