All things geology, climate, oceans, and more
The grim news of fatal floods doesn’t end. In Iran, where people have been celebrating the start of their new year called Nowruz, flash floods have killed at least 24 people and injured over a hundred, according to the New York Times. According to local news, at least 19 died in the city of Shiraz…
A pair of fierce tropical cyclones—Cyclone Trevor and Cyclone Veronica—are poised to strike Australia on two coasts within a day of each other, prompting mass evacuations as well as official warnings of severe and dangerous weather. A state of emergency was declared in Australia’s Northern Territory this week ahead of Trevor’s second landfall early Saturday.…
Forget Cancun. Spring break in Alaska is where it’s at. Bizarre March warmth has engulfed the Frontier State, setting an all-time temperature record in the latest manifestation of a new climate gripping the Arctic. On Tuesday, Klawock, Alaska topped out at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. That marks the earliest 70-degree Fahrenheit day ever recorded in Alaska.…
The Midwest floods continue to be a slow-moving disaster. Towns, farms, and infrastructure are still underwater in Nebraska, and water will take months to work through the vast network of rivers, creeks, and streams that drain the Upper Midwest into the Gulf of Mexico. The damage to the region could last much longer than that,…
Cyclone Idai is on track to becoming the deadliest tropical cyclone on record for the Southern Hemisphere. The storm, which struck the southeastern coast of Africa with the strength of a Category 2 hurricane last week, almost obliterated the city of Beira in Mozambique, home to some 500,000 people. While the country’s death toll currently…
On November 11, 2018, a deep rumble ricocheted around the world, one that humans couldn’t feel but that registered quite clearly on seismometers. A new pre-print paper about the event is now suggesting that it was caused by the largest offshore volcanic event in recorded history. Originating 30 miles east of the island of Mayotte,…
When last week’s bomb cyclone hit the Midwest, it was hard to imagine the inundation it could bring amid whiteout conditions and more than a foot of snow. But the warm weather that wrapped in behind it quickly melted out all that white stuff and unleashed historic flooding across parts of Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota,…
On March 15, a rare, giant cyclone made landfall in Mozambique before making its way west to Malawi and Zimbabwe. By Saturday, Cyclone Idai had dissipated, but not before causing widespread infrastructural damage throughout eastern Africa and claiming more than 200 lives, reports Al Jazeera. The Mozambican city of Beira, the fourth largest in the…
Historic flooding has followed in the wake of the “bomb cyclone” that rammed into the central U.S. this week, with USA Today reporting that Nebraska experienced what may be the worst floods in half a century. Flooding has continued in swathes of Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska, according to CNN. A bomb cyclone occurs when—as happened…
Scientists in India observed the highest-voltage thunderstorm ever documented with the help of a subatomic particle you might not hear much about: the muon. The researchers operate the GRAPES-3 telescope, which measures muons, particles that are similar to electrons but heavier. Specifically, the Gamma Ray Astronomy at PeV EnergieS Phase-3 (GRAPES-3) muon telescope measures high-energy…
For about six to 12 hours as the sun dips low on the horizon in the late spring and early summer, an Antarctic ice shelf comes alive. Tiny quakes rattle the ice by the hundreds of thousands—and their existence could help scientists track how glaciers are melting across the frozen continent. These quakes, documented in…
The massive, dangerous bomb cyclone that barreled into the central United States this week hit as hard as its name would imply on Wednesday, CNN reported, with law enforcement officials in some areas forced to take shelter instead of assisting motorists involved in collisions. This particular storm began far west, where moisture from the Pacific…
While the U.S. is under assault from a historic bomb cyclone, another freaky storm is spinning the southern hemisphere. Cyclone Idai strafed through Madagascar earlier this week and is now on track to make landfall in Mozambique on Thursday night with major impacts. Idai has had a bit of a wild ride. The storm began…
Scientists observed waterfalls forming simply through the movement of water downhill in a new laboratory study—a result that could complicate our understanding of Earth’s history. Waterfalls may be beautiful and awe inspiring, but they’re also windows into the past, signaling changes in sea level, tectonic activity, or climate change. But if waterfalls can form without…
The country’s midsection is about to be hit by a rare, potentially record setting bomb cyclone that will bring everything from rain to snow to hurricane-force winds and could leave severe flooding in its wake from Texas to Minnesota. So if you live in that area, listen up! The mayhem is already beginning as moisture…
When Kate Smith brings her samples into the lab, she has to wear a special suit. Even a speck of dust brought in on her shoes could contaminate the samples. What makes them so delicate? Well, Smith’s samples are honey—sweet, sweet honey that can tell the story of what chemicals have infiltrated the environment near…
California’s 2018 is officially the worst year for wildfires in recorded state history, the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday, citing the National Interagency Coordination Center’s year-end statistical analysis. The 1.8 million acres of California land that burned last year was more than any other state in 2018, and it far surpassed 2017’s tally of…
In the 18th-century English ballad The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a storm drives a sailor’s ship toward the South Pole, where he encounters all manner of fantastical sights, including floating icebergs “as green as emerald.” It may sound like author Samuel Coleridge was taking some poetic license, but emerald-colored icebergs are a real thing—and…
In California, a wet winter no longer protects landscapes from the kind of intense wildfires the state’s been experiencing lately. A new study published Monday analyzed the historical relationship between wet winters and extreme wildfires. Over the past 400 years, the two rarely overlapped, but that’s all changing now. The paper, published in the Proceedings…
Antarctica is huge, stretching nearly 3,500 miles at its widest extent. Despite its enormous size, however, the frozen continent features a paltry amount of habitable space—a limited resource that humans have claimed as their own to the potential detriment of the local wildlife, as new research points out. Typically, issues such as climate change and…
