Earth Sciences

Earth’s climate is being changed substantially by a buildup of atmospheric greenhouse gases, but a group of leading climate scientists contends the overall impact is not understood as well as it should be because data are too scarce on how much energy the planet reflects into space.

Reflectivity, or albedo, is largely governed by clouds and atmospheric particles called aerosols, but it is one of Earth’s least-understood properties, said Robert Charlson, a University of W

After 30 years of dimming, the planet’s surface is brightening, an international collaboration concludes this week in Science magazine

Earth’s surface has been getting brighter for more than a decade, a reversal from a dimming trend that may accelerate warming at the surface and unmask the full effect of greenhouse warming, according to an exhaustive new study of the solar energy that reaches land. Ever since a report in the late 1980s uncovered a 4 to 6 percent decline of sunlig

Scientists have discovered a mass graveyard of bird-like feathered dinosaurs in Utah. The previously unknown species provides clues about how vicious meat-eaters related to Velociraptor ultimately evolved into plant-munching vegetarians.

Discovery of the bizarre new species, Falcarius utahensis, is reported in the Thursday May 5 issue of the journal Nature by paleontologists from the Utah Geological Survey and the Utah Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah.

“CSI-like” techniques, used on minerals, are revealing the steps that led to evolution of the atmosphere on Earth. President of the Mineralogical Society of America, Douglas Rumble, III, of the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory, describes the suite of techniques and studies over the last five years that have led to a growing consensus by the scientific community of what happened to produce the protective ozone layer and atmosphere on our planet. His landmark paper on the subject

A new era for ocean and earth science research began this week as the Southampton Oceanography Centre changed its name to the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. The name change coincides with the arrival of the Centre’s new Director, Professor Ed Hill, who took up the post on 1 May.

Said Professor Hill, “The formal designation as a National Centre, with the accompanying change of name, is a natural progression for the Centre. It reinforces its position and reflects the expectatio

Duke University engineers have led the most detailed analyses of links between some lightning events and mysterious gamma ray emissions that emanate from earth’s own atmosphere. Their study suggests that this gamma radiation fountains upward from starting points surprisingly low in thunderclouds. Counter-intuitively, these strong gamma outbursts also seem to precede associated lightning discharges by a split second.

“All of this comes as a huge surprise,” said Steven Cummer, an as