Archeologists have long assumed the evolutionary development of strong, thick-enameled teeth coincides with a mammals shift to a diet of field grasses. However, a new study in Nature Communications shows some Argentine mammals developed sturdy chompers in response to gritty volcanic dust that appeared in their tropical rainforest habitat. “The assumption about grasslands and the evolution of these teeth was based on animal fossils,” said co-author Caroline Strömberg, from Earth and Space Sciences.
Read more »Snow's no easy task to forecast
Snow is hard. This is a fact of meteorological life. A forecaster trying to predict snowfall has to track many variables: the amount of precipitation, the intensity of precipitation, the air temperature, the surface temperature, the atmospheric structure, the timing of everything, the migration of the rain/snow line, and so on. ATMO’s Cliff Mass is mentioned in this discussion of the challenges of snow-casting; Read the full article from the Washington Post.
Read more »The Flooded Earth: a preview of the book
The National Center for Science Education is offering a free preview (PDF) of ESS’ Peter D. Ward‘s The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps
Read more »New study foces on predicting El Niños
Weather forecasters have long known that El Niño events can throw seasonal climate patterns off kilter, particularly during winter months. Now new research from JISAO and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationsuggests that a different way to detect El Niño could help forecasters predict the unusual weather it causes. Andrew Chiodi is a co-author; click here to read more.
Read more »Quest underway to quantity, movements, origins and forms of Deep Carbon - Phys.org
From Earth’s surface to hundreds of kilometers deeper than oilmen drill, the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) is investigating the surprising quantity of carbon in the deep, dark Earth beyond photosynthesis. Co-authored by OCEAN’s John Baross, the book Carbon in Earth outlines questions that will guide DCO’s program through 2019 and beyond. Click here to read more about this project.
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