Deadly San Andreas Fault Longer Than Thought
July 31, 2008A new study looked at the size, activity, and gas chemistry of the mud pots, which are sometimes associated with fault lines, to find that the San Andreas Fault extends 18 miles further south than previously believed. (National Geographic news)
Arctic Ice Continues to Thin
July 31, 2008In 2007 the sea ice at the North Pole was at its thinnest since records began, according to helicopter-borne instruments used to determine the thickness of large swathes of ice by measuring its conductivity. (New Scientist)
Seven-Square-Mile Ice Sheet Breaks Loose in Canada
July 30, 2008A chunk of ice spreading across seven square miles has broken off from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's far north, scientists said. (Associated Press)
Ocean Mission Delivers First Maps
July 30, 2008Less than a month after it was put in orbit, the ocean-mapper Jason-2 has returned its first pictures to Earth, poising it to become the primary means of measuring the shape of the world's oceans. (BBC News)
Coral Reef 'Glue' May Not Stick Under Climate Change
July 29, 2008The cement that buttresses coral reefs, giving them the strength to withstand crashing waves and other onslaughts, may stop forming as oceans acidify under increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (Discovery News)
Climate Change Hurting Marine Snails
July 28, 2008Scientists are concerned a microscopic marine snail species found in the Southern Ocean may soon die out due to climate change, as the snails have dropped half their shell weight over the past decade due to warmer water. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Supercontinent Pangea Gets Climate Rethink
July 28, 2008Once thought temperate, the climate on Earth 300 million years ago may have been far colder than scientists suspected, as researchers found evidence that a massive glacier existed near the equator, further south and closer to sea level than thought possible. (Discovery News)
Rock Links Antarctica and North America
July 28, 2008A solitary chunk of granite, small enough to heft in one hand, is key evidence that Australia and parts of Antarctica were once attached to North America, a new study suggests. (Live Science)
Dolly May Have Shrunk Gulf 'Dead Zone'
July 28, 2008The oxygen-starved "dead zone" that forms every summer in the Gulf of Mexico is a bit smaller than predicted this year because Hurricane Dolly stirred up the water, a scientist reported. (Associated Press)
Did Eroding Super Mountains Give Us the Air We Breathe?
July 27, 2008Researchers say that in a series of steps starting about 2.65 billion years ago, the tectonic collisions of supercontinents also formed super mountains, which eroded rapidly, washed vast amounts of nutrients into the oceans and fueled explosions of oxygen-producing algae and bacteria. (New Scientist)
New Radar Detects Tornadoes Faster
July 25, 2008Researchers have been quietly testing a new high-tech system of radars that can see what current radars can't: storm activity that is close to the ground. (ABC News)
The Real Home of Hurricanes: Ethiopia?
July 25, 2008Though most of us think of the storms as beginning over the steamy Atlantic waters, which provide fuel for hurricanes as they strengthen and threaten landfall, it turns out that many storms begin all the way over on the far side of Africa. (ABC News)
A Point of No Return for Greenland's Ice
July 25, 2008A new analysis suggests that if a certain threshold of total emissions is passed, Greenland's ice sheet will melt completely, no matter how high or low a peak carbon dioxide concentration is reached or how quickly emissions are reduced afterward. (Discovery News)
Weather Probes Swarm the Seas
July 24, 2008Scientists have launched thousands of free-floating and anchored buoys onto the world's seas, where they constantly collect weather data and radio it back for quick analysis. (The Christian Science Monitor)
Australian Tsunami Only a Matter of Time
July 23, 2008Historical evidence shows that tsunamis have struck the east and west coast of Australia, and it's only a matter of time before one hits again, according to a scientist working to develop a tsunami warning system. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Student to Track Tiger Sharks via Satellite
July 23, 2008A student from the University of Queensland, Australia, will use two types of tracking devices to monitor the movements of tiger sharks, which should help protect the threatened species and ensure safety on beaches. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Shrimp-Like Fossil Confirms Antarctica was Once Warmer
July 23, 2008Scientists have discovered the fossil of a 14 million-year-old crustacean lurking in the sediments of an ancient lake, and together with well-preserved mosses, these tiny cousins of shrimp offer new evidence that the icy continent was once much warmer. (Discovery News)
Satellite Designed to Spot Asteroid Armageddon
July 23, 2008A tiny Canadian satellite is gearing up for a mission to hunt wayward space rocks that may pose a threat to Earth. (Space.com)
Volcanoes May Not be Fed by Magma Mushrooms
July 23, 2008Magma thought to fuel "hotspots" like Iceland and Hawaii may not form a mushrooming plume, but rather a more slow-moving, patchy structure. (New Scientist)
U.S. Spring Melt to Shift by Months
July 23, 2008Climate change could mean a two-month change in the start of the snowmelt by the end of the century, according to a new computer model. (New Scientist)
Wildfire Smoke May Cause Arctic Cooling
July 22, 2008Researchers report that wildfire smoke that reaches the Arctic has the net effect of cooling the surface by reducing the amount of sunlight that can reach the surface. (Discovery News)
More Icebergs Scouring Antarctic Seabed
July 18, 2008Shrinking sea ice is significantly increasing the rate at which icebergs scour the Antarctic seabed, new research suggests, crushing animals and plants living up to 1,640 feet beneath the surface. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Sea Die-Out Blamed on Volcanoes
July 16, 2008Undersea volcanic activity has been blamed for a mass extinction in the seas 93 million years ago, when the ocean depths became starved of oxygen, wiping out swathes of marine organisms. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Middle Earth Mountains: Steep and Strong
July 16, 2008It's the composition of the rocks that makes New Zealand's mountains some of the steepest on Earth, without being particularly prone to landslides, according to a new survey of the mountain ranges. (Discovery News)
Calif. Firefighters Get Backup From NASA Drone
July 15, 2008Fire crews battling nearly 300 blazes burning across California are getting help from a pilotless plane that transmits real-time images of hot spots and flare-ups to commanders in the field. (Discovery News)
U.S. Floods to Create Record Dead Zone
July 15, 2008Researchers say that the floods which devastated the Midwest in June could play a part in boosting a "dead zone" which annually emerges in the Gulf of Mexico. (New Scientist)
New Maps to Help Tap Ocean Winds
July 14, 2008The power of winds roaring over Earth's oceans has now been mapped, thanks to eight years of global wind data from NASA's QuikSCAT satellite. (Discovery News)
Tainted African Dust Clouds Harm U.S., Caribbean Reefs
July 14, 2008Scientists say tons of dust from Africa's arid Sahara and Sahel regions could be polluting oceans in the Caribbean and southeastern U.S. with contaminants like metals, pesticides and microorganisms – potentially disastrous news for coral reefs and other marine animals already stressed by warming waters. (National Geographic News)
Little Yellow Sub Studies Ocean
July 12, 2008The unmanned sub is nearing the halfway mark in its effort to travel from New Jersey to Spain, collecting scientific data along the way in an effort to show that an undersea glider can take its place in a global ocean-observing system. (Associated Press)
Antarctic Ice Shelf Hanging On by a Thread
July 11, 2008New satellite photos show the Wilkins Ice Shelf is even closer to breaking from the peninsula, and experts say the effects of warming there now look irreversible. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Russian Ice Camp in Rapid Shrink
July 11, 2008Twenty Russian scientists are to be evacuated from their camp on a drifting ice floe in the Arctic after it started disintegrating sooner than expected. (BBC News)
La Niña Fizzling Out, Could Reduce Hurricane Risk
July 10, 2008The climate phenomena known as La Niña is ending and neutral conditions are expected into the fall, government forecasters said, and the transition could be beneficial along the East and Gulf coasts with hurricane season under way, given that the chances for the continental U.S. and the Caribbean Islands to experience a hurricane are higher during La Niña. (ABC News)
South Australia Drought Worsens
July 10, 2008A long-running drought in Australia's main food-growing region, the Murray-Darling river basin, has worsened, a new report says, following three months of dry weather and the driest June on record. (BBC News)
At Antarctic Peninsula, Fast Change
July 10, 2008Three researchers who have spent decades studying Antarctica's inhabitants paint a picture of interconnected changes at the bottom of the Earth that are changing the ecology over just decades after some 30 million years of relative isolation. (Discovery News)
Ancient Indian Basin Beat the Cold
July 10, 2008Scientists in the U.S. and India appear to have kicked back the age of a prominent feature in India – the Vindhyan Basin – by half a billion years, and in the process, may have removed one of the stumbling blocks to the so-called "snowball Earth" theory. (The Christian Science Monitor)
Rare Argentina Winter Ice Break
July 10, 2008A recently formed tunnel in Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier collapsed on July 9 – the first time in decades such an event has occurred during the Southern Hemisphere's winter. (National Geographic News)
Cleaner Skies Explain Surprise Rate of Warming
July 9, 2008Cleaning up the skies has allowed more of the sun's rays to pierce the atmosphere, contributing to at least half the warming that has occurred, according to research that compared aerosol concentrations with solar-radiation measurements collected since 1986. (New Scientist)
Extreme Rain Grows Mountains
July 8, 2008The more it rains on some mountains the faster they grow, say geologists studying the fault-riddled, intensely rainy Eastern Cordillera of Colombia, South America. (Discovery News)
Grasslands Hold Up to Climate Change
July 8, 2008One of the longest-running experiments to predict the effects of climate change on plants offers some good news: After more than 13 seasons of applying typical global warming influences, a grassland ecosystem showed very little change. (Discovery News)
Hurricane Bertha's Burst of Strength Stumps Experts
July 8, 2008As powerful Hurricane Bertha churns far out in the Atlantic Ocean, meteorologists are wondering why the storm suddenly gathered strength and escalated from a minimal hurricane to a major one in only a few hours. (National Geographic News)
Glaciers on California's Mt. Shasta Keep Growing
July 8, 2008With global warming causing the retreat of glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere in the Cascades, glaciers on Mt. Shasta are actually benefiting from changing weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean. (Associated Press)
Life in the Balance: Coral Reefs are Declining
July 7, 2008Coral reefs – a key element in ocean ecosystems that provide not only coastline protection but billions of dollars in benefits from tourism, as well as ingredients used in cutting-edge medicines – are increasingly threatened from the effects of global warming and other hazards, according to a new U.S. government report. (ABC News)
Greenland Meltwater Will Take Slow Wave Around Globe
July 7, 2008Europe and North America could be at much greater risk of floods than previously appreciated, according to the first systematic analysis of what will happen to the water from melting Greenland ice. (New Scientist)
Greenland Ice Sheet Slams the Brakes On
July 5, 2008Since 1991, the western edge of Greenland's ice sheet has actually slowed its ocean-bound progress by 10 percent, according to researchers, who have studied the longest available record of ice and water flow in the region. (ABC News)
Glacier Bay Park's Gravity Shifts as Ice Melts
July 3, 2008The ice sheet in Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska has receded so much that the Earth's crust is rebounding, and Alaskans who live in the area have grown used to their properties expanding as a result. (National Public Radio)
Scientists Say Ailing Penguins Signal Sea Problems
July 1, 2008Penguins may be the tuxedo-clad version of a canary in a coal mine, with populations ailing in general from a combination of global warming, ocean oil pollution, depleted fisheries, and tourism and development, according to a new scientific review paper. (ABC News)
Ancient Ice Sheets Fell like Dominoes
July 1, 2008New research suggests that tens of thousands of years ago, ice synchronously crumbled off ice sheets thousands of miles apart, connected by a long-distance domino effect – a discovery that may be useful in understanding the behavior of ice today. (Discovery News)
Springy Sediments May Amplify Tsunamis
July 1, 2008The devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 may have been made worse by springy sediment on the seabed, which can amplify the movement of bedrock, generating a larger wave than would otherwise occur. (New Scientist)