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26 February 2016
Ignite@AGU: Setting geoscience on fire
The popular science storytelling event Ignite@AGU returned to the 2015 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco, CA last December. Sponsored by the NASA Applied Sciences Program and held in partnership with the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) and AGU’s Earth and Space Science Informatics (ESSI) Focus Group, the event featured 13 scientists sharing ideas and stories that made the audience laugh, cry and better understand our world.
1 February 2016
Understanding the 2015–16 El Niño and its impact on phytoplankton
This is part of a new series of posts that highlight the importance of Earth and space science data and its contributions to society. Posts in this series showcase data facilities and data scientists; explain how Earth and space science data is collected, managed and used; explore what this data tells us about the planet; and delve into the challenges and issues involved in managing and using data. This series …
25 January 2016
On Twitter, Oceanographers Show Deep Appreciation for Data-Collection Device
This is part of a new series of posts that highlight the importance of Earth and space science data and its contributions to society. Posts in this series showcase data facilities and data scientists; explain how Earth and space science data is collected, managed and used; explore what this data tells us about the planet; and delve into the challenges and issues involved in managing and using data. This series is intended to demystify Earth and space science data, and share how this data shapes our understanding of the world.
On Friday, while many people were tracking the progress of the winter storm bearing down on the eastern United States, oceanographers were rummaging through their fieldwork photos for images of CTDs to share on Twitter in honor of #CTDAppreciationDay.
14 January 2016
Data Management Isn’t Optional; It’s Essential to Being Successful
This is part of a new series of posts that highlight the importance of Earth and space science data and its contributions to society. Posts in this series showcase data facilities and data scientists; explain how Earth and space science data is collected, managed and used; explore what this data tells us about the planet; and delve into the challenges and issues involved in managing and using data. This series is intended to demystify Earth and space science data, and share how this data shapes our understanding of the world.
13 January 2016
Ocean circulation changes may have killed cold-water corals
Successive and abrupt changes in North Atlantic ocean circulation over the past 4,500 years seem to have caused major reductions in some cold-water coral ecosystems, finds a study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
The new study shows changes in sea surface circulation over the last few thousand years were more sudden than previously thought and in some cases led to abrupt collapses of cold-water coral ecosystems. The researchers found the first evidence that perturbations in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) led to cold-water coral ecosystems decline from 100 to 1,200 years ago.
22 December 2015
Ancient solar storms may explain how Mars morphed into a cold, barren desert
In March of this year, the sun hurled a giant magnetic solar storm into Mars. The solar wind, full of charged particles, slammed into the red planet’s atmosphere, bouncing or “sputtering” the oxygen into deep space.
Researchers now think the same process could have evaporated Mar’s water several billion years ago, according to a new study presented at the 2015 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting and recently published in AGU’s publication Geophysical Research Letters.
Visualizing Data Science
This is part of a new series of posts that highlight the importance of Earth and space science data and its contributions to society. Posts in this series showcase data facilities and data scientists; explain how Earth and space science data is collected, managed and used; explore what this data tells us about the planet; and delve into the challenges and issues involved in managing and using data. This series …
Hydrothermal Hunt: Mapping Earth’s Ocean Seafloor
This is the latest in a series of dispatches from scientists and education officers aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s R/V Falkor. On this voyage, scientists aboard the research vessel Falkor hoped to shed light on the Mariana Back-arc. Read more posts here.
21 December 2015
Climate change and bark beetles spell doom for Rocky Mountain spruce forests
The combination of climate change and spruce bark beetles could drastically alter Rocky Mountain spruce and pine tree populations over the next three centuries, according to a new study. Using an improved model of forest growth, death, and regeneration, a group of scientists predicts that spruce populations will decline and lodgepole pines will take their place.
According to new research presented at the 2015 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, the demographics of a forested region can be dramatically affected by insect outbreaks and fires over time. In addition, different kinds of trees have different tolerance to drought, strong winds and temperature changes. “These act to create competition between individual species and even between trees,” said Adrianna Foster, an environmental scientist at the University of Virginia and lead author of the new study.
18 December 2015
A natural experiment: City in pristine Amazon shows pollution alters ecosystem
Human-made pollutants are changing cloud patterns over the Amazon, altering ecosystems in the process.
Sometimes, the best experiments come ready-made from nature. The Brazilian city of Manaus has a population of almost 2 million people and sits in the heart of an otherwise pristine stretch of Amazonian rainforest, near the place where the Negro and Solimões tributaries fuse to form the Amazon River. New research using the area as a testing ground shows that Manaus city pollutants meddle with the Amazon’s cloud cover, rain and ecosystem, according to scientists who presented the finding at the 2015 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
GeoSpace is a blog on Earth and space science, managed by AGU’s Public Information staff. The blog features posts by AGU writers and guest contributors on all sorts of relevant science topics, but with a focus on new research and geo and space sciences-related stories that are currently in the news.