Earth Sciences

Satellites show overall increases in antarctic sea ice coverWhile recent studies have shown that on the whole Arctic sea ice has decreased since the late 1970s, satellite records of sea ice around Antarctica reveal an overall increase in the southern hemisphere ice over the same period. Continued decreases or increases could have substantial impacts on polar climates, because sea ice spreads over a vast area, reflects solar radiation away from the Earth’s surface, and insulates the oceans from t

A team of geologists has determined the age of the oldest known meteorite impact on Earth – a catastrophic event that generated massive shockwaves across the planet billions of years before a similar event helped wipe out the dinosaurs.

In a study published in the Aug. 23 issue of the journal Science, the research team reports that an ancient meteorite slammed into Earth 3.47 billion years ago.

Scientists have yet to locate any trace of the extraterrestrial object itself or the gi

Meteorologists can no longer view the Earth as an isolated system. Both long-term climate changes and day-to-day weather show links with the Sun`s activity. Scientists therefore study the nature of those links intensely. With data from ESA`s spaceprobes SOHO, Cluster, and Ulysses, we now have the information we need to solve the mystery of how the Sun`s activity affects the climate here on Earth. This study is the first step in setting up a new type of weather forecast – the space-weather bulletin.

The event which occurred almost a hundred years ago in Podkamennaya Tunguska has drawn scientists` attention again. What actually exploded at that time in the remote taiga, the power of explosion being equal to the 50-megaton H-bomb? The hypothesis that it was a meteorite or any other extraterrestrial object has not quite satisfied inquisitive minds, since too many puzzles remain unsolved. A geologist Vladimir Epifanov, Siberian Research Institute of Geology, Geophysics and Mineral, reported to the

Important ocean process examined with newly developed ’BubbleCam’

The relaxing atmosphere of a walk along the shore, especially the sounds of waves breaking on the beach, has seemingly forever lured people to coastlines.

For Grant Deane and Dale Stokes, oceanographers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, the seaside sounds of hundreds of millions of air bubbles bursting at the shoreline represent an important key to und

Researchers from Woods Hole, Scripps oceanographic institutes sail on new Coast Guard ice breaker to study climate, ocean changes

A University of Massachusetts Amherst geoscientist is part of a team of researchers sailing the Bering and Chukchi seas this summer, searching for clues about the sea floor history and the land bridge that once existed between what is now Alaska and Russia. The team will also explore how the disappearance of the land bridge may have affected that region&#14