All things geology, climate, oceans, and more
As world leaders gather in Madrid to come up with solutions to the climate crisis, the people of East African nations such as South Sudan, Kenya, and Somalia are feeling the effects firsthand. Incessant rains throughout the region have spurred flash floods, affecting millions across the region as families are displaced and killing more than…
The tropics are quiet except for one storm. And unfortunately, that storm is a ginormous typhoon. Typhoon Kammuri spun up a week ago and didn’t garner much attention as a run-of-the-mill typhoon in the west-central part of the Pacific Ocean. But it’s picked up serious steam over the past 24 hours right before making landfall…
The eruption of Anak Krakatoa in 2018 produced a tsunami that, for a short while, was somewhere between 330 to 492 feet tall, according to new research. Had the Indonesian shoreline been closer to the volcano, this disaster would’ve been much worse. When Anak Krakatoa erupted on December 22, 2018, it caused a landslide that…
Earth is the best planet, hands down. You should need no reminding of this, but on the off chance you do, allow me to introduce you to Hector. That’s him in the satellite imagery above. Though it make look like a volcanic eruption, Hector is actually a storm system that appears with such regularity that…
There are many things to be thankful on Thanksgiving. This year, the weather for most of the U.S. is not one of them. Two sprawling storm systems will wreak havoc on both coasts. In Northern California, a rare-for-the-region bomb cyclone is sliding ashore on Wednesday while a series of high and low pressure systems will…
New research results show how sound below the range of human hearing can help scientists predict and track tornadoes. Predicting tornadoes is crucial for saving lives. Today, meteorologists rely on Doppler radar signatures as well as context clues, combined with reports from eyewitnesses on the ground. The technology has led to a major increase in…
The city of Sydney—Australia’s most populous and the capital of New South Wales (NSW) state—was swathed in thick smoke on Tuesday morning amid more than 50 bushfires on the state’s east coast, the Guardian reported. According to the Guardian, the smoke over Sydney mostly came “from a huge fire at Gospers Mountain” northwest of the…
Scientists have found deep-sea graphite that might help solve a deep-sea carbonaceous mystery, according to a new study. The deep ocean contains various kinds of carbon, including fresh carbon-based material from sources on the surface and old carbon whose source is unknown. Scientists have theorized different sources for that older carbon, including soot from combustion…
With winter comes changes, many of which are bad. The days get darker sooner. Christmas carols play everywhere. Sure, there are good things about winter, but at least for me, it’s particularly hard to find joy in the early days of the season, when the memory of summer and fall is still fresh. If you’re…
The Midwest woke up this week to weather colder than somewhere between Mars and a witch’s tit. Record-setting temperatures have already been recorded across the U.S. The chill will continue to push into the East Coast on Tuesday, raising the odds of more temperature records falling. A powerful cold front has dropped out of Canada…
Some scientists think the Nile river might be revealing the mysteries of the mantle beneath it. There’s been debate over the age of the Nile—whether it formed from a river redirecting around 5 million years ago or whether a proto-Nile has flowed through the area for 30 million years. If the Nile is older, as…
Wildfires have left a trail of scorched earth around the globe this year from the Arctic to California. Now it’s Australia’s turn to burn. Wildfires lit up the countryside last week, and this week could be even worse. The fire agency in Australia’s most populous state is warning of “catastrophic” bush fire conditions on Monday…
Something foul blew into Kansas City, Missouri on Wednesday night. The air smelled dank as hell (and not in a good way), which some residents described as nasty feet or literal shit, according to local KSHB news. Meteorologists in the region are blaming the smell on the agriculture industry in Minnesota. In other words, people…
California’s Kincade Fire is into its 13th day, and mercifully the blaze is now mostly contained. The scope of the damage, however, has been extensive, as this disturbing new satellite image reveals. This image was taken at 11:01 a.m. PST (2:01 p.m. EST) on November 3, 2019 by NASA’s Terra satellite, according to a NASA…
In a season of flames and blackouts across California, yet another intense wildfire has broken out outside Los Angeles. The Maria Fire, which is mostly affecting residents in Ventura County, has burned more than 8,000 acres so far since exploding on Thursday night. By this morning, however, the flames had spread dramatically. Mandatory evacuations are…
Using satellites and ground stations, scientists have documented an epic lightning flash from 2017 that zipped above three states in the U.S. Southwest. Incredibly, scientists say discoveries of even bigger “megaflashes” are likely. We normally think of lighting as something that moves along the vertical domain, but lightning can also move horizontally, particularly at high…
The northern hemisphere’s quietest tropical cyclone basin is currently going off. Cyclone Kyarr formed on Thursday and quickly spun up in the Indian Ocean into the most powerful storm on the planet. While the storm won’t have a huge impact on land, it’s already making its present felt in the record books in what’s been…
California’s wildfire season arrived with a fierceness earlier this month and conditions have once again become dangerous up and down the Golden State. On Monday, residents near Los Angeles, including basketball star LeBron James, awoke to mandatory evacuation orders as the Getty Fire exploded. Fires also continue to burn in Northern California, including the Kincade…
Blackouts may be coming back to California. PG&E, the state’s largest utility, announced Tuesday it may have to shut off power again to nearly 200,000 customers. Why? Oh, you know, the usual: wildfire risk. Many parts of northern California, including around San Francisco, Sacramento, and San Jose, are under a red flag warning for extreme…
In 2019, good news is in short supply, let alone news showing we can actually solve a pressing global problem. So folks, savor this: The ozone hole hit its smallest maximum extent ever recorded. It just, uh, comes with a tiny caveat. The ozone hole hit its lowest maximum extent on record, in part due…
