The Future of Forecasting

 Science News, April 2015

By incorporating clever computing, statistical wizardry and even smartphones, future forecasts may offer personalized predictions for areas as narrow as 10 Manhattan city blocks over timescales of just a few minutes. The work could one day provide earlier warnings for potentially deadly storms and even resolve personal conundrums such as whether to grab an umbrella for a run to the coffee shop or to wait a few minutes because the rain will soon let up.

Feature article on how new technology is driving weather forecasting into the small scale and the near future. Research projects covered include new supercomputers boosted by video game console components, crowdsourcing weather data from smartphones and a system that promises tornado warnings an hour or more in advance of a twister touchdown. Story accompanied by an online sidebar on why earlier tornado warnings could cause people to make unsafe decisions. Published in both online and print editions (cover story of issue).

Canadian glaciers face drastic demise

 Science News, April 2015

The Great White North may lose its glaciers faster than previously thought. A detailed physics simulation of how glaciers melt in a warming world show that Western Canada’s glaciers will shed 70 percent of their ice by 2100 relative to their 2005 volumes, researchers report online April 6 in Nature Geoscience. That level of melt would raise global sea levels by roughly 4.4 millimeters and reshape the region’s landscape.

Spot the northern lights with Aurorasaurus

 Science News, April 2015

The Twitterverse can help you catch a glimpse of the shimmering northern lights. The NASA-backed Aurorasaurus project uses crowdsourcing to assemble a real-time map of aurora sightings around the Northern Hemisphere. Aurora-related tweets and reports made by citizen scientists feed in to the project through its smartphone apps and website.

Antarctic ice shelves rapidly melting

 Science News, March 2015

Antarctica’s ice shelves are shrinking at an accelerating rate, one of the longest satellite records of ice thickness reveals. Researchers report online March 26 in Science that several West Antarctic ice shelves are now on pace to disappear completely within 100 years.