Scientists have discovered what they think may be another reason why Greenland's ice is melting: a thin spot in Earth's crust is enabling underground magma to heat the ice. They have found at least one "hotspot" in the northeast corner of Greenland -- just below a site where an ice stream was recently discovered.

NASA satellites have provided evidence that the chilling effect of dust was responsible for one-third of the drop in North Atlantic sea surface temperatures between June 2005 and 2006, possibly contributing to the difference in hurricane activity between the two seasons.

As the 140th Anniversary of the last big earthquake on the Hayward Fault approaches, new U.S. Geological Survey studies provide mounting evidence that the Bay Area should get ready for another big quake soon.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration today released a new report, The State of Deep Coral Ecosystems of the United States, called for in the President's Ocean Action Plan. The peer-reviewed report, prepared by NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program, provides a baseline for future research and management of these unique and vulnerable ecosystems.

In a mission of unprecedented scale, scientists are about to cover West Antarctica with a network of sensors to monitor the interactions between the ice and the earth below--24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The National Science Foundation just awarded the collaboration, called POLENET, $4.5 million to plant global positioning system trackers and seismic sensors on the bedrock that cradles the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Researchers have found that when residents of the U.S. southeastern states look skyward for rain to alleviate a long-term drought, they should be hoping for a tropical storm over a hurricane for more reasons than one. According to a new study using NASA satellite data, smaller tropical storms do more to alleviate droughts than hurricanes do over the course of a season by bringing greater cumulative rainfall.

Two researchers spent months in Greenland scouring through old expedition logs and reports and reviewing 70 year-old maps and photos before making a surprising discovery: They found that the effects of the current warming and melting of Greenland 's glaciers that has alarmed the world's climate scientists, occurred in the decades following an abrupt warming in the 1920s.

Past Earth Science and Climate Change News

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