Earth Sciences

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