Fewer cold snaps in the forecast
Science News, April 2015Bitter bouts of unusually cold days will become less frequent in much of the Northern Hemisphere as the planet warms, two new studies suggest.
Plate loss gave chain of Pacific islands and seamounts a bend
Science News, March 2015The disappearance of a tectonic plate into Earth’s interior may be responsible for the distinctive bend in the chain of underwater mountains and islands that includes the Hawaiian archipelago.
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Antarctic ice shelves rapidly melting
Science News, March 2015Antarctica’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.
Rain slows whipping hurricane winds
Science News, March 2015Heavy downpours put a damper on hurricanes, new research suggests. Running simple hurricane simulations, researchers have demonstrated that descending raindrops produce significant friction as they fall along the edges of a hurricane’s eye. This friction slows the powerful winds that drive the storm, lessening the hurricane’s intensity by as much as 30 percent, the researchers report in a paper to be published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Winter storms 24 times as deadly as estimated
Science News, March 2015Jack Frost’s fury is deadlier than a major report implies, new research suggests.
Fast-spinning young Earth pulled the moon into a yo-yo orbit
Science News, March 2015The Earth and moon’s celestial dance was a lot wilder during the pair’s youth. By simulating the early moon’s orbit, researchers have reconstructed what the moon’s phases would have looked like during the solar system’s early years. The result, presented online March 10 at arXiv.org, reveals a moon that alternated rapidly between its sunlit and shadowy sides and bounced like a ball toward and away from Earth.
Arctic warming bolsters summer heat waves
Science News, March 2015Sweltering summertime heat waves are on the rise across the Northern Hemisphere because of atmospheric changes brought on by Arctic warming, new research shows.
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Chinese rover reveals moon’s layers
Science News, March 2015Radar waves beamed into the moon’s surface by China’s Yutu rover have revealed nine distinct subsurface layers directly beneath the rover’s landing site in the Sea of Rains. The multitude of rocky layers suggests that the moon has a more storied geological history than once thought, researchers report in the March 13 Science.
Tethys Ocean implicated in Pangaea breakup
Science News, March 2015Pangaea’s breakup may have been an outside job. A reexamination of tectonic movements 200 million years ago suggests that the supercontinent was pulled apart by shrinking of the forerunner to the modern Indian Ocean. The new work, presented online February 27 in Geology, signals that scientists may have to rethink Pangaea’s demise, says geologist Stephen Johnston of the University of Victoria in Canada, who was not involved with the research.
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Volcanic lightning forges tiny glass balls from airborne ash
Science News, March 2015Lightning bolts that flash and clash high above erupting volcanoes can forge flying ash into glass, new research finds. The mechanism could explain the origins of odd microscopic glass beads found embedded in ash deposits, the researchers report online February 27 in Geology.
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