Amazon Deforestation Accelerates
November 29, 2008Satellites show that deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has accelerated for the first time in four years, Brazilian officials say, and area cleared in the first half of 2008 was nearly 4 percent higher than the year before. (BBC News) more...
Arkansas Earthquakes Could Portend Something Big
November 28, 2008A series of small earthquakes that rattled central Arkansas in recent weeks could be a sign of something much bigger to come, and seismologists hope to install three measurement devices to gather data about future quakes in the area. (Associated Press) more...
Atlantic Hurricane Season Blows Away Records
November 27, 2008The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season seemed to strike the United States and Cuba as if on redial, setting at least five weather records for persistence and repeatedly striking the same areas. (Associated Press) more...
Clue to Break-Up of Ice Shelves
November 27, 2008Researchers have come up with a way to predict the rate at which ice shelves break apart into icebergs. (BBC News) more...
Climate Change Researchers Closer to Model for Saving At-Risk Species
November 25, 2008Scientists say they could soon have a formula to better predict which species are most vulnerable to climate change. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) more...
Marine Life Faces Acid Threat
November 25, 2008Man-made pollution is raising ocean acidity at least 10 times faster than previously thought, a study says. (BBC News) more...
Red Tides Stemmed by 'Alien'-Like Parasites
November 24, 2008For the first time, marine biologists have tracked the control of red tides to a virulent parasite with a gruesome lifestyle. (Discovery News) more...
Tibetan Glaciers Melting at Stunning Rate
November 24, 2008Glaciers high in the Himalayas are dwindling faster than anyone thought, putting nearly a billion people living in South Asia in peril of losing their water supply. (Discovery News) more...
Probe to Scout Earth-Made Blasts
November 24, 2008A new mission will study gamma ray bursts above Earth that may be tied to lightning. (Discovery News) more...
Lightning Warns of Flash Floods
November 24, 2008Researchers studied the link between lightning and subsequent flash floods and found that by measuring the radiation emitted by lightning, they can pinpoint the most intense thunderstorms and track the resulting rainfall. (Live Science) more...
SnoMotes Go to Ends of Earth for Climate Research
November 24, 2008Seeing snowmobiles roar across the frozen Alaska wilderness may not seem unusual, but the ones zooming across a glacier near Juneau last June were far from ordinary – these toy-sized snowmobiles were unmanned climate-research robots called SnoMotes. (USA Today) more...
Video – Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegrates
November 22, 2008Scientists conduct an aerial survey of a massive ice field that has broken off Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf. (LiveScience) more...
Single-Celled Giant Upends Early Evolution
November 20, 2008Slowly rolling across the ocean floor, a humble single-celled creature is poised to revolutionize our understanding of how complex life evolved on Earth. (Discovery/MSNBC) more...
Infrared Technology Reveals Volcanoes' Secrets
November 20, 2008Thermal infrared imaging, which captures pictures of radiated energy invisible to the human eye, helps scientists track potentially deadly patterns of heat in and around some of the world's 1,500 active volcanoes. (National Geographic News) more...
CO2 Seeping Into Water Supply
November 18, 2008Groundwater seems to be taking on carbon dioxide 100 times faster than the atmosphere, according to a new study. (Discovery News) more...
Under-Ice Flood Speeds Up Glacier
November 17, 2008Great floods beneath the Antarctic ice sheet can now be linked directly to the speed at which that ice moves towards the ocean, scientists say. (BBC News)
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Plankton Found in 100-Million-Year-Old Amber
November 17, 2008Scientists have discovered for the first time a menagerie of perfectly intact marine microorganisms trapped in tree resin at least 100 million years ago, according to a new study. (Agence France-Presse/Discovery News) more...
Soil May Release Less CO2 Than Expected
November 17, 2008As the climate warms, soils may not release as much carbon dioxide as predictions have suggested, according to a new study of Australian soils. (Discovery News) more...
Tiny Plankton Contribute to Continental Crackups
November 17, 2008The skeletons of microscopic plankton that flourished billions of years ago may be tearing continents apart, according to a researcher who thinks that rocks built from plankton skeletons – known as black shale – form huge weak areas in Earth's crust. (Discovery News) more...
Did Asteroid Cause Ancient NewYork Tsunami?
November 17, 2008A giant asteroid may have triggered a tsunami that struck New York more than 2,000 years ago, say researchers who found particles in the region's sediment that are known to form in the extreme pressures of an impact. (Discovery News) more...
Fossils Lend Clues to Alaska's Eurasian Roots
November 17, 2008The discovery of 420-million-year-old snail fossils adds to a growing body of evidence about Alaska's long-ago links to Eurasia.
(National Geographic News)
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Close Encounter With Mount Etna
November 15, 2008Maps of Europe's most active volcano are continually out of date, a researcher discovered while surveying the changing landscape with a geologist and his team of students. (BBC News) more...
Elusive Microbe Fertilizes Oceans
November 14, 2008Following a long search researchers think they have found a cryptic microbe that helps fertilize ocean waters worldwide – or at least they have found the single-celled critter's very telling and surprising genome. (Discovery News) more...
New Radar Helps Predict Rainfall
November 13, 2008A team of scientists have developed new technology that lets meteorologists see what is happening in a cloud, rather than just beneath it, which will help them forecast rain more accurately. (BBC News) more...
Arctic Ice Melt Sparks Plankton Blooms
November 12, 2008Record summer sea ice losses in the Arctic Ocean are now leading to bursts of ocean life in the newly open waters, say researchers watching the north polar sea from space. (Discovery News) more...
New Ice Age Predicted – But Averted by Global Warming?
November 12, 2008Deep ice sheets would otherwise cover much of the Northern Hemisphere thousands of years from now -- if it weren't for us pesky humans, a new study says. (National Geographic News) more...
Global Monthly Averaged CO2 Fluxes Recovered Using a Geostatistical Inverse Modeling Approach: 1. Results Using Atmospheric Measurements
November 12, 2008Global Monthly Averaged CO2 Fluxes Recovered Using a Geostatistical Inverse Modeling Approach: 1. Results Using Atmospheric Measurements, Mueller, K. L., S. M. Gourdji, and A. M. Michalak, Geophysical Research Letters, November 12, 2008 (Vol. 113, D21114, doi:10.1029/2007JD009734)
Southern Ocean Close to Acid Tipping Point
November 11, 2008Researchers have discovered that the tipping point for ocean acidification caused by human-induced CO2 emissions is much closer than first thought. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) more...
Ice-Free Arctic; Not Whether, but When
November 11, 2008Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center says that, "pretty much all sea-ice scientists are in agreement" that the we’re going to reach a point where we'll have an ice-free Arctic Ocean, and talks about how soon it might be. (Earth & Sky) more...
Jon Ranson Calculates Earth's Carbon Budget in a Warmer World
November 11, 2008NASA's Jon Ranson uses satellite data to study changes in vegetation, and describes the way that carbon, a building block for life, moves from our planet's atmosphere, land and oceans into living beings and back again. (Earth & Sky) more...
Scientists to Present Global Census on Marine Life
November 10, 2008Eight years ago, scientists embarked on a global census of all marine life, and this week 500 delegates will gather at Valencia in Spain for the World Conference on Marine Biodiversity, where they will hear an update on the project. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) more...
Satellites Map Cholera Outbreaks
November 10, 2008Researchers have developed a system for predicting cholera outbreaks using satellite monitoring of marine environments to show cholera outbreaks follow seasonal increases in sea temperature. (BBC News) more...
Does Rainfall Vary With Sunspot Activity?
November 8, 2008While the Sun doesn't cause global warming, solar activity seems to influence the flow of rivers and, thus, the rain that feeds them, a new study suggests. (New Scientist) more...
Monsoon Link to Fall of Dynasties
November 6, 2008The demise of some of China's ruling dynasties may have been linked to changes in the strength of monsoon rains, according to an 1,800-year record of the Asian monsoon preserved in a stalagmite from a Chinese cave. (BBC News) more...
Active 2008 Hurricane Season Winds Down
November 6, 2008The curtain is starting to fall on a 2008 hurricane season, which was above-average as predicted, with some truly devastating storms, but barring huge last-minute surprises, this year's 16 named storms were no match for the record-setting 2005 season's 28 storms. (Live Science) more...
Mystery Deepens over Unseen Antarctic "Alps"
November 6, 2008The existence of a massive Antarctic mountain range buried under miles of ice has become an even deeper mystery, as the little-researched Gamburtsev Mountains seem to challenge geologic patterns seen in other mountain ranges on Earth. (National Geographic News) more...
Grand Canyon's Youth Confirmed
November 3, 2008The Grand Canyon's age, the source of over a century of scientific controversy, may finally get a definitive number -- a combination of three faults in the area and upwelling hot mantle material pushed the region's rocks upward, causing the canyon to form in segments from east to west over the last six million years. (Discovery News) more...
Video: Ozone Hole Peaks over Antarctica
November 3, 2008The Antarctic ozone hole reached its 2008 peak at 10.5 million square miles (27.2 million square kilometers), short of the 2006 record size of 10.6 million square miles (27.5 million square kilometers), according to NASA scientists. (National Geographic News) more...