The JRC is leading the indicator work-package (WP2) of the project EON2000+ (Earth Observation for Natura-2000 plus (2001-2004) ) . This project was funded under the 5th Framework Programme of the EC and targets spatial information needs related to nature protection of organizations acting to investigate their reporting and managing needs on protected areas, particularly on Natura 2000 sites. A template was then defined to collect the indicator related information. This portfolio summarises areas w
Today the European Commission presented the latest results of the EU-funded EPICA (European Ice Core Project in Antarctica) initiative. Scientists from 10 European countries including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK have dug 3 kilometres-deep into the Antarctic ice crust and brought to the surface a 740, 000-year old ice core. It is the oldest ever analysed and records climate history. It shows changes in temperature and concentrat
Two swarms of microscopic cometary dust blasted NASA’s Stardust spacecraft in short but intense bursts as it approached within 150 miles of Comet Wild 2 last January, data from a University of Chicago instrument flying aboard the spacecraft has revealed.
“These things were like a thunderbolt,” said Anthony Tuzzolino, a Senior Scientist at the University of Chicago’s Enrico Fermi Institute. “I didn’t anticipate running into this kind of show.” Tuzzolino and Thanasis Economou, also a Senior S
Unusual happenings at Dundrum Bay, County Down, have been puzzling residents for some time now. Reports of the beach at Newcastle disappearing while sand dunes at Ballykinler, across the bay, were getting bigger and bigger, had locals and Down County Council stumped.
But researchers from the University of Ulster have stepped in to explain the mysterious phenomenon.
Dr Andrew Cooper and Dr Fatima Navas, from the Centre for Coastal and Marine Research at UU, have discovered that nat
Even before marble-shaped pebbles nicknamed “blueberries” were discovered on Mars by the Opportunity rover, University of Utah geologists studied similar rocks in Utah’s national parks and predicted such stones would be found on the Red Planet.
In a study published in the June 17 issue of the journal Nature, the Utah researchers suggest both the Martian and Utah rocks – known as hematite concretions – formed underground when minerals precipitated from flowing groundwater.
“We came
Archaeologists have found a trio of extraordinary stone carvings while charting the phenomenon of prehistoric rock markings in Northumberland, close to the Scottish border in the United Kingdom.
Records and examples of over 950 prehistoric rock art panels exist in Northumberland, which are of the traditional ’cup and ring’ variety, with a typical specimen featuring a series of cups and concentric circles pecked into sandstone outcrops and boulders.
However, archaeologists at the U
Maps are tools to show you where you are going, but they can also show you where you came from. That principle drives the work of Roberto Rodríguez and Patrisia Gonzales, who study ancient maps, oral traditions and the movement of domesticated crops to learn more about the origins of native people in the Americas.
“How do you bring memory back to a people that were told not to remember?” asks Rodríguez. As longtime scholars and syndicated columnists, Gonzales and Rodríguez explore this issu
’Big Bonanza’ and the Comstock Lode
Remember the burning Ponderosa map at the beginning of the long-running TV show “Bonanza”? It’s up in flames before you can read all the place names.
Now a geologist at Washington University in St. Louis has replaced that map with one of the famous ore site known as the Comstock Lode, a part of which is the “Big Bonanza.”
While it’s doubtful that Hoss, Adam and Little Joe – not to mention the sages, Pa and Hop Sing
Did the Earth form with water locked into its rocks, which then gradually leaked out over millions of years? Or did the occasional impacting comet provide the Earth’s oceans? The Ptolemy experiment on Rosetta may just find out…
The Earth needed a supply of water for its oceans, and the comets are large celestial icebergs – frozen reservoirs of water orbiting the Sun.
Did the impact of a number of comets, thousands of millions of years ago, provide the Earth with its supply of water
Old fish bones can tell scientists about more than what people used to eat. They can also provide clues to the climate in which those people lived. In the scientific journal Quaternary Research, a team led by three University of Maine scientists reports using fish bones from an archaeological site in Peru to describe the timing of Pacific Ocean climate cycles linked to El Nino.
The report provides new evidence for a theory stating that biological cycles in the world’s oceans reflect su
New reserach by Columbia University
For years, researchers have examined climate records indicating that millennial-scale climate cycles have linked the high latitudes of the Northern hemisphere and the subtropics of the North Pacific Ocean. What forces this linkage, however, has been a topic of considerable debate. Did the connection originate in the North Pacific with the sinking of oxygen-rich waters into the interior of the ocean during cool climate intervals, or did it originate
NASA satellite data are giving scientists insight into how large-scale deforestation in the Amazon Basin in South America is affecting regional climate. Researchers found during the Amazon dry season last August, there was a distinct pattern of higher rainfall and warmer temperatures over deforested regions.
Researchers analyzed multiple years of data from NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). They also used data from the Department of Defense Special Sensor Microwave Imag
NASA and University of Maryland scientists have found the African monsoon consists of two distinct seasons The first season is in the late spring and early summer. The rain is concentrated on the West African Coast near the Gulf of Guinea, five degrees north of the equator. This season appears strongly influenced by sea surface temperatures off the coast of West Africa. The second season arrives later in summer in July at around 10 degrees north of the equator. Atmospheric wa
If all the highways, streets, buildings, parking lots and other solid structures in the 48 contiguous United States were pieced together like a giant jigsaw puzzle, they would almost cover the state of Ohio. That is the result of a study by Christopher Elvidge of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, who along with colleagues from several universities and agencies produced the first national map and inventory of impervious su
Secrets of the Earth’s past climate locked in a three-kilometre long Antarctic ice core are revealed this week in the journal Nature. The core from Dome C, high on East Antarctica’s plateau, contains snowfall from the last 740,000 years and is by far the oldest continuous climate record obtained from ice cores so far.
The ice has been collected in an eight year project by scientists and engineers from 10 European countries. Analysis of ice cores shows how temperature changed in the past, b
The UK is a tornado hotspot, according to University of Leeds researchers, who have found that more than 100 tornadoes a year hit the UK – more per acre than the rest of Europe and the US.
In a Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society paper, geographers Joseph Holden and Amy Wright argue that although there are 20-30 sightings each year, five times that number of tornadoes actually hit the UK.
Most tornadoes are not reported because they are not seen. But by modelling t
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