One of the known facts about landfalling hurricanes is their rapid decay, yet some of them retain tropical storm winds and gusts well inland. While studies have shown that the reduction in surface evaporation is a reason for hurricane decay during landfall, little is known about the effect of land surface water on the intensity of hurricanes.
In a recent issue of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, URI Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) physical oceanographer Isaac Ginis, Weixing Shen, f
Orbit affects climate on Mars similar to the way it affects climate on Earth, say three scientists, who used a model of climate change on Earth to explain the layers of deposits in the polar regions of the Red Planet.
Their study appears in the Sept. 26 issue of Nature, and suggests that a climate change theory for Earth can also be applied to Mars and possibly to other Earth-like planets.
“The orbital theory of climate change has been successful in explaining changes in the Earth&
Based on satellite data from the European Space Agency, the national meteorological centre of the Netherlands predicts the Antarctic ozone hole will break apart this week, months earlier than usual.
A scientist at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) adds that the depth of the ozone hole is much smaller than previously seen.
“This breakdown is occurring exceptionally early in the year, about two months earlier than normal”, says Henk Eskes, a KNMI senior scientist.
Active mountain ranges like the Olympic Mountains, Taiwan Central Range or the Southern Alps are still growing, but they are not getting any taller. River cutting and erosion keep the heights and widths of uplifted mountain ranges in a steady state according to an international team of geoscientists.
“These mountains grew to 2.5 to 3 miles high over the past few million years and then they stopped increasing,” says Dr. Rudy L. Slingerland, professor of geology and head of Penn State’s g
A new study using a computer climate model to simulate the last 50 years of climate changes, projects warming over the next 50 years regardless of whether or not nations curb their greenhouse gas emissions soon. If no emission reductions are made and they continue to increase at the current rate, global temperatures may increase by 1-2 degrees Celsius [2-4 degrees Fahrenheit]. But if the growth rate of carbon dioxide does not exceed its current rate and if the growth of true air pollutants (substance
A new study by Stanford University geophysicists is raising serious questions about a fundamental technique used to make long-range earthquake predictions.
Writing in the journal Nature, geophysicists Jessica Murray and Paul Segall show how a widely used earthquake model failed to predict when a long-anticipated magnitude 6 quake would strike the San Andreas Fault in Central California.
In their Sept. 19 Nature study, Murray and Segall analyzed the “time-predictable recurrence mod
California scientists credit synthetic aperture radar imagery from the European Space Agency with making possible new ways to depict earthquake fault zones and uncovering unusual earthquake-related deformations. Their study of imagery from a 1999 earthquake in the western US could provide a new way to identify active faults and help track when the last earthquake occurred on a fault zone.
Writing in last week’s issue of Science magazine, researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanograp
Frustrated by the limitations of present numerical models that simulate how Earth’s climate will be altered by factors such as pollution and landscape modification, Duke University engineers are creating a new model incorporating previously-missing regional and local processes.
“The model we are developing is much more refined,” said the project’s leader, Roni Avissar, chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering.
Scientists at the University of Sheffield have used fossilised leaves to determine the effect of greenhouse gases on the end of the Ice Age 300m years ago, according to an article published in PNAS.
The study, led by Professor David Beerling, examined fossilised leaves to determine how much carbon dioxide was in the air at various periods during the ice age.
Leaves have pores on their surface called stomata that act as “air holes” and open and close depending on the levels of carbo
Analysis uncovers unusual earthquake-related deformation, paves the way for methods to identify new active faults
On Oct. 16, 1999, approximately 37 miles from Palm Springs, Calif., a magnitude 7.1 earthquake ripped through 28 miles of faults in the Mojave Desert. Because of the area’s sparse population and development, the massive quake caused virtually no major measurable injuries or destruction.
Yet the “Hector Mine” event, named after a long-abandoned mine in the area, ha
Researchers confirm that waters migrating from the surface can take many tens of thousands of years to reach the water table
A team of researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has confirmed that in drier regions, waters migrating from the surface can take many tens of thousands of years to reach the water table. Since such waters began their underground migration at the time of the last ice age, they hold a scientific and historical record of global climate
NASA scientists will venture into an isolated part of the Bolivian Amazon to try and uncover the origin of a 5 mile (8 kilometer) diameter crater there known as the Iturralde Crater. Traveling to this inhospitable forest setting, the Iturralde Crater Expedition 2002 will seek to determine if the unusual circular crater was created by a meteor or comet.
Organized by Dr. Peter Wasilewski of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., the Iturralde Crater Expedition 2002 will be l
Sediments in the Arabian Sea will be examined by an international scientific expedition led by a researcher from the University of Edinburgh to increase understanding of the natural processes of the ocean floor and establish its significance for global cycles and climate change. Robotic research platforms will be deployed on the sea floor to study deep-sea organisms and their impacts on sedimentary processes, without removing the creatures from their natural environment. Monsoons—winds that blow in o
What will some 4,000 of the smartest dressed elephant seals, tuna fish, albatrosses, leatherback sea turtles, great white sharks, and other pelagic megafauna in the Pacific all be wearing in the coming seasons? How about the latest in microprocessor-based electronic tags, some no bigger than oversized cufflinks? It’s all in a continuing effort to understand the habits of marine animals in that part of the world: what exactly lives where and why, what their migration routes and diving behaviors m
In the late 1990s, as scientists were reaching consensus that the Arctic had gone through 30 years of significant climate change, they began reading the first published papers about the Arctic Oscillation, a phenomenon reported to have hemisphere-wide effects.
In short order the arctic-science and the global-change communities were galvanized, says Richard Moritz, polar oceanographer with the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory and lead author of a review of recent Arctic climate change in
A NASA researcher finds that the amount of sea ice that moves between Greenland and Spitsbergen, a group of islands north of Norway, is dependent upon a “wave” of atmospheric pressure at sea level. By being able to estimate how much sea ice is exported through this region, called Fram Strait, scientists may develop further insights into how the ice impacts global climate.
This export of sea ice helps control the thermohaline circulation, a deep water ocean conveyor belt that moves warm, sal
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