Researchers compared caribou tracking data with satellite observations to learn whether snowpack conditions trigger the animals’ arduous annual migration.
snow
Tourism and Distant Fires Affect Antarctica’s Black Carbon Levels
Tourism and biomass burning in the Southern Hemisphere are boosting black carbon levels and accelerating ice melt in Antarctica.
Rain Comes to the Arctic, With a Cascade of Troubling Changes
Rain used to be rare in the Arctic, but as the region warms, so-called rain-on-snow events are becoming more common. The rains accelerate ice loss, trigger flooding, landslides, and avalanches, and create problems for wildlife and the Indigenous people who depend on them.
Changing Snowpack Inspires New Measurement
Climate change is bringing increased variability to annual snowfall, which affects how much water is stored for ecosystem and human use.
Shifting Winter Storms Bring More Flooding to India
Western disturbances are hanging out over India for longer, adversely affecting water security in the country.
Warming Experiment Explores Consequences of Diminished Snow
The SPRUCE ecosystem in northern Minnesota offered a setting to research exactly how a snowy environment responds to rising temperatures.
California Mountains Face Weather Whiplash
Last month’s massive snowstorm in the Sierra Nevada followed a dry start to winter. Such extremes in precipitation may become the norm.
Moving at the Speed of Snow
Snowflakes take many routes from cloud to ground. Large, soft flakes swirl and tumble gently from above. Sharp, painful bits of ice get spit from the sky in a sideways burst. Mushy, wet snow falls in clumps. The ways in which snow travels through the air seem nothing short of complicated. But a new study […]
Spring Heat Waves Pack a Punch for Snowpacks in the Pacific Northwest
New research shows how the snowpack loss due to moderate springtime heat waves outweighed that of a record-shattering summer heat dome.
Iron Snow Ebb and Flow May Cause Magnetic Fields to Come and Go
Lab experiments find that iron crystals in planetary cores may form in bursts, causing periodic dynamos.