Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Wildfire, Walleyes, and Wine
An international panel's latest report on the impacts of climate change highlights an overlooked need: preparing for droughts, floods, heat waves, and other disasters.
- Earth
Storm Norms: Caribbean corals and sediments yield clues to hurricane frequency
The recent increase in hurricane activity in the North Atlantic, a phenomenon that some scientists blame on climate change, actually reflects a return to normal after a lull in the 1970s and 1980s.
- Earth
Guidelines for wind farms
National policies to maximize the benefits of wind farms while lessening their environmental impacts may be needed.
- Earth
NOAA’s Virtual World
Players of the virtual reality game Second Life can now soar through a virtual hurricane, experience rising through the atmosphere atop a weather balloon, and more at the National Atmospheric Administration’s new site. Go to: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/outreach/sl/
- Earth
Ice Age Ends Smashingly: Did a comet blow up over eastern Canada?
An extraterrestrial object apparently exploded above Canada about 12,900 years ago, sparking devastating wildfires and triggering a millennium-long cold spell.
- Earth
Using seismometers to monitor glaciers
Seismic instruments could be used to estimate the amount of ice that shears away from glaciers as they flow into the sea, offering a way to better estimate sea level rise due to the breakup of those ice masses.
- Earth
Fish Free Fall: Hormone leads to population decline
Trace amounts of the synthetic estrogen used in birth control pills can cause a fish population to collapse.
- Earth
Southern seas slow their uptake of CO2
In recent decades, the rate at which oceans in the Southern Hemisphere soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide has slowed.
- Earth
Biological Hot Spots: Ocean eddies may not always lock away carbon
The carbon in the tissues of organisms that bloom inside some ocean eddies doesn't always sink to the ocean floor to be locked away in sediments when those organisms die.
- Earth
Emissions tied to global warming are on the rise
The United States emitted nearly 1 percent more greenhouse gases in 2005 than it did in the year before.
- Earth
Not-So-Clear Alternative: In its air-quality effects, ethanol fuel is similar to gasoline
Switching the nation's vehicles from gasoline to ethanol may not reduce air pollution.
- Earth
Lake Superior is warming faster than its local climate
In recent decades, the waters of Lake Superior have warmed significantly faster than have air temperatures at nearby sites onshore, a trend caused in part by a long-term decrease in the lake's winter ice cover.
