27 August 2019
Streaks in Aurora Found to Map Features in Earth’s Radiation Environment
A special kind of streaked aurora has been found to track disturbances in near-Earth space from the ground. Known as structured diffuse aurora, it was recently discovered, with the help of NASA spacecraft and instruments, that these faint lights in the night sky can map the edges of the Van Allen radiation belts — hazardous concentric bands of charged particles encircling Earth.
Cluster and XMM-Newton pave the way for SMILE
The Solar wind-Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission is still four years away from launch, but scientists are already using existing ESA satellites, such as the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory and the Cluster mission studying Earth’s magnetosphere, to pave the way for this pioneering venture.
Scientists forecasted late May tornado outbreak nearly four weeks before it ripped through U.S.
“This is the first documented successful long-range forecast for an extended period of tornado activity in the U.S.,” said lead author Victor Gensini, a professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois University.
26 August 2019
Ship emissions responsible for thousands of premature deaths in China’s Pearl River Delta
Ship emissions caused more than 1,200 ozone-related and 2,500 particulate-related premature deaths in the Pearl River Delta region in 2015, according to new research in the AGU journal GeoHealth. The new study also predicts that implementing new coastal emission controls could reduce mortality due to fine particulates by 30 percent and ozone by 10 percent by 2030.
Climate change is altering winter precipitation across the Northern Hemisphere
A team of scientists has successfully teased out the influence of human-caused climate change on wintertime precipitation over much of the last century, showing that the warming climate is significantly altering wintertime rainfall and snowfall across the Northern Hemisphere.
21 August 2019
Study provides new clues to source of methane gas on Mars
A team of researchers led by scientists at York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering has created a model of how methane changes on Mars throughout the day by using data from a satellite, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and the Curiosity Rover. In the past, each had measured significantly different amounts of methane on Mars. The new measurements provide more clues that could help to understand what processes are important in creating the methane coming from a large 154 km- wide crater on the planet, Gale crater.
14 August 2019
Unprecedented 2018 Bering Sea ice loss repeated in 2019
Sea ice in the Bering Sea reached record-low levels during winter 2018, thanks to persistent warm southerly winds. These conditions caused the ice to retreat to the northern reaches of the 800,000 square mile body of water. By the end of April 2018, sea ice was about 10 percent of normal. And then, much to scientists’ surprise, 2019 just missed eclipsing the record set in 2018.
8 August 2019
Ten Years of Icy Data Show the Flow of Heat from the Arctic Seafloor
Scientists have taken the temperature of a huge expanse of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean. The study is accompanied by the release of a large marine heat flow dataset collected by the USGS from an ice island drifting in the Arctic Ocean between 1963 and 1973. These never-before-published data greatly expand the number of marine heat flow measurements in the high Arctic Ocean.
7 August 2019
More intense non-tropical storms causing increased rainfall in Southeast U.S.
A new study in AGU’s journal Geophysical Research Letters examined the region’s precipitation records from 1895 to 2018. The new research found precipitation in the Southeast during the fall increased by almost 40 percent in the past century due to an increase in average daily rainfall rather than the overall number of storms.
6 August 2019
Moonquakes tumble boulders, build lunar scarps
The Apollo Moon buggies weren’t the only things rolling over the Moon’s surface in the early 1970s. New research has found that a strong moonquake in 1975 probably sent boulders tumbling down crater walls on our nearest neighbor.
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.
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