Fine particulate matter from dust storms can exacerbate respiratory diseases, and now scientists have shown that critical care hospital visits spike during and after such events.
Research Spotlights
Research spotlights are plain-language summaries of recent articles published in AGU’s suite of 24 journals.
“Mushballs” May Drive Ammonia Transport on Jupiter
Hail might account for observed depletions of ammonia in the planet’s atmosphere.
A GOLDen Way to Study Space Weather
A NASA mission is observing airglow in the upper atmosphere and uncovering what it tells us about Earth’s space weather system.
Megaripple Migration Offers Insights into Martian Atmosphere
The movement of large sand ripples, documented for the first time, suggests Mars is windier than we thought.
Sudden Oak Death Taking a Toll on U.S. West Coast
Researchers have been modeling effects of the plant pathogen Phytophthora ramorum on coastal forests in California and Oregon since it arrived on the West Coast 3 decades ago.
In Vegetation Growth Studies, What You Measure Matters
Different satellite-based metrics for global vegetation coverage tell complementary, but not identical, stories.
Corals Make Reliable Recorders of El Niño Fluctuations
A new tool that reconciles modeling and paleoclimate data builds confidence that tropical Pacific corals reliably archive natural variability in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation climate pattern.
Altitude Matters for Solar Eclipse Observations
The path of a solar eclipse through Earth’s ionosphere, which can be quite different than it is at ground level, appears to explain patterns of ionized particle depletions.
¿Cuántas Modificaciones Puede Aguantar el Ciclo de Agua de la Tierra?
El marco teórico que estudia los límites planetarios define cuánta perturbación humana pueden soportar los diversos procesos del sistema terrestre, pero puede que no describa adecuadamente el ciclo del agua o la medida en que lo hemos alterado.
Estuary Research Suffers from Scientific Bias
Researchers are calling for a closer look at nutrient cycling in tropical and low-nutrient estuaries, which have long been overlooked in the scientific literature.
