Earth Sciences

Mars is a rocky planet with an ancient volcanic past, but new findings show the planet is more complex and active than previously believed – at least in certain places. Finding those places, however, turns out to be trickier than just looking at landforms like river valleys or lakebeds or searching for specific minerals.

“Context is everything,” said Philip Christensen, Principal Investigator for the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) on Mars Global Surveyor and for the Therma

A burst of mesospheric cloud activity over Antarctica in January 2003 was caused by the exhaust plume of the space shuttle Columbia during its final flight, reports a team of scientists who studied satellite and ground-based data from three different experiments. The data also call into question the role these clouds may play in monitoring global climate change.

“Our analysis shows that the Columbia’s exhaust plume approached the South Pole three days after launch,” said M

Mobile atmospheric lab gathering climate data

Scientists sponsored by the Department of Energy are conducting a six-month atmospheric research campaign at the Point Reyes National Seashore, in Marin County, California. The experiment’s goal is to help researchers understand how aerosols –small particles such as soot, dust and smoke–influence the structure of marine stratus clouds, and how aerosols are associated with drizzle – the misty rain regularly produced by these types

New technique developed to visualize colliding rock bodies

A team of geophysicists at the University of Colorado at Boulder has developed a new technique to visualize the colliding rock bodies beneath the Himalaya with unprecedented detail, answering a number of questions about the world’s highest mountains and providing a new tool for assessing earthquake hazards.

The study, “Imaging the Indian Subcontinent Beneath the Himalaya” appears in the June 30 issue of the j

Predicted increases in precipitation due to warmer air temperatures from greenhouse gas emissions may actually increase sea ice volume in the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean. This finding from a new study adds evidence of potential asymmetry between the two poles and may be an indication that climate change processes may have varying impacts on different areas of the globe.

“Most people have heard of climate change and how rising air temperatures are melting glaciers and sea ice

Wildfires in Alaska and Canada in 2004 emitted about as much carbon monoxide as did human-related activities in the continental United States during the same time period, according to new research by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The fires also increased atmospheric concentrations of ground-level ozone across much of the Northern Hemisphere.

The NCAR study, which indicates the extent to which wildfires contribute to atmospheric pollution, was publis