Wizened bristlecone pines in California reveal past climate trends, and new research shows how slight variations in landscape position drive different growth patterns in trees’ annual rings.
Research Spotlights
Research spotlights are plain-language summaries of recent articles published in AGU’s suite of 24 journals.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
What’s Missing from Antarctic Ice Sheet Loss Predictions?
Accurately modeling melt rates in specific ice shelf locations is critical for forecasting how Antarctica’s ice sheet will respond to climate change.
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When the River Meets the Sea: Estuary Sediments and Hypoxia
Scientists know that low-oxygen dead zones are growing worldwide. New research sheds light on what that will mean for estuary systems if trends continue.
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Ozone Pollution Deaths in India Higher Than Previously Thought
Reducing emissions could avert more than 300,000 deaths per year by 2050.
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A 192,000-Year Record of Northwest African Fire History
Biomarker analyses from an offshore sediment core suggest that increased fire occurrence around 55,000 years ago coincided with increased fuel loads and human settlement in this region.
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Strategies to Improve Urban Hydrology
Cities can reduce surface runoff and increase groundwater recharge by encouraging their residents to implement simple, hydrologic modifications on individual buildings and single-family parcels.
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Resolving a Cordilleran Conundrum
A novel geophysical technique documents the existence of a “missing” fault, along which major displacement could have occurred during the Cretaceous on North America’s northwest margin.
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Probing the Origin of a New Celestial Phenomenon
The first statistical study of STEVE events suggests that the appearance of these narrow ribbons of light is closely correlated with violent disturbances in Earth’s magnetosphere.
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New Antenna Design Could Improve Satellite Communications
A novel antenna design promises to improve bandwidth and allow for better communication between Earth stations and satellites.
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Local Heat Source Needed to Form Liquid Water Lake on Mars
Thermal modeling suggests that active magmatism in the past few hundred thousand years could account for the presence of a large lake previously hypothesized beneath the Red Planet’s southern ice cap.