In spring of 2011, University at Buffalo hydrogeologist Chris Lowry hammered a giant measuring staff into the bottom of a pond in Western New York

“When other planes are grounded, this pilot heads straight for the storm!” says a recent Washington Post profile.

In late August citizen scientists took to the streets to collect real-time data about the hottest places in Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

U.S. Geological Survey field crews are measuring flooding throughout Texas as rainfall moves across the state.

In the Mediterranean region, there are numerous UNESCO World Heritage Sites in low-lying coastal areas. These include, for example, the Venetian Lagoon, the Old City of Dubrovnik and the ruins of Carthage. In the course of the 21st century, these sites will increasingly be at risk by storm surges and increasing coastal erosion due to sea-level rise. This is the conclusion of one of the first large-scale studies, carried out by doctoral researcher Lena Reimann from the Department of Geography at Kiel University (CAU), together with Professor Athanasios Vafeidis and international partners. The team published their results in the current issue (Tuesday 16 October) of the renowned journal Nature Communications.

As winter in New England seems to get warmer, fall lingers longer and spring comes into bloom earlier, areas like northern New Hampshire and western Maine are seeing an unusual continued increase in winter ticks which are endangering the moose population. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire have found that the swell of infestations of this parasite, which attaches itself to moose during the fall and feeds throughout the winter, is the primary cause of an unprecedented 70 percent death rate of calves over a three-year period.

Ground penetrating radar isn’t something from the latest sci-fi movie. It’s actually a tool used by soil scientists to measure the amount of moisture in soil quickly and easily.

When NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over the Eastern Pacific Ocean on Oct. 16 the MODIS instrument aboard analyzed water vapor within Tropical Storm Tara.

Winds blowing across snow dunes on Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf cause the massive ice slab’s surface to vibrate, producing a near-constant set of seismic “tones” scientists could potentially use to monitor changes in the ice shelf from afar, according to new research.

It may be a small correction, but it is far from negligible as far as forest ecologists and carbon cycle specialists are concerned. The error lay in a formula established almost 50 years ago (in 1971) for calculating basic wood density. Given that basic density is used to assess the amount of carbon stored in a tree, the fact that the formula had to be corrected meant that forest carbon stocks may have been overestimated by 4 to 5%. "This new formula should enable us to determine more accurately the role of forests in the carbon cycle and the impact of deforestation on climate change" , says Ghislain Vieilledent, an ecologist with CIRAD who was the corresponding author of the work published in the journal American Journal of Botany on 16 October.