Voices: Geologists on the wrong side of the law

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:51:09 -0500

Many of L'Aquila's buildings were reduced to rubble during the April 6 earthquake. INGV

We live in a litigious society. Engineering and environmental geologists are no strangers to the legal system. They frequently deal with issues relating to geologic hazards such as active faults and unstable ground, the release of contaminants into the environment and numerous other circumstances. But for the most part, geoscientists tend to avoid legal battles. Is that changing?

Blogging on EARTH: Second dispatches from EGU

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

EARTH’s Carolyn Gramling is in Vienna, Austria, at the European Geophysical Union meeting this week. Here are a few more sessions that she has found interesting (for more from the meeting, see her first “Dispatches”).

Differentiating natural from human influence on the Sahel

The Sahel, the semi-arid transition zone south of the Sahara Desert, supports about 50 million inhabitants and is particularly vulnerable to changes in precipitation. In 1975, meteorologist Jule Charney of MIT suggested that desertification in the region — the advance of the Sahara into the Sahel — might be due to overgrazing, through a biogeophysical feedback mechanism. Charney suggested that the removal of vegetative cover would increase the albedo over the region, reflecting more radiative energy back into space. That, in turn, would reinforce the sinking circulation of dry air masses in the troposphere; those dry air masses would produce less rainfall, which in turn would foster even less plant growth.

Geothermal Energy on EARTH Magazine

Voices: Geologists on the wrong side of the law

Blogging on EARTH: Second dispatches from EGU

Differentiating natural from human influence on the Sahel