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5 July 2016
Odd behavior of Jovian moon dust could inform future space missions, search for life
New research into the movements of dust around Jupiter’s four largest moons could help scientists searching for life in our solar system, according to a new study. This moon dust around Jupiter could give scientists clues about the composition of the surface of its satellites.
15 December 2015
Dream Car Type-S
Stanford University’s Miles Traer, once again, is cartooning from the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco.
3 June 2015
Rebuilding Sandbars in the Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a bit closer to how it was before one of the country’s largest dams was installed upstream. Three years of releasing water from Glen Canyon Dam to generate controlled floods has resulted in rebuilding sandbars in the Grand Canyon, according to a new USGS article published in Eos, the daily Earth and space science website published by the American Geophysical Union. These simulated floods redistribute sand and mud, which helps develop this critical feature.
2 June 2015
Flooding, erosion risks rise as Gulf of Mexico waves loom larger
Waves in the northern Gulf of Mexico are higher than they were 30 years ago, contributing to a greater risk of coastal erosion and flooding in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, according to a new study.
27 September 2013
The National Academies Contemplate Geoengineering
This month at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C., a 16-person ad hoc committee of scientists held its second meeting to discuss the practicality of various methods of purposefully changing Earth’s environment to combat climate change, sometimes called climate engineering or geoengineering. Convened purely for investigation and discussion rather than making recommendations, the group cast a wide net for ideas, even those they might ultimately reject as made- for-Hollywood only.
26 August 2013
Why sunspots won’t help you make a fortune on wheat futures
A claim by 1800s astronomer William Herschel says the Sun’s moods influence things here on Earth in a more immediate way. Herschel asserted that the number of dark splotches on the Sun, called sunspots, significantly affects the wholesale price of wheat grain. Jeffery Love, a geophysicist for the US Geological Survey, decided to put this claim to the test. Such correlations, if they existed, would provide a useful analog for scientists researching historical solar activity.
22 July 2013
Busy beavers capture carbon
A few environmental problem-solvers have proposed drawing carbon out of the air and burying it to reduce greenhouse gasses and curb climate change. Maybe they could take some tips from nature’s own geoengineers – beavers – which have been sequestering carbon for thousands of years in the ponds and meadows created by their dams. A new study finds that, due to decreasing populations, much less carbon is getting tucked away by beavers than in the past.
19 July 2013
Most of Europe’s extreme rains caused by ‘rivers’ in the atmosphere
Heavy rainfall brought severe flooding last month to swaths of Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and other Central European nations, raising water levels in one city to the highest they’ve reached since the 1500s. New research finds that most of the continent’s extreme rainfalls since at least 1979 have spilled from fast flows of warm, moisture-laden air known as atmospheric rivers.
12 June 2013
AGU Video: Big Meadows Fire: Connecting the dots between warming winters and wildfires while at AGU Chapman Conference in Colorado
Jeff Maugans, a retired district naturalist for the National Park Service, talks about the Big Meadows Fire on Tuesday afternoon while on a field trip in Rocky Mountain National Park as part of the AGU Chapman Conference on ‘Communicating Climate Science: A Historic Look to the Future.’
14 March 2013
AGU Video: Lightning strike jumps the rails
The famous “kite with key” experiment Ben Franklin conducted in 1752 is more than just a legend for lightning researchers around the world—it’s a procedure. Sure, the kite has been replaced by a rocket, and the string-with-key contraption by a spool of wire, but the intent is still the same—to better understand nature’s flashes of electricity. Recently, an unusual rocket-triggered lightning strike was caught on video by lightning researchers in Florida, and its curious course from cloud to ground is described in a new scientific paper.
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.