Using a suite of microwave remote sensing instruments aboard satellites, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., and the University of Montana, Missoula, have observed a recent trend of earlier thawing across the northern high latitudes. This regional thawing trend, advancing almost one day a year since 1988, has the potential to alter the cycle of atmospheric carbon dioxide intake and release by vegetation and soils across the region, potentially resultin
NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) is sending home important scientific data and spectacular 3-D views of Earth’s polar ice sheets, clouds, mountains, and forestlands. The data are helping scientists understand how life on Earth is affected by changing climate.
The principal objective of the ICESat mission, and its Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) instrument, is to measure the surface elevations of the large ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland
Tiny ground movements that occur too gradually to be seen by the human eye can nevertheless be detected by ESA satellites looking down to Earth from 800 km away.
At a workshop in Italy last week, researchers explained how they are using this ability to monitor volcanoes and earthquake zones, aid oil and gas prospecting, observe urban subsidence and measure the slow flow of glaciers.
Data from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instruments like those flown aboard the ERS spacecra
Four scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) are studying the chemistry of sulfur and nitrogen in the air above Antarctica. The investigation will help them understand the continent’s chemical processes better, as well as refine scientists’ interpretations of ice cores, which provide information on past climates.
The expedition, which runs through January 4, is part of the Antarctic Tropospheric Chemistry Investigation (ANTCI), a four-year program funde
Scientists have found that, despite a vast difference in precipitation between the north and south sides of the Himalaya Mountains, rates of erosion are indistinguishable across these mountains.
Douglas Burbank, professor of geology and director of the Institute for Crustal Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the first author of the article, “Decoupling of erosion and precipitation in the Himalayas,” to be published Thursday, December 11, in the international scientif
The pattern of rainfall in the Washington Cascades strongly affects long-term erosion rates in the mountain range and may cause bedrock to be pulled up towards the Earth’s surface faster in some places than others, according to a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded study published in this week’s issue of the journal Nature. The results are the first convincing evidence of such effects, on mountain-range scales.
“The data strongly suggest that precipitation controls erosion ra
Recent studies suggest that an atmospheric compound derived primarily from coal combustion may have contradictory effects on the earth’s climate.
Under many conditions, sulfuric acid may cool the earth’s atmosphere. Sulfuric acid particles seem to scatter ultraviolet light back into space before it has a change to enter the troposphere – the bottom layer of earth’s atmosphere. But if conditions are right, this same chemical can warm the earth by combining with other compounds
One of the world’s fastest-moving glaciers is speeding up and retreating rapidly, a recent study has revealed.
The finding has surprised scientists, because while the margins of the Jakobshavn (pronounced “yah-cub-SAH-ven”) Glacier had been slowly retreating from the southwest coast of Greenland since before 1900, this retreat appeared to have stopped by the early 1990s when the first accurate measurements were made. Now the glacier is accelerating.
The glacier, one of the m
One of the first global-scale simulations of dust and climate from preindustrial times to the year 2100 projects a worldwide decrease in airborne dust of 20–63% by the end of this century. The computer model studies show less wind, more moisture, and enhanced vegetation in desert areas as carbon dioxide increases over the next century, keeping more of the world’s dust on the ground. Coauthor Natalie Mahowald of the National Center for Atmospheric Research presented the results this week at the A
A previously unnoticed cooling trend that persisted for a millennium caused enough ice to build up in Antarctica’s Ross Sea that thousands of Adelie penguins abandoned their colonies beginning about 2,000 years ago, according to newly published research.
Using radiocarbon analyses of abandoned colonies on the Victoria Land coast of the Ross Sea, scientists believe that modern, ice free conditions developed in the region only within roughly the past 1,000 years and that the present Adelie
Marine seismology reveals Hawaiian volcano’s past, sheds light on future dangers
The Hawaiian Islands are home to the largest documented shoreline collapse in history, an ancient seaward landslide that sent rocks from the island of Oahu to sites more than 100 miles offshore. The avalanche of debris from the northeast shore of Oahu probably occurred between 1.5 and 3 million years ago, and it undoubtedly created one of the largest tsunamis in Earth’s history, a wave large enough t
Nearly 10 years after Los Angeles was shaken by the devastating, magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake, scientists at NASA and other institutions say maturing space-based technologies, new ground-based techniques and more complex computer models are rapidly advancing our understanding of earthquakes and earthquake processes.
Dr. Andrea Donnellan, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., says the past decade has seen substantial progress in space-based earthqu
In a first-of-its-kind study, seismologists have used tiny “microearthquakes” along a section of California’s notorious San Andreas Fault to create unique images of the contorted geology scientists will face as they continue drilling deeper into the fault zone to construct a major earthquake “observatory.”
A chain of 32 seismometers recorded the small earthquakes at underground locations along a 7,100-foot-deep vertical drill hole. This eight-inch-diameter pilot hole was excavated last
Results may help settle debate about how Earth sheds its internal heat
Like doctors taking a sonogram of a human body, Princeton geoscientists have captured images of the interior of the Earth and revealed structures that help explain how the planet changes and ages.
The scientists used tremors from earthquakes to probe the inside of the planet just as sound waves allow doctors to look inside a mother’s womb. The technique, a greatly refined version of earlier efforts,
Researchers at the University of Durham are helping to preserve major historical sites.
Led by Professor Robert Allison under NERC’s Urban Regeneration and the Environment (URGENT) Programme, the scientists have developed a novel method of monitoring and testing archaeological sites uncovered by developers. Their research has involved a wide range of sites in central London.
St Mary Spital is one of the most important archaeological finds of our time. Archaeologists unco
The Navajo Sandstone — one of the brightly colored rock formations that comprise southern Utah’s famous redrock — is exposed in the cliffs at Zion National Park, the Petrified Dunes at Arches National Park and in many parts of Capitol Reef National Park.
Now, a new study from the University of Utah concludes that bleaching patterns in the Navajo Sandstone suggest the rock formation once may have harbored vast amounts of hydrocarbons, likely natural gas (methane). And when the once-buried
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