Taxonomy term

harvey leifert

Ceres: A bright spot in the asteroid belt

Orbiting in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Ceres is the nearest dwarf planet to Earth and the only one within the inner solar system. It has been studied closely by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft since March 2015.

28 Mar 2018

Dividing line: The past, present and future of the 100th Meridian

In 1878, John Wesley Powell first advanced the idea that the climatic boundary between the United States’ humid East and arid West lay along the 100th meridian, which
runs from pole to pole and, today, cuts through six U.S. states. But what does it really mean, and what is its future?
22 Jan 2018

Climate change linked to specific weather events for the first time

Three extreme weather events that occurred in 2016 would not have been possible in Earth’s pre-industrial climate, according to the sixth annual report on the attribution of extreme weather events issued Dec. 13 by NOAA and the American Meteorological Society (AMS). This marks the first time that researchers have concluded that a specific weather event would not have been possible without the influence of humans.

14 Dec 2017

An undersea volcano yields its secrets

One of the world’s most active volcanoes has been seen by only a handful of humans, because it lies about 1.5 kilometers below the surface of the Pacific Ocean and 470 kilometers west of the Oregon-Washington border. Nevertheless, the Axial Seamount on the Juan de Fuca Ridge is one of the best studied of all volcanoes, thanks to the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), a global network of seven arrays consisting of more than 800 instruments.

19 Dec 2016