Thursday, January 5th, 2017
A new study using a NASA satellite instrument orbiting Earth found that small, environmental changes in polar food webs significantly influence the boom-and-bust cycles of phytoplankton. These findings, recently published in Nature Geoscience, will supply important data for ecosystem management, commercial fisheries and understanding of the interactions among Earth’s climate and key ocean ecosystems. “It’s
Tuesday, December 20th, 2016
The Chinese seizure of a U.S. underwater drone in waters near The Philippines is raising international concern as well as highlighting the growing strategic and tactical significance of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). According to a statement from Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook, “Using appropriate government-to-government channels, the Department of Defense has called upon China to immediately
Monday, December 19th, 2016
Monitoring drought vital to success of humanitarian relief “Really?” and “Strange, but true” might be popular reactions to the idea that periodic El Niño events in the Pacific Ocean could have a long distance influence on drought conditions in Africa, almost half-a-world away. Unlikely as it may seem, these connections are widely accepted by climate
Tuesday, December 13th, 2016
The central United States has undergone a dramatic increase in seismicity during the last six years. From 1973-2008, there was an average of 24 earthquakes of magnitude 3 and larger per year. From 2009-2014, the rate steadily increased, averaging 193 per year and peaking in 2014 with 688 earthquakes. So far in 2015, there have
Wednesday, December 7th, 2016
A glacier near Lake Aru in western Tibet collapsed on 17 July 2016. Now the Journal of Glaciology publishes the first scientific account of this cryospheric disaster in which nine local yak herders were killed. Eyewitnesses reported that the episode lasted only four to five minutes. More than 70 million cubic metres of ice tumbled
Tuesday, December 6th, 2016
Every northern fall and winter, cooling ocean and air temperatures cause the floating cap of Arctic sea ice to grow from its annual minimum extent toward a maximum between February and April. So far in 2016, however, the Arctic Ocean and neighboring seas have been slow to freeze, setting both daily and monthly record lows.
Tuesday, November 29th, 2016
On Sept. 21, 2014, NASA scientists and engineers launched RapidScat toward the orbiting International Space Station, 250 miles above Earth’s surface, with a few objectives in mind: improve weather forecasting on Earth, provide cross-calibration for all international satellites that monitor ocean winds, and improve estimates of how ocean winds change throughout the day. Following the
Monday, November 14th, 2016
Researchers from UT Dallas and other universities developed geospatial science methods to help the Egyptian government determine how to avoid flooding in a coastal mountain region. The government wants to develop the area for tourism, but flash flooding and associated hazards have hampered efforts, according to Dr. May Yuan, Ashbel Smith professor of GIS. “We
Tuesday, November 8th, 2016
Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., have been working on the tricky problem of CubeSat transmission antennas, which must be small enough for these diminutive devices yet still transmit data through the huge expanses of space. “It’s like pulling a rabbit out of a hat,” said Nacer Chahat, a specialist in
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016
Scientists produced the first global maps of human emissions of carbon dioxide ever made solely from satellite observations. The maps, based on data from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite and generated with a new data-processing technique, agree well with inventories of known carbon dioxide emissions. No satellite before OCO-2 was capable of measuring carbon
