I. Climate Change
1. Next-Generation Climate Models Could Learn, Improve on the Fly
Scientists propose development of new models that use machine learning techniques to reduce uncertainties in climate predictions.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/next-generation-climate-models-could-learn-improve-on-the-fly
2. Arctic Sea Ice Becoming a Spring Hazard for North Atlantic Ships
Warming temperatures are melting more Arctic ice, increasing ice mobility and opening channels that are normally frozen shut.
https://eos.org/scientific-press/arctic-sea-ice-becoming-a-spring-hazard-for-north-atlantic-ships
3. Alaska Spotlights Its Health Risks from Climate Change
No state in the United States has experienced the domino effects of climate change quite as rapidly as Alaska has.
https://eos.org/articles/alaska-spotlights-its-health-risks-from-climate-change
4. Sea Ice Loss Suppresses Some Effects of Climate Change
Polar amplification could counteract weather patterns shifting toward the poles.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/sea-ice-loss-suppresses-some-effects-of-climate-change
5. Modeling Global Change Ecology in a High–Carbon Dioxide World
Ignite-style Session, Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting; Portland, Oregon, 11 August 2017
https://eos.org/meeting-reports/modeling-global-change-ecology-in-a-high-carbon-dioxide-world
II. Hazards & Disasters
1. New Model Simulates Faults and Folds Shaping Each Other
A new model simulates how faulting and folding deep in Earth’s crust shape the way rocks fold and cause earthquakes.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/new-model-simulates-faults-and-folds-shaping-each-other
2. How Sudden Stratospheric Warming Affects the Whole Atmosphere
High above Earth’s surface, air temperatures occasionally increase suddenly, producing widespread effects on weather, air chemistry, and telecommunications.
https://eos.org/features/how-sudden-stratospheric-warming-affects-the-whole-atmosphere
3. Solid-Fuel Use Puts Human Health at Risk
Data gaps obscure the full extent of deaths caused by heating homes with wood and other solid fuels.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/solid-fuel-use-puts-human-health-at-risk
III. Ocean Sciences
1. Carbon Release from Permafrost Erosion Along the Yukon Coast
New findings highlight the need to account for large amounts of ground ice contained in frozen soil when assessing Arctic carbon cycling.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/carbon-release-from-permafrost-erosion-along-the-yukon-coast
2. Nutrient-Rich Water Around Seamounts Lures Top Predators
At an Indian Ocean marine refuge, tides drive cold water laden with nutrients onto the tops of underwater mountains, where it sustains a long food chain that culminates in sharks, tuna, and seabirds.
https://eos.org/articles/nutrient-rich-water-around-seamounts-lures-top-predators
IV. Biogeosciences
1. Rocks with Soft-Tissue Fossils Share a Mineral Fingerprint
Discovering new resting places of these rare and information-rich fossils will be critical to understanding the largest expansion of life in Earth’s history, according to researchers.
https://eos.org/articles/rocks-with-soft-tissue-fossils-share-a-mineral-fingerprint
2. Cobalt Key to Development of Early Life on Earth
Cobalt may have played in important role in the early development of life on Earth, and been more available to ancient life than modern due to the higher mafic composition of early continents.
https://eos.org/editor-highlights/cobalt-key-to-development-of-early-life-on-earth
V. Geology & Geophysics
1. What Happens Inside Rocks as They Fail?
An innovative technique provides micro-scale resolution on the three-dimensional evolution of damage within crystalline rocks that leads to fault nucleation.
https://eos.org/editor-highlights/what-happens-inside-rocks-as-they-fail
2. An Improved Understanding of How Rift Margins Evolve
A new seismic reflection study of the mid-Norwegian margin examines the role that low-angle, high-displacement faults play in the evolution of continental rifts.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/an-improved-understanding-of-how-rift-margins-evolve
3. Lunar and Planetary Science Inspires Out-of-This-World Poetry
Writing a haiku to accompany your abstract is a long-standing tradition of the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Here are some of our favorites from this year’s program.
https://eos.org/geofizz/lunar-and-planetary-science-inspires-out-of-this-world-poetry
VI. Geophysical Research Letters
1. A First Look at Decadal Hydrological Predictability by Land Surface Ensemble Simulations
The prediction of terrestrial hydrology at the decadal scale is critical for managing water resources in the face of climate change. Here we conducted an assessment by global land model simulations following the design of the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) decadal hindcast experiments, specifically testing for the sensitivity to perfect initial or boundary conditions. The memory for terrestrial water storage (TWS) is longer than 6 years over 11% of global land areas where the deep soil moisture and aquifer water have a long memory and a nonnegligible variability. Ensemble decadal predictions based on realistic initial conditions are skillful over 31%, 43%, and 59% of global land areas for TWS, deep soil moisture, and aquifer water, respectively. The fraction of skillful predictions for TWS increases by 10%–16% when conditioned on Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation indices. This study provides a first look at decadal hydrological predictability, with an improved skill when incorporating low‐frequency climate information.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2018GL077211
Whistler mode chorus waves are particularly important in outer radiation belt dynamics due to their key role in controlling the acceleration and scattering of electrons over a very wide energy range. The efficiency of wave‐particle resonant interactions is defined by whistler wave properties which have been described by the approximation of plane linear waves propagating through the cold plasma of the inner magnetosphere. However, recent observations of extremely high‐amplitude whistlers suggest the importance of nonlinear wave‐particle interactions for the dynamics of the outer radiation belt. Oblique chorus waves observed in the inner magnetosphere often exhibit drastically nonsinusoidal (with significant power in the higher harmonics) waveforms of the parallel electric field, presumably due to the feedback from hot resonant electrons.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GL076957
3. Assessing the Decadal Predictability of Land and Ocean Carbon Uptake
The decadal predictability of carbon fluxes has been examined over continents and oceans using a “perfect model” approach based on a 400 year preindustrial simulation and five 10‐member ensembles from the Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques‐Earth System Model version 1. From these experiments, we find that the global land uptake and ocean carbon uptake are potentially predictable by up to six years, with a median predictability horizon of four years. Predictability of global carbon uptake is prominently driven by the ocean's predictability. The difference in predictability between ocean and land carbon fluxes stems from the relative capability of ocean or land to generate low‐frequency fluctuations in carbon flux. Indeed, ocean carbon fluxes display low‐frequency variability that emerges from the year‐to‐year variability in the North Atlantic, the North Pacific, and the Southern Ocean. The Southern Ocean carbon uptake can be predicted up to six years in advance and explains most of the global carbon uptake predictability.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GL076092
4. A possible link between winter Arctic sea ice decline and a collapse of the Beaufort High?
A new study by Moore et al., (2018, this issue) highlights a collapse of the anticyclonic 'Beaufort High' atmospheric circulation over the western Arctic Ocean in the winter of 2017 and an associated reversal of the sea ice drift through the southern Beaufort Sea (eastward instead of the predominantly westward circulation). The authors linked this to the loss of sea ice in the Barents Sea, anomalous warming over the region, and the intrusion of low‐pressure cyclones along the eastern Arctic. In this commentary we discuss the significance of this observation, the challenges associated with understanding these possible linkages, and some of the alternative hypotheses surrounding the impacts of winter Arctic sea ice loss.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2018GL077704
Future projections of declining snowpack and increasing potential evaporation are predicted to advance the timing of snowmelt in mountain ecosystems globally with unknown implications for snowmelt‐driven forest productivity. Accordingly, this study combined satellite‐ and tower‐based observations to investigate the forest productivity response to snowpack and potential evaporation variability between 1989 and 2012 throughout the Southern Rocky Mountain ecoregion, USA. Our results show that early and late season productivity were significantly and inversely related, and that future shifts toward earlier and/or reduced snowmelt could decrease snowmelt water use efficiency and thus restrict productivity despite a longer growing season.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL076504
VII. AGU Blogs
1. August 2017 SpaceX rocket launch created large circular shock wave
The unusual trajectory the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took when delivering a Taiwanese satellite into orbit last August created an atmospheric shock wave four times bigger than the area of California, a new study finds.
https://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2018/03/21/august-2017-spacex-rocket-launch-created-large-circular-shock-wave/
2. Wind, sea ice changes suggest climate change in western Arctic
A major shift in western Arctic wind patterns occurred throughout the winter of 2017 and the resulting changes in sea ice movement are possible indicators of a changing climate, according to authors of a new study.
https://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2018/03/20/wind-sea-ice-changes-suggest-climate-change-in-western-arctic/
3. New study finds space radiation is increasingly more hazardous
As future missions look to travel back to the moon or even to Mars, new research cautions that the exposure to radiation is much higher than previously thought and could have serious implications on both astronauts and satellite technology.
https://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2018/03/16/new-study-finds-space-radiation-is-increasingly-more-hazardous/
4. Wairoa: a significant valley-blocking landslide in New Zealand
A significant valley-blocking landslide has occurred on a tributary of the Wairoa River, to the west of Gisborne, in the North Island of New Zealand. The landslide is large – Radio New Zealand reports about 80 million tonnes (presumably about 30 million m³), and Google Earth indicates that it is over 1 km long. The Mangapoike River, the specific tributary of the Wairoa Rver, is blocked. The impounded lake is currently about 50 m deep and is rising at 60 cm per day. There is a significant risk of a breach, but fortunately this is a sparsely populated area of New Zealand. Reports suggest that it was triggered by a localised earthquake earlier in March 2018.
https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2018/03/22/wairoa-1/
5. Planet Labs image of the Mae Moh mine landslide
On 19th March Planet Labs captured an image of the Mae Moh mine landslide in Thailand, which I featured yesterday. Thailand is a hazy environment, which renders high quality images quite challenging, but the image is plenty good enough to appreciate the scale and impact of the landslide. This image, captured on 13th March (a few days before the slide), shows the conditions prior to the failure.
https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2018/03/21/mae-moh-mine-landslide-2/
