American Geophysical Union

More than 100 volcanoes pimple the adolescent skin of Alaska, spreading from ear to ear. Some are loud, flamboyant and obnoxious. Others are sneaky and quiet, escaping notice until a pilot sees a gray plume that wasn’t there yesterday.

The post Sifting volcanic paydirt to help forecast eruptions appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

On 5 October 2019, a 20,000 cubic metre landslide on the Heifangtei terrace in Gansu, China was successfully forecast based upon the monitoring of movement. 

The post A successful landslide forecast from Heifangtai, Gansu appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

Communicating with Curiosity requires creating a plan and transmitting it through various networks, including the Deep Space Network. Sometimes, one of these networks is down, and our plan does not get to the rover.

The post Sols 2546-2547: Brrrr – Is It Frosty? appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

Dr. Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading produced an image last year that made my jaw drop. It now has a name. Climate Stripes. Hawkins assigned colours to the Earth’s temperature since 1850, and it powerfully shows how the planet is warming. It’s rapidly becoming as well known as what may be the most important science image of the last century, Dr. Michael Mann’s famous hockey stick. The hockey …

The post Ed Hawkins “Climate Stripes” May be the Most Important Science Image so Far in This Century appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

New research in AGU’s journal Space Weather indicates storms like the 1859 Carrington Event are not as rare as scientists thought and could happen every few decades, seriously damaging modern communication and navigation systems around the globe.

The post Extreme solar storms may be more frequent than previously thought appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

Hey, let’s go back to Angel Island for today’s Friday fold. We’ve been there once, twice, thrice previously. The rocks in question are metaconglomerates that Jess Ball and I found at first only as float on the beach at Camp Reynolds, like these two examples: …Look at those beautiful elongated pebbles, transected by wee white veins! Where there’s float, there may be outcrop — Sure enough, with a minute or …

The post Friday fold: Angel Island “IV” appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

On 1st October 2019, another significant tailings dam failure occurred in Brazil, this time at Nosso Senhora do Livramento in Mato Grosso.

The post Nosso Senhora do Livramento: another tailings dam failure in Brazil appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

Just before the 2019 fiscal year ended on 30 September, the Senate Committee on Appropriations marked up and advanced ten of its twelve fiscal 2020 bills. We did a deep dive into one of the major science funding bills in Part 1 of our Senate appropriations breakdown. In this post, we’ll take a closer look into the spending bills that fund the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the Environmental Protection …

The post Senate Rejects Proposed Cuts, Expands Science Funding – Part 2 appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

Just before the 2019 fiscal year ended on 30 September, the Senate Committee on Appropriations considered and advanced ten of its twelve fiscal 2020 bills, including spending bills that fund the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).   Over the next two posts, we’ll detail the Senate’s spending and programmatic highlights for federal Earth and space science …

The post Senate Rejects Proposed Cuts, Expands Science Funding – Part 1 appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

With the climate strikes happening all over the world, I sometimes wish I had a crystal ball that would allow me to look into the future. Or even better, a crystal ball that could show me different scenarios of what will happen if we change, or not. Well, I do not have a crystal ball, but I do have a global scale hydrological model.

The post Groundwater pumping poses worldwide threat to riverine ecosystems appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

Contaminants from volcanic eruptions leach into water at different rates depending on the shape of the volcanic ash particles, according to new research that could enhancing scientists’ ability to predict water quality risk in volcanically active regions.

The post Shape of volcanic ash influences contamination of water sources in volcanically active regions appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

Curiosity is continuing through its list of analysis details that take place after taking a drill sample. Today's main activity is a SAM gas chromatograph column clean-up. Meanwhile, there is time to take environmental observations and more remote-sensing data.

The post Sol 2545: SAM Clean-Up and a Potpourri of Remote Sensing and Environmental Observations appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

On Friday, 27 September, President Trump signed into law a continuing resolution (CR) that will keep the government funded through 21 November 2019. The CR extends 2019 funding levels into the start of Fiscal Year (FY) 2020, which began on 1 October. Although this means that science agencies will remain operational, while under a CR agencies cannot award new grants, plan new programs, or budget appropriately. Additionally, the CR can …

The post Funding Update: Continuing Resolution keeps government open, appropriations continue appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

A splendid new paper (Walter et al 2019) provides detailed analysis of the precursory behaviour leading up to the Anak Krakatau flank collapse in December 2018

The post Precursors to the Anak Krakatau flank collapse appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

Ofhidro Glacier glacier terminus change an accumulation zone changes from 1986-2019 in Landsat images.  Red arrow=1986 terminus, yellow arrow=2019 terminus change, orange arrows expanding bedrock areas and purple dots snowline.  Ofhidro Glacier is an outlet glacier on the northwest corner of the Southern Patagonia Icefield (SPI), that has a northern and southern arm terminating in a proglacial lake. Sakakibara and Sugiyama (2014)a examine the terminus change and velocity of SPI …

The post Ofhidro Glacier, Chile Retreat 1986-2019 appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

A new study finds land planets, which have equal to or less than 10 percent of the volume of Earth’s water, can remain habitable at a closer distance to their host star if most of their water is at the planet’s poles. This means the habitable zone for these types of planets may be different than previously assumed.

The post Water distribution affects exoplanets’ habitable zone appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

This image shows nine laser pits forming a line down the "Glen Etive 2" drill hole. Shock waves from the laser impact at the lowest point cleared debris that had settled at the bottom of the hole to allow analysis of the hole wall at that depth.

The post Sol 2543: Dumping Dirt on its Back appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

Curiosity's late afternoon view: This image was taken by the Front Hazard Avoidance Camera onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 2536 (2019-09-25 00:12:06 UTC). It shows the same view as the image in the sols 2538-2539 blog, just in a very different light!

The post Sol 2540-2542: Go, SAM, go! appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

Dina Abdel-Fattah is a natural resources and sustainability PhD candidate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Though she currently calls Alaska home, she has lived in Egypt, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Netherlands, Turkey, Germany, Nepal, and Sweden. When she’s not in work mode, you can find her trail running and cross-country skiing. Follow her work on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/dinaabdelfattah/) and Twitter (@Gruene_Partei).   This article was originally published by Sister in partnership with Science Rising …

The post More Than Just a Scientist: My Journey Weaving Science and Politics appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.

As the 2019 summer monsoon draws to a close, Planet Labs are starting to collect cloud free images of the devastating landslides in Kerala, India

The post Kerala – satellite images of the landslides from the summer monsoon appeared first on AGU Blogosphere.