Fossil coral records provide new evidence that frequent winter shamals, or dust storms, and a prolonged cold winter season contributed to the collapse of the ancient Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.
Read moreBioscience engineers have developed a method to measure the snow depth in all mountain ranges in the Northern Hemisphere using satellites. This technique makes it possible to study areas that cannot be accessed for local measurements, such as the Himalayas.
Read moreResearchers report that in order for a 90-meter ice cliff to collapse entirely, the ice shelves supporting the cliff would have to break apart extremely quickly, within a matter of hours — a rate of ice loss that has not been observed in the modern record.
Read moreResearcher have uncovered a new geophysical phenomenon where a hurricane or other strong storm can spark seismic events in the nearby ocean as strong as a 3.5 magnitude earthquake.
Read moreNew research shows the significant negative impact that invasive, non-native house mice on the Farallon Islands are having to the threatened ashy storm-petrel. Original modeling by ecologists shows the potential impacts to the petrel's population if mice are allowed to remain. The super-abundant mice encourage migrating burrowing owls to stay on the island, who later in the winter switch from eating mice to preying on the petrels.
Read moreMany scientists have said that storms are more intense than ever before – Cat. 4 or 5 storms used to be outliers, but today, it seems they are becoming the norm. Why? That's the question a research team is working to answer – they are looking what contributes to the rapid intensification of storms.
Read moreThe Sahara Desert is vast, generously dusty, and surprisingly shy about its age. New research looking into what appears to be dust that the Sahara blew over to the Canary Islands is providing the first direct evidence from dry land that the age of the Sahara matches that found in deep-sea sediments: at least 4.6 million years old.
Read moreThick, impenetrable ice slabs are expanding rapidly on the interior of Greenland's ice sheet, where the ice is normally porous and able to reabsorb meltwater. These slabs are instead sending meltwater spilling into the ocean, according to a new assessment, threatening to increase the country's contribution to sea level rise by as much as 2.9 inches by 2100.
Read moreCoastal birds survive because their populations can absorb impacts and recover quickly from hurricanes — even storms many times larger than anything previously observed.
Read moreScientists report that they accurately predicted the nation's extensive tornado outbreak of late May 2019 nearly 4 weeks before it began.
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