I. Ocean Sciences
1. Trump Administration Scrutinizing Protected Ocean Areas
A U.S. federal agency is taking a close look at 11 U.S. national marine sanctuaries and national marine monuments that were designated or expanded within the past decade.
The review, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began on 26 June, follows a 28 April White House executive order entitled “Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy.”
https://eos.org/articles/trump-administration-scrutinizing-protected-ocean-areas
2. Challenges and Opportunities for Coastal Altimetry
The 10th edition of the Coastal Altimetry Workshop series was organized by the European Space Agency (ESA) with additional support from 10 other institutions. This workshop brought together nearly 120 scientists from 28 countries. A SAR altimetry training course for students and young researchers (also organized by ESA) took place in parallel in Florence.
https://eos.org/meeting-reports/challenges-and-opportunities-for-coastal-altimetry
II. BIOGEOSCIENCES
1. Changes in Groundwater Flow Affect Nitrogen Cycling in Streams
Beneath a streambed lies the hyporheic zone, where stream water and groundwater meet and mix. This mixing allows dissolved materials—such as oxygen, nitrogen, and other nutrients—to cycle between the stream and the hyporheic zone, influencing biological processes and water quality.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/changes-in-groundwater-flow-affect-nitrogen-cycling-in-streams
III. GEOLOGY & GEOPHYSICS
1. Distant Earthquakes Can Cause Underwater Landslides
New research finds large earthquakes can trigger underwater landslides thousands of miles away, weeks or months after the quake occurs.
Researchers analyzing data from ocean bottom seismometers off the Washington-Oregon coast tied a series of underwater landslides on the Cascadia Subduction Zone, 80 to 161 kilometers (50 to 100 miles) off the Pacific Northwest coast, to a 2012 magnitude-8.6 earthquake in the Indian Ocean – more than 13,500 kilometers (8,390 miles) away. These underwater landslides occurred intermittently for nearly four months after the April earthquake.
https://eos.org/scientific-press/distant-earthquakes-can-cause-underwater-landslides
2. Science Societies Update Joint Stance on Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) Board of Directors approved an update to a joint position statement titled “The Capability to Monitor the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) Should Be Expanded, Completed, and Sustained.” The statement, originally adopted by AGU and the Seismological Society of America (SSA) in 1999, expresses the confidence of both societies that the scientific monitoring capabilities available to monitor compliance of the CTBT will meet goals for treaty verification and enforcement.
https://eos.org/agu-news/science-societies-update-joint-stance-on-nuclear-test-ban-treaty
IV. CLIMATE CHANGE
1. Contrary Temperature Trend Stalls Upgraded Climate Model’s Debut
Many researchers around the world use a digital representation of Earth’s land, water, and air known as the Community Earth System Model (CESM) to mimic and predict the evolution of our planet’s climate. To enable those climate modelers to simulate global climatic behavior with ever greater precision and fidelity, scientists who work to improve CESM expected to unveil the results of the model’s next big version, CESM2, at a workshop in Boulder, Colo., last month.
https://eos.org/articles/contrary-temperature-trend-stalls-upgraded-climate-models-debut
2. Assessing a New Clue to How Much Carbon Plants Take Up
Climate change projections include an Achilles heel: We don’t know enough about feedbacks from the terrestrial biosphere. Plants and other organisms take in carbon dioxide (CO2), which they use to manufacture their own food, using photosynthesis. This process lets ecosystems sequester atmospheric CO2, creating one of the largest known feedbacks in the climate system. But models of the global climate system differ greatly in their estimates of carbon uptake, leading to critical uncertainties in global climate projections.
https://eos.org/features/assessing-a-new-clue-to-how-much-carbon-plants-take-up
V. HYDROLOGY, CRYOSPHERE & EARTH SURFACE
1. Aquatic Ecosystems in a Changing Climate
Extreme climate events (ECEs) such as tropical storms and hurricanes, thunderstorms, heat waves, droughts, ice storms, and snow storms have increased and are projected to further increase in intensity and frequency across the world. These events are expected to have significant consequences for aquatic ecosystems with the potential for large changes in ecosystem processes, responses, and functions.
https://eos.org/meeting-reports/aquatic-ecosystems-in-a-changing-climate
VI. AGU Blogs
1. U.S. About to Fall Further Behind in Long Range Weather Forecasting
The Europeans are now testing a new version of their ECMWF model with a resolution of around 9 km, and so far it looks very good. Not that the present model isn’t since we forecasters now depend on it heavily for long range forecasts beyond 2-3 days. The NOAA GFS model is almost always the least accurate and that is not my subjective opinion.
