NASA researchers and other scientists used a satellite combined with aircraft video to create a new technique for detecting ponds of water on top of Arctic sea ice. Until now, it was not possible to accurately monitor these ponds on ice from space.
Water that forms on sea ice during the summer, called a melt pond, absorbs the Sun’s energy rather than reflecting it back to space the way ice does. The balance between reflected and absorbed energy has a large effect on Arctic and global c
Conventional wisdom says a river’s flood plain builds bit by bit, flood after flood, whenever the stream overflows its banks and deposits new sediment on the flood plain. But for some vast waterways in South America’s Amazon River basin, that wisdom doesn’t hold water, according to scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Results of their research are published in the October 2nd issue of the journal Nature. Seasonal rains wash billions of tons of rock and s
NASA satellites observed the calving, or breaking off, of one of the largest icebergs ever recorded, named “C-19.”
C-19 separated from the western face of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica in May 2002, splashed into the Ross Sea, and virtually eliminated a valuable food source for marine life. The event was unusual, because it was the second-largest iceberg to calve in the region in 26 months.
Over the last year, the path of C-19 inhibited the growth of minute, free-floating aquati
The first results from British and Japanese researchers working with the world’s largest computer, the gigantic Earth Simulator supercomputer in Japan, are being showcased at a climate workshop which starts today at Cambridge University.
Professor Julia Slingo, the Director of the NCAS Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling said: “These results are very exciting. They show that, for the first time, our climate models can be run at resolutions capable of capturing severe weather events such
A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist, in collaboration with an international team of colleagues, has reported that noticeable changes in the sub-polar climate and ecosystems appear to be linked to variations in the sun’s intensity during the past 12,000 years.
The research, titled “Cyclic Variation and Solar Forcing of Holocene Climate in the Alaskan Subarctic,” is reported in today’s (Sept. 26) issue of Science.
Using core sediment samples from Arolik Lake
The latest ESA Earth Observation data show that reports of the demise of the ozone hole appearing annually above Antarctica have been greatly exaggerated.
The ozone hole is normally at its largest in September, but 2002 saw it at its smallest extent for more than a decade: 40% down on previous years. And a year ago yesterday ongoing satellite measurements of ozone – gathered by the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI) from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) instrume
This year’s Antarctic ozone hole is the second largest ever observed, according to scientists from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). The Antarctic ozone “hole” is defined as thinning of the ozone layer over the continent to levels significantly below pre-1979 levels. Ozone blocks harmful ultraviolet “B” rays. Loss of stratospheric ozone has been linked to skin cancer in humans and other adverse biological effects on plants
As a paleontologist, Gerta Keller has studied many aspects of the history of life on Earth. But the question capturing her attention lately is one so basic it has passed the lips of generations of 6-year-olds: What killed the dinosaurs?
The answers she has been uncovering for the last decade have stirred an adult-sized debate that puts Keller at odds with many scientists who study the question. Keller, a professor in Princeton’s Department of Geosciences, is among a minority of scientists
The latest ESA Earth Observation data show that reports of the demise of the ozone hole appearing annually above Antarctica have been greatly exaggerated.
The ozone hole is normally at its largest in September, but 2002 saw it at its smallest extent for more than a decade: 40% down on previous years. And a year ago yesterday ongoing satellite measurements of ozone – gathered by the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI) from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) instrument on ES
For over a decade ESA has used satellites to bounce radar pulses off the Earth and precisely measure the height of ocean and land surfaces. But inland lakes and rivers have been effective blind spots for radar altimetry – at least until now.
Next week ESA previews a new product range called River and Lake Level from Altimetry that provides previously inaccessible information on water levels of major lakes and rivers across the Earth’s surface, derived from Envisat and ERS radar altimete
Our record-breaking long hot summer heated Europe’s seas as well as the land. Results returned from ESA’s Envisat environmental satellite show Mediterranean waters off Crete around three degrees Celsius warmer than the previous year.
The top image represents sea surface temperature around the island for 31 August 2003, while the second image shows it for 30 August 2002. The brighter the colour the higher the temperature: there is a five-degree difference between the two recorded in waters n
The largest ice shelf in the Arctic has broken, and scientists who have studied it closely say it is evidence of ongoing and accelerated climate change in the north polar region. The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is located on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada’s Nunavut territory and its northernmost national park. This ancient feature of thick ice floating on the sea began forming some 4,500 years ago and has been in place for at least 3,000 years.
Warwick Vincent and Derek Mueller
A 50,000-year record of mammals consumed by early humans in southwestern France indicates there was no major difference in the prey hunted by Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, according to a new study.
The paper, published in the online Journal of Archaeological Science, counters the idea proposed by some scientists that Cro-Magnon, who were physically similar to modern man, supplanted Neanderthals because they were more skilled hunters as a result of some evolutionary physical or mental advantag
As Hurricane Isabel converges on the US East Coast, a veteran ESA spacecraft has provided meteorologists with crucial insights into the underlying pressure system powering the storm.
An entire flotilla of satellites is being kept busy tracking Hurricane Isabel in visible and infrared light, as well as gathering additional measurements of local sea surface temperature, wind and rainfall levels. ESA spacecraft ERS-2 has made the picture more detailed still by discerning the wind speed and dire
Awareness of the global warming effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) is relatively recent, but the greenhouse gas has been playing a critical role in warming our planet for billions of years, according to University of Maryland geologist Jay Kaufman and Virginia Polytechnic Institute geologist Shuhai Xiao.
Their results, which provide the best evidence to date of the age of the Calvin cycle—the photosynthetic cycle by which plants convert light energy and CO2 into cellular tissue—will be publishe
Three “Doppler On Wheels” (DOW) mobile radars developed partly at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) are heading toward the mid-Atlantic coast to intercept the eye of Hurricane Isabel as the powerful storm hits land. Meanwhile, the nation’s next-generation weather model, developed at NCAR and other labs, is training its electronic “eyes” on a virtual Isabel at NCAR’s supercomputing center in Boulder. The DOWs will deploy at or near the coast in the direct path of t
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