Search Results for: ocean

As part of the Earth System Science Pathfinder small-satellite program, NASA has selected a new space mission proposal led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., that will yield fresh insight into how oceans affect and respond to climate change — knowledge that will help better life here on Earth. The mission, named Aquarius, promises to explore the saltiness of the seas in order to understand how the massive natural exchanges of water between the ocean, atmosphere and sea ice

The Brazilian World Cup celebrations may have started to die down, but in space the never-ending football match between the Sun and Earth continues. And watching this match closely are Salsa, Samba, Rumba and Tango, the four satellites that make up the Cluster mission. They are performing their Brazilian dances 119 000 kilometres above our heads. With all the grace and skill of the Brazilian players on the football field, the spacecraft making up the Cluster quartet are currently chan

The average back garden may contain twice as many species as have so far been identified on the whole planet, according to a study published today by British scientists.

But gardeners would need a microscope to observe the massive biodiversity, which exists almost entirely among micro-organisms in the soil.

Using new methods of analysis, Dr Tom Curtis, of the Department of Civil Engineering, Newcastle University, England, and colleagues, estimated that a tonne of soil could contain

As film buffs queue to watch the new Spider-man movie, geography students from the University of Sussex have gone one better by discovering a new species of spider in the wild.

The second year undergraduates were taking part in a field course to the Seychelles, one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet. As part of this trip the students were responsible for helping to set insect traps in the Vallée de Mai, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Praslin, the second-largest island in

Scientist continues to build case for origin of plate tectonics

A Saint Louis University geologist has unearthed further evidence in his mounting case that shifting of the continents — and perhaps life on Earth — began much earlier than many scientists believe.

Tim Kusky, a professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences, has discovered the world’s first large intact pieces of oceanic mantle from the planet’s earliest period, the Archean. The nearly mile-long section of rock,

Capping two years of research, a nationwide group of over 100 scientists has created a powerful new computer model of the Earth’s climate. The model surpasses previous efforts by successfully incorporating the impact of such variables as ocean currents and changes in land-surface temperatures.

Researchers will use the model, called CCSM-2 (Community Climate System Model, version 2) to probe how our climate works and to experiment with “what-if” scenarios to predict what our climate may be l