Tag Archives: monsoon rains

Rain Gods in a Desert Sea: New Book Celebrates Southern Arizona’s Mountains

A book by two UA scientists explains the story behind the scenery of the “sky islands,” the unique mountain ranges dotting southern Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico

University of Arizona scientists Wendy Moore and Richard Brusca have published an illustrated book to celebrate and share the rich and unique natural history of southern Arizona’s mountains – the “sky islands” – with a general, non-scientific audience.   (more…)

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NASA’s Aquarius Sees Salty Shifts

The colorful images chronicle the seasonal stirrings of our salty world: Pulses of freshwater gush from the Amazon River’s mouth; an invisible seam divides the salty Arabian Sea from the fresher waters of the Bay of Bengal; a large patch of freshwater appears in the eastern tropical Pacific in the winter. These and other changes in ocean salinity patterns are revealed by the first full year of surface salinity data captured by NASA’s Aquarius instrument.

“With a bit more than a year of data, we are seeing some surprising patterns, especially in the tropics,” said Aquarius Principal Investigator Gary Lagerloef, of Earth & Space Research in Seattle. “We see features evolve rapidly over time.” (more…)

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