Earth Sciences

Hamilton College professor/students publish findings in JACS

Researchers at Hamilton College have identified several methods for successfully determining the structures and thermodynamic values for the formation of atmospheric water clusters, which scientists have speculated may accelerate global warming. The Hamilton team’s findings were published in the March 3 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The greenhouse effect is caused by molecules that abs

Having marked its first anniversary on orbit, NASA’s Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite has hit its stride. In concert with other satellites, SORCE’s observations of the sun’s brightness are helping researchers better understand climate change, climate prediction, atmospheric ozone, the sunburn-causing ultraviolet-B radiation and space weather.

In fall 2003, SORCE was fortunate to see and measure exceptionally high levels of the sun’s activities. In

The Vanuatu island arc, in the South-West Pacific, is 1 700 km long. It corresponds to a convergence zone where the Australian plate is slipping eastwards under the North Fiji Basin, which is part of the Pacific plate, thus generating earthquakes. On 26 November 1999, the central islands of Vanuatu, particularly Ambrym and Pentecost, were strongly shaken by a 7.5 magnitude surface earthquake followed by a tsunami. The earthquake and the many landslips it generated caused 10 deaths and considerable d

Visible from ESA’s Proba spacecraft 600 kilometres away in space are the largest of the many Nasca Lines; ancient desert markings now at risk from human encroachment as well as flood events feared to be increasing in frequency.

Designated a World Heritage Site in 1994, the Lines are a mixture of animal figures and long straight lines etched across an area of about 70 km by 30 km on the Nasca plain, between the Andes and Pacific Coast at the southern end of Peru. The oldest lines date from a

Slow-moving ground water slows down water-quality improvements in Chesapeake Bay Ground water supplies about half of the water and nitrogen to streams in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and is therefore an important pathway for nitrogen to reach the bay, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study. Too many nutrients, most of all nitrogen, are the principal cause for poor water-quality conditions in the Chesapeake Bay.

The ground water moving to streams in the Bay watershed has a

In a few decades, it’s likely that scientists will look back at the early part of the 21st century and regard it as a fundamental stage in understanding the importance of the effects of aerosols on Earth’s climate. In fact, it was in this time period, they may say, that aerosols were first found to be as climatologically significant as greenhouse gases.

Aerosols, tiny atmospheric particles made up of various elements and produced by a range of sources, have become a prominent conc