A synthesis of paleotemperature reconstructions from published case studies suggests warm onshore temperatures persisted across most of Afro-Arabia between 1000 and 1200 CE.
history
A Window into the Emerging Anthropocene…Through Art
Want a snapshot of how humans have been changing their landscapes since the Industrial Revolution? Look at artwork at a local museum, one geoscientist says.
Corn’s Ancestor Could Help It Go Green
The grandfather of modern corn may hold the key to reducing its need for chemical fertilizers.
Mystery Quakes May Be Among World’s Longest-Lived Aftershocks
New evidence about where a major earthquake struck central Washington State 145 years ago raises the possibility that today’s unusually frequent quakes in the area still echo that 1872 event.
Atmospheric Particles Aren’t the Same Cloud Seeds They Once Were
Still, more than half of the seeds required for cloud droplets to form in both the present-day and preindustrial atmospheres are made by trace gases that condense to form minute aerosol particles.
Ocean Showers Power the Global Electric Circuit
Satellite measurements confirm hundred-year-old observations collected by boat.
Volcanic Woes May Have Contributed to Ancient Egypt’s Fall
Ice cores and ancient river records suggest that volcanic eruptions may have reduced the flow of the Nile River. Failures of the Nile floods that usually irrigated Egypt’s farms could have fed social unrest.
How to Trigger a Massive Earthquake
Humans may be to blame for California’s second-largest 20th century earthquake, and a team of seismologists has now proposed how that could have happened.
Stories in the Soil
A series of field experiments in the U.S. Midwest is investigating how past, present, and future human activities and climate affect the health of soil.
Sooty Bird Bellies Yield Insights into Historical Air Pollution
A new study mined museum collections to investigate just how sooty the air in the United States has been for the past 135 years.