News by Subject Atmospheric Science

A 14,000-year paleoecological reconstruction of the sub-Antarctic islands led by University of Maine researchers has found that seabird establishment occurred during a period of regional cooling 5,000 years ago. Their populations, in turn, shifted the Falkland Islands ecosystems through the deposit of high concentrations of guano that helped nourish tussac, produce peat and increase the incidence of fire.

Geological investigations of low-temperature young deposits on the Styrian Erzberg provide paleoclimatology with new data on the earth's history and its development.

The first analysis of a sedimentary drill core representing 1 million years of environmental history in the East African Rift Valley shows that at the same time early humans were abandoning old tools in favor of more sophisticated technology and broadening their trade, their landscape was experiencing frequent fluctuations in vegetation and water supply that made resources less reliably available. The findings suggest that instability in their landscape was a key driver of human adaptability.

Tropical cyclones, regionally known as hurricanes or typhoons, have been moving across ocean basins faster since 1982, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

252 million years ago at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic epochs, Earth witnessed a mass extinction event that extinguished about three-quarters of all species on land and some 95 percent of all species in the ocean. Volcanic activity in today's Siberia has long been debated as a likely trigger of this event. Now, an international team of researchers provides for the first time a conclusive reconstruction of the key events that led to the mega-catastrophe.

Species on the Antarctic Peninsula are threatened by climate change and human activities including commercial fishing, tourism, and research infrastructure. A coalition of over 280 female scientists are pushing for a Marine Protected Area ahead of a meeting of governments to decide this on October 19. These women are part of an initiative to raise the profile of women in STEMM for better global outcomes.