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High-Tech Software and Unmanned Planes Allow Scientists to Keep Tabs on Arctic Seals

By Guest PostDecember 15, 2010Environment, Natureaerial photos, aircraft, Arctic, arctic ringed seal, atmosphere, bearded, bering sea, cameras, climate scientists, earth, elizabeth weatherhead, four species of arctic seals, greenhouse gases, ice floes, marine, noaa, novel project, peter boveng, polar ecosystems, ribbon seals, ringed, scan eagle, sea ice, seal populations, seals, spotted, temperatures, terrestrial mammals

A novel project using cameras mounted on unmanned aircraft flying over the Arctic is serving double duty by assessing the characteristics of declining sea ice and using the same aerial photos to pinpoint seals that have hauled up on ice floes.

The project is the first to use aircraft to monitor ice and seals in remote areas without putting pilots and observers at risk, said Elizabeth Weatherhead of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who is leading the study team. Weatherhead is a senior scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint venture of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (more…)

NSF Signs $34.5-million Operating Agreement With University Of Wisconsin as Antarctic Neutrino Detector Nears Completion

By Guest PostNovember 22, 2010Scienceantarctic ice sheet, atmosphere, atomic nuclei, big science, digital optical modules, distant galaxies, earth, Germany, ice, icecube, icecube neutrino observatory, jim yeck, karl a erb, Milky Way, national science foundation, neutrino detector, neutrinos, south pole station, stars, sub-atomic particles, telescope, university of wisconsin-madison, water

The National Science Foundation has signed a five-year, $34.5-million agreement with the University of Wisconsin-Madison to operate a unique telescope–a cubic kilometer in volume–buried in the Antarctic ice sheet between 1,400 meters and 2,400 meters deep.

The collaborative agreement covers the cost of operating the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, located in the ice under the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The observatory records the rare collisions of neutrinos, elusive sub-atomic particles, with the atomic nuclei of the water frozen into ice. Neutrinos come from the sun, cosmic rays interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere, and dramatic astronomical sources such as exploding stars in the Milky Way and other distant galaxies. Trillions of neutrinos stream through the human body at any given moment, but they rarely interact with regular matter, and researchers want to know more about them and where they come from. (more…)

‘Novel Ocean-Crust Mechanism Could Affect World’s Carbon Budget’

By Guest PostNovember 17, 2010Environment, Scienceadam soule, atmosphere, baja peninsula, bathymetry, carbon, climate, CO2, crust, daniel lizarralde, earth, gas, giora proskurowski, greenhouse gases, guaymas basin, gulf of california, hydrothermal vent, jeff s seewald, methane, molten magma, north guaymas, ocean, red sea, s adam soule, seafloor, tectonic plates, undersea ridges, volcanic rocks

The Earth is constantly manufacturing new crust, spewing molten magma up along undersea ridges at the boundaries of tectonic plates. The process is critical to the planet’s metabolism, including the cycle of underwater life and the delicate balance of carbon in the ocean and atmosphere.

Now, scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have observed ocean crust forming in an entirely unexpected way—one that may influence those cycles of life and carbon and, in turn, affect the much-discussed future of the world’s climate.

Working at the Guaymas basin in the Gulf of California, WHOI scientists confirmed what they suspected from brief glimpses of the area during previous missions: The inner Earth is injecting swaths of magma called sills as far as 50 kilometers away from the plate boundary, on each side of the ridge —nearly 10 times farther from such an active ocean ridge than had been observed before. (more…)

Lower Part of Earth’s Atmosphere is Warming, Data Review Concludes

By Guest PostNovember 16, 2010Environmentatmosphere, climate models, earth, lower part, north carolina state university, troposphere, warming

The troposphere, the lower part of the atmosphere closest to the Earth, is warming in ways that are broadly consistent with both theoretical expectations and climate models, according to a new scientific study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NOAA-North Carolina State University Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS).

Since the development of the first climate models in the 1960s, the troposphere has been projected to warm along with the earth’s surface because of the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This expectation has not significantly changed even with major advances in climate models. (more…)

Climate Change May Create Tipping Points for Populations, Not Just Species

By Guest PostOctober 23, 2010Environmentalpine, Arctic, biological effects of climate change, climate change, climate warms, daniel doak, duke university, earth, ecological challenges, ecologist, mountains of colorado, national science foundation, new mexico, nsf, plants, plants and animals, saran twombly, william morris

*Researchers measure survival, reproduction of thousands of arctic and alpine plants over six years*

As Earth’s climate warms, species are expected to shift their geographical ranges away from the equator or to higher elevations.

While scientists have documented such shifts for many plants and animals, the ranges of others seem stable. (more…)

Earth’s Highest Coastal Mountain on the Move

By Guest PostSeptember 20, 20101 commentScienceagustin cardona, camilo montes, caribbean sea, coastal mountain, Colombia, earth, ecopetrol energy company, geological basin, geological evolution, german ojeda, paleomagnetic, panama, peru, santa marta, sierra nevada de santa marta, smithsonian scientists, smithsonian tropical research institute, stri, volcanoes

The rocks of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta—the highest coastal mountain on Earth—tell a fascinating tale: The mountain collides and then separates from former super-continents. Volcanoes are born and die. The mountain travels from Peru to northern Colombia and finally rotates in a clockwise direction to open up an entirely new geological basin. Smithsonian scientists were part of a four-year project to study Santa Marta’s geological evolution. Their findings are published in the October 2010 special issue of the Journal of South American Earth Sciences.

(more…)

Arctic Sea Ice Reaches Lowest 2010 Extent, Third Lowest in Satellite Record

By Guest PostSeptember 17, 2010Environmentarctic sea, atmosphere, earth, greenhouse gases, ice, NASA, natural climate, satellites, serreze, shrinking arctic sea ice, snow and ice data center, university of colorado at boulder

The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third-lowest recorded since satellites began measuring sea ice extent in 1979, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center.

(more…)

Arctic Rocks Offer New Glimpse of Primitive Earth

By Guest PostAugust 16, 2010Sciencebaffin island, baffin island lavas, baffin island rocks, canadian arctic, carnegie institution, don francis, earth, geochemical evidence, helium-3, helium-4, mantle, matthew jackson, new window, radioactive, reservoir, richard carlson, thorium, uranium

Scientists have discovered a new window into the Earth’s violent past. Geochemical evidence from volcanic rocks collected on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic suggests that beneath it lies a region of the Earth’s mantle that has largely escaped the billions of years of melting and geological churning that has affected the rest of the planet. Researchers believe the discovery offers clues to the early chemical evolution of the Earth.

(more…)

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