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29 June 2015
Beijing quadrupled in size in a decade, new study finds
A new study shows that Beijing quadrupled in physical extent between 2000 and 2009. The new buildings alone — not including the impacts of additional city dwellers and their cars — increased heat and changed wind and pollution patterns in a ring around Beijing.
16 March 2015
U.S. hurricanes begin in western Africa’s atmosphere
Hurricanes require moisture, the rotation of the Earth, and warm ocean temperatures to grow from mere atmospheric disturbances into tropical storms. But where do these storm cells originate, and exactly what makes an atmospheric disturbance amp up full throttle?
A new study accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters finds most hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean that eventually make landfall in North America actually start as intense thunderstorms in western Africa.
24 February 2015
Massive amounts of Saharan dust fertilize Amazon rainforest
The Sahara Desert is a near-uninterrupted brown band of sand and scrub across the northern third of Africa. The Amazon rainforest is a dense green mass of humid jungle that covers northeast South America. But after strong winds sweep across the Sahara, a tan cloud rises in the air, stretches between the continents, and ties together the desert and the jungle. It’s dust. And lots of it.
Scientists have not only used a satellite to measure the volume of dust that makes this trans-Atlantic journey. They have also calculated how much phosphorus – remnant in Saharan sands from part of the desert’s past as a lake bed – gets carried across the ocean from one of the planet’s most desolate places to one of its most fertile.
9 January 2015
Not just rain: thunderstorms also pour down ozone
A new study in Geophysical Research Letters offers for the first time unequivocal evidence that large storms move significant amounts of ozone from the stratosphere down to the troposphere, the lowest part of the atmosphere.
8 January 2015
Epic survey finds regional patterns of soot and dirt on North American snow
University of Washington scientists recently published the first large-scale survey of impurities in North American snow to see whether they might absorb enough sunlight to speed melt rates and influence climate.
19 December 2014
Quality control of aerosol measurements filters out important readings
The hardworking AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) instrument in Baengyeong, South Korea was having a rough day. Every 15 minutes, the telescope-like device pointed its barrel at the sun to record its light and measure how much was blocked by airborne particles, or aerosols. July 13, 2012 was an overcast day and the light absorbed by the clouds dominated the measurements. But then, just after 1 p.m., the clouds parted, the instrument looked up, and data was collected. Only no one saw it.
14 July 2014
Global climate models fail to simulate key dust characteristics
Climate models that simulate the airborne African dust that influences Atlantic Ocean hurricanes are not up to the task of accurately representing the characteristics of that dust.
In a new study, researchers led by Amato Evan, a climate scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, examined the performance of 23 state-of-the-art global climate models used in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The researchers found that none of them yielded accurate data on dust characteristics.
30 June 2014
Cold War era samples reveal sharp drop in major global warming agent in part of Arctic
Scientists measuring soot on thousands of air filters from the Finnish Arctic found a 78 percent decrease in the particulates — the second largest man-made contributor to global warming — from 1971 to 2010, according to a new study.
8 May 2014
Airborne measurements confirm leaks from oil and gas operations
During two days of intensive airborne measurements, oil and gas operations in Colorado’s Front Range leaked nearly three times as much methane, a greenhouse gas, as predicted based on inventory estimates, and seven times as much benzene, a regulated air toxic. Emissions of other chemicals that contribute to summertime ozone pollution were about twice as high as estimates, according to the new paper, accepted for publication in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
21 November 2012
Huge signal-distorting space bubbles spawn along equator as night falls
In our Sun’s most active years, enormous snake-like bubbles of plasma emerge overhead on Earth at nightfall. You can’t see them, but these bubbles can bend and disperse radio waves, interfering with communications networks. Now, a satellite soaring low in Earth’s orbit has observed the continuous birth of these evening-time bubbles for the first time, and scientists have started to chart their evolution.
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.