Scientists apply machine learning to demonstrate that geosynchronous satellites can be used to assess the health of oceans from deep space.
Editors’ Highlights
Why Are Thunderstorms More Intense Over Land Than Ocean?
A new perspective on convective instability sheds light on the factors controlling intensity in the rising motions that produce precipitation, and occasionally thunder and lightning, over land.
From Measurements to Solar Wind Model Initial Conditions
A new method shows how solar wind measurements at Earth can be used to define initial conditions for solar wind models to reduce their need for solar magnetic maps and decrease their uncertainty.
Visualizing and Hearing the Brittle–Plastic Transition
Simultaneous optical, mechanical, and acoustic measurements reveal that brittle microcracking and crystal-plastic twinning in calcite generate distinguishable acoustic signals.
Cows, Coal, and Chemistry: The Role of Photochemistry in Methane Budget
Recent increases in atmospheric methane are a result of changing natural and manmade sources, climate, and other less-understood factors linked to its role in the atmosphere’s self-cleaning mechanisms.
Calibrating the Clocks: Reconciling Groundwater Age from Two Isotopes
A new quantitative model corrects for tracer-based age biases from 39Ar and 14C isotopes leading to more accurate estimates of groundwater residence times.
Kyanite Exsolution Reveals Ultra-Deep Subduction of Continents
Laboratory experiments provide the first experimental evidence that continental rocks can be subducted to depths greater than 300 kilometers and return to the surface.
Coastal Coralline Algae Naturally Survive Persistent, Extreme Low pH
Time-series monitoring shows that a coastal coralline algae reef is naturally exposed to extreme low pH levels, suggesting potential adaptation of this biodiverse habitat to future ocean acidification.
How Satellite Data Helped Avoid Hunger from Drought
Satellites detecting anomalies of the spectral reflectance of crops in Uganda successfully foretold imminent crop failure and automatically triggered timely governmental disaster relief.
ALMA’s New View of the Solar System
High-resolution radio observations link the chemistry of local moons and comets to the birth environments of distant exoplanets.
