Category: Earth Science Education
How can you tell when a scientific claim is bad? Look at the results. Compare the results from the models with what happened in real life. An August 2010 study published in Science claimed that drought induced a decline in global plant productivity during the past decade, posing a threat to global food security. Zhao […]
On September 12, 2011, a team of scientists announced that the HARPS telescope has identified more than 50 new planets; this is the largest number of planets ever announced at once. The HARPS telescope works by detecting the movement of stars. A star with an orbiting planet will be pulled towards the planet as it […]
Permafrost, the thick layer of soil that remains frozen throughout the year, currently holds a large amount of carbon. If the permafrost thaws, it will release the stored carbon, which could contribute to further warming. This is not new news. What is new is the idea that high latitude areas will become a carbon source […]
Today’s Wall Street Journal ran a story about using beavers to raise the water table and rehabilitate natural areas. Beavers? How can beavers do this? Photo by Walter Siegmund Beaver dam of Hat Lake and Hat Creek in foreground. Bridge over Hat Creek on highway 89, Lassen Volcanic National Park. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BeaverDam_8409.jpg Beavers are rodents that live […]
For the past five days, Hurricane Irene affected the weather for residents on the East Coast. For the Northeastern United States, the forecasts of the storm’s intensity turned out to be wrong; the storm weakened more than meteorologists had expected. At the same time, the prediction of where the storm would go was very good. […]
Graphs are often used to show data; they provide a very powerful way to show numerical trends. But graphs can also be done poorly and be misinterpreted. (Source: http://xkcd.com/925/) In the comic, the man in the hat has made a graph that shows the incidence of cancer in the United States with the number of […]
Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology have discovered that “Snow White,” a dwarf planet officially named 2007 OR10, is actually red. Time to come up with another name! But why was it called Snow White to begin with? It was originally called Snow White because Mike Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech, […]
Scientists have known for a long time that ocean currents affect climate. The big unanswered question is how ocean currents change during the periods of greatest change–from ice ages to periods of global warming. During the Eocene period, 38 million years ago, the Antarctic had a temperate climate. What is now the midwest United States […]
A new study has been published disproving the previous explanation for the end of the Marinoan ice age, also known as “Snowball Earth.” That ice age ended abruptly about 600 million years ago. The debunked explanation stated that methane bubbled up from the oceans and was consumed by microbes, which released carbon dioxide into the […]
The Earth is getting warmer. In warmer climes, decomposition occurs more quickly. This releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, leading to further warming. But it needn’t get completely out of control–trees (and other plants) can come to the rescue! A recent study in a central Massachusetts forest has shown that increased temperatures do indeed […]