http://www.physorg.com/space-news/earth-sciences/ en-us PhysOrg.com provides the latest news on earth science, astronomy and space exploration. High-resolution computer simulations performed by scientists at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) are helping to understand the inflow of North Atlantic water to the Arctic Ocean and how this influences ocean climate. http://www.physorg.com/news179671472.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:00:07 EST news179671472 Germany Thursday unveiled the world's most powerful weather supercomputer that scientists hope will provide critical data on global warming for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). http://www.physorg.com/news179671536.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:00:03 EST news179671536 An international team of environmental scientists led by the University of Pennsylvania has shown that sea-level rise along the Atlantic Coast of the United States was 2 millimeters faster in the 20th century than at any time in the past 4,000 years. http://www.physorg.com/news179664990.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:10:01 EST news179664990 Environmental scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and Durham University have employed a novel combination of geological and model reconstructions of wetland environments during a 10,000-year period to address spatial variations in sea-level history and provide quantitative estimates of subsidence along the east coast of England. http://www.physorg.com/news179664698.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:52:28 EST news179664698 (PhysOrg.com) -- The oceans play a key role in regulating climate, absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide that humans put into the air. Now, the first year-by-year accounting of this mechanism during the industrial era suggests the oceans are struggling to keep up with rising emissions -a finding with potentially wide implications for future climate. http://www.physorg.com/news179602661.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:10:07 EST news179602661 A few words culled from some hacked e-mails in Britain have generated chaos in the world of climate science -- throwing dark clouds over Pennsylvania State University and stirring up negative publicity for the field that shows no sign of abating. http://www.physorg.com/news179603440.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:10:04 EST news179603440 The Mediterranean Sea was mostly filled in less than two years in a dramatic flood around 5.33 million years ago in which water poured in from the Atlantic, according to a study published Wednesday. http://www.physorg.com/news179598629.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:00:02 EST news179598629 NASA Satellites noticed that Tropical Cyclone Cleo had reached its maximum strength, and was now moving into areas that will weaken it. Cleo's maximum sustained winds were near 115 mph (100 knots), with gusts to (138 mph) 120 knots today, December 9, 2009. http://www.physorg.com/news179593607.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:20:13 EST news179593607 Spain on Wednesday handed back to the United States a robot which last week completed the first underwater crossing of the Atlantic Ocean to help monitor climate change by tracking temperatures. http://www.physorg.com/news179588220.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:30:06 EST news179588220 More than three decades ago, marine scientists in the United States first identified the need for a research vessel capable of bringing scientists to Alaska's icy northern waters. http://www.physorg.com/news179581762.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:50:13 EST news179581762 A monster iceberg nearly twice the size of Hong Kong island has been spotted drifting towards Australia in what scientists Wednesday called a once-in-a-century event. http://www.physorg.com/news179556530.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:49:33 EST news179556530 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of researchers from eight institutions led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has solved a software and hardware problem that had perplexed scientists studying atmospheric aerosols for climate research. Not only did they fix the problem, but the instrument now performs better than it did when it was new. http://www.physorg.com/news179521919.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:00:03 EST news179521919 (PhysOrg.com) -- A visit to your local graveyard can provide not only a history lesson, but a science lesson as well. Historians know that gravestones can reflect the lives of people whose memories are lost in time, and they have long scoured old burial sites to piece together the stories of those who rest there. http://www.physorg.com/news179520331.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:48:03 EST news179520331 The Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies on NASA's Aqua satellite has amazing resolution from space, and captured Cleo's cloudless eye early this morning. Cleo has intensified from a Tropical Storm into a Cyclone. http://www.physorg.com/news179503648.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:08:21 EST news179503648 The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite captured the birth of Tropical Storm Cleo in the southern Indian Ocean today, December 7. http://www.physorg.com/news179498597.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:45:06 EST news179498597 A latest discovery of land plant fossils from Heilongjiang, Northeast China shows that the Siberian Plate sutured with the North China Plate at the end of the Permian, and resulted in the final closure of the Paleoasian Ocean (an ocean existed for hundreds of million years in earth history). http://www.physorg.com/news179497040.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:18:25 EST news179497040 An international team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa have found no evidence supporting an extraterrestrial impact event at the onset of the Younger Dryas ~13000 years ago. http://www.physorg.com/news179489405.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:10:36 EST news179489405 New information about lightning-emitted X-rays, gamma rays and high-energy electrons during thunderstorms is prompting scientists to raise concerns about the potential for airline passengers and crews to be exposed to harmful levels of radiation. http://www.physorg.com/news179426300.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:39:14 EST news179426300 In the long term, the Earth's temperature may be 30-50% more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than has previously been estimated, reports a new study published in Nature Geoscience this week. http://www.physorg.com/news179328817.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:34:02 EST news179328817 (AP) -- Cooler temperatures in North America last year do not mean global warming is easing, government and academic scientists said Friday. http://www.physorg.com/news179159979.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:50:09 EST news179159979 The "walls" of System 97W have been breached, and residents in the Western Pacific Ocean no longer have a tropical cyclone to worry about today. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center cancelled their "formation alert" for System 97W. System 97W is following in Nida's footsteps and is headed for dissipation. Nida has now officially dissipated. http://www.physorg.com/news179160177.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:43:46 EST news179160177 Most earthquakes occur along fault lines, which form boundaries between two tectonic plates. As the relative speed of the plates around a fault increases, is there a corresponding increase in the number of earthquakes produced along the fault? According to this study published in the December issue of BSSA, the answer depends upon the type of tectonic boundary. On certain types of boundary, the efficiency of earthquake production actually depends on the fault slip rate. http://www.physorg.com/news179151968.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:50:02 EST news179151968 (AP) -- The tsunami that killed more than 200 people in the Samoan islands and Tonga earlier this year towered up to 46 feet (14 meters) high - more then twice as tall as most of the buildings it slammed into, scientists said Friday. http://www.physorg.com/news179118002.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:10:02 EST news179118002 (PhysOrg.com) -- The third in a series of papers in the journal Nature completes the case for a new method of predicting earthquakes. http://www.physorg.com/news179087953.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:41:47 EST news179087953 (PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of environmental scientists led by the University of Pennsylvania has shown that sea-level rise along the Atlantic Coast of the United States was 2 millimeters faster in the 20th century than at any time in the past 4,000 years. http://www.physorg.com/news179082341.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:06:19 EST news179082341 (PhysOrg.com) -- Hawaii may be paradise for vacationers, but for geologists it has long been a puzzle. Plate tectonic theory readily explains the existence of volcanoes at boundaries where plates split apart or collide, but mid-plate volcanoes such as those that built the Hawaiian island chain have been harder to fit into the theory. A classic explanation, proposed nearly 40 years ago, has been that magma is supplied to the volcanoes from upwellings of hot rock, called mantle "plumes," that originate deep in the Earth's mantle. Evidence for these deep structures has been sketchy, however. http://www.physorg.com/news179074389.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:53:40 EST news179074389 An international team of scientists led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) has developed a new method of measuring the absorption of CO2 by the oceans and mapped for the first time CO2 uptake for the entire North Atlantic. http://www.physorg.com/news179073420.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:50:03 EST news179073420 The analysis of carbon and oxygen isotopes embedded in tree rings may shed new light on past climate events in the Mackenzie Delta region of northern Canada. http://www.physorg.com/news179073024.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:40:02 EST news179073024 NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites flew over Tropical Depression Nida and System 97W in the Western Pacific Ocean and noticed that one is fading while the other is powering up. http://www.physorg.com/news179072054.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:30:01 EST news179072054 The 30-year record low in Antarctic snowmelt that occurred during the 2008-09 austral summer was likely due to concurrent strong positive phases for two main climate drivers, ENSO (El Niņo - Southern Oscillation) and SAM (Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode), according to Dr. Marco Tedesco, Assistant Professor of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at The City College of New York. http://www.physorg.com/news179060195.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:30:05 EST news179060195