A census of hundreds of slow-moving landslides in Northern California reveals an uptick in the number and speed of landslides in 2017, the second-wettest year on record.
rain
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Landslide Activity Ramps Up With Extreme Rainfall
An increase in activity of hundreds of slow-moving landslides during extreme wet conditions in California provides insights into the landscape response to ongoing climate change.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
The Ups and Downs of Rainfall in Chad Since 1950
A new study finds that rainfall rates are recovering in some cities since a 1966–1990 dry spell, but precipitation is still down overall since 1950.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Ordinary Security Cameras Could Keep an Eye on Rainfall
A new opportunistic sensing strategy could use existing closed-circuit television networks to accurately capture rainfall intensity, despite low-cost equipment and visually complex scenes.
Posted inFeatures
Gauging in the Rain
Measuring how much water falls from the sky is more complicated than it seems. To improve measurements, researchers are looking at umbrellas, hydrophones, and gamma ray detectors.
Posted inNews
Atacama’s Past Rainfall Followed Pacific Sea Temperature
This is the first paleoclimate record of precipitation near Atacama’s hyperarid core and suggests that its moisture source is different from that of the Andes.
Posted inNews
Take Weather Prediction with a Grain of Salt and It Gets Better
Sea surface salinity is starting to rival other methods for seasonal rain forecasting.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Precipitation in the Tropics: A New View
The first study to simultaneously investigate precipitation and cloud structures in tropical weather systems concludes observation systems significantly overestimate the height of raining clouds.
Posted inNews
Atacama Desert’s Unprecedented Rains Are Lethal to Microbes
Rainfall in the driest parts of Chile’s Atacama Desert in 2017 resulted in hypersaline lagoons that killed the majority of microbes adapted to millions of years of arid conditions.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
The Acid Tongue of Climate Change Strikes Our Streams
Clear air policies have led to dramatic reductions in acid rain and improved ecosystem health, but it now appears that climate change could counteract those gains.