It will take about 11 trillion gallons of water (42 cubic kilometers) — around 1.5 times the maximum volume of the largest U.S. reservoir — to recover from California’s continuing drought, according to a new analysis of NASA satellite data. (more…)
A new study using data from NASA satellite missions finds that, although the long-term water picture for the Aral Sea watershed in Central Asia remains bleak, short-term prospects are better than previously thought.
Once the fourth largest inland sea in the world, the Aral Sea has lost 90 percent of its water volume over the last 50 years. Its watershed — the enormous closed basin around the sea — encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. (more…)
A unique and complex set of circumstances came together over Australia from 2010 to 2011 to cause Earth’s smallest continent to be the biggest contributor to the observed drop in global sea level rise during that time, finds a new study co-authored and co-funded by NASA.
In 2011, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the University of Colorado at Boulder reported that between early 2010 and summer 2011, global sea level fell sharply, by about a quarter of an inch, or half a centimeter. Using data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) spacecraft, they showed that the drop was caused by the very strong La Nina that began in late 2010. That La Nina changed rainfall patterns all over our planet, moving huge amounts of Earth’s water from the ocean to the continents. The phenomenon was short-lived, however. (more…)
While 99 percent of Earth’s land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world’s glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, says a new study led by Clark University and involving the University Colorado Boulder.
The new research found that all glacial regions lost mass from 2003 to 2009, with the biggest ice losses occurring in Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes and the Himalayas. The glaciers outside of the Greenland and Antarctic sheets lost an average of roughly 260 billion metric tons of ice annually during the study period, causing the oceans to rise 0.03 inches, or about 0.7 millimeters per year. (more…)
A high-tech robotic fish hatched at Michigan State University has a new look. A new skill. And a new name.
MSU scientists have made a number of improvements on the fish, including the ability to glide long distances, which is the most important change to date. The fish now has the ability to glide through the water practically indefinitely, using little to no energy, while gathering valuable data that can aid in the cleaning of our lakes and rivers. (more…)
A hemispherewide phenomenon – and not just regional forces – has caused record-breaking amounts of freshwater to accumulate in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea.
Frigid freshwater flowing into the Arctic Ocean from three of Russia’s mighty rivers was diverted hundreds of miles to a completely different part of the ocean in response to a decades-long shift in atmospheric pressure associated with the phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation, according to findings published in the Jan. 5 issue of Nature. (more…)
A NASA-led research team has confirmed what Walt Disney told us all along: Earth really is a small world, after all.
Since Charles Darwin’s time, scientists have speculated that the solid Earth might be expanding or contracting. That was the prevailing belief, until scientists developed the theory of plate tectonics, which explained the large-scale motions of Earth’s lithosphere, or outermost shell. Even with the acceptance of plate tectonics half a century ago, some Earth and space scientists have continued to speculate on Earth’s possible expansion or contraction on various scientific grounds.
Now a new NASA study, published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, has essentially laid those speculations to rest. Using a cadre of space measurement tools and a new data calculation technique, the team detected no statistically significant expansion of the solid Earth. (more…)
*The first Microsoft Home was built in 1994 to show people how technology could transform everyday experiences, and now years later, the reinvented full-scale model home continues imagine a future in which interacting with computers is as comfortable as coming home.*
REDMOND, Wash. – Aug. 8, 2011 – If there’s no place like home, there’s definitely no place like the Microsoft Home.
There’s a doorbell, but a palm-scan or mobile phone will also open the front door. Sensors let you know your plants need watering. You can check the inventory of your fridge and pantry via your phone while you’re out shopping. Grace, the home’s computer, will even help you check on your grandmother, remember to take your medicine, study up for a big anatomy test, or make focaccia without the need for a recipe book.
“Grace, what’s up?” asks Microsoft Home tour guide Jonathan Cluts once inside the front door. A pleasant-voiced computer responds with updates about appointments, messages, and even information about the weather, traffic and the electric scooter that is charging outside the front door. (more…)
