Have you ever wondered why some people get really sick with COVID while others have hardly a sniffle, or are completely asymptomatic when exposed to the disease? The answer lies in their genetics. Researchers have uncovered that the key to avoiding illness is carrying...

A couple of days ago, an extraterrestrial capsule landed in the Utah desert. Yes, really! The OSIRIS-REx (“Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer”) capsule returned, bringing back NASA’s first-ever asteroid samples,...

Heavy rainfall from Cyclone Daniel, the deadliest and costliest Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone in recorded history, led to catastrophic flooding and destruction in Libya a few weeks ago. Thousands of people died, with 10,000 more still missing. However, it wasn’t...

As fall arrives in the Northern Hemisphere, many people will either be participating in sports or attending sporting events (e.g., football games). Did you know that, globally, sports contribute the same level of emissions as a medium-sized country? From...

Traffic. We’ve all been in it. But why does it happen? Aside from construction and accidents causing it, doesn’t it seem like sometimes traffic happens for no good reason? Indeed, ‘phantom’ or ‘shockwave’ traffic jams, caused by a chain reaction of slowing down, do...

For decades, Antarctic sea ice seemed to be immune to climate change – growing in places and staying steady in others – while Arctic sea ice has seen serious decline. But this came to an end in 2016, with significant decreases to the sea ice. In fact, 2017 has a...

This past weekend, California was under warning. Not for an earthquake or wildfire, but for an approaching hurricane! It’s been 80 years since a tropical storm has made landfall in California, when a storm called El Cordonazo scored a direct hit on Los Angeles. As...

Summer in the Northern Hemisphere has seen a trail of devastation left behind: wildfires scorching Hawaii, Canada and Portugal; drought plaguing Indonesia for four, long hot months; marine heat waves occurring in 40% of the world’s oceans, the most since satellite...

Have you ever walked into a workplace, shopping mall, or movie theater in the heat of summer and find that you need to wear an extra layer, because the air conditioning is too cold? Researchers have calculated that air conditioning is responsible for 2 billion tons of...

To accompany Florida's state highpoint (Britton Hill), here is a new Science Wednesday short video on sharks. A new movie, Meg 2: The Trench, is out in theaters in a couple of days, about the megalodon shark. Get the facts in my new science video! How old is this...

Millions of people are feeling the heat – literally – from relentless heat waves this summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Smoky skies from wildfires are aggravating certain health conditions. Flooding is damaging communities and people are losing their lives and their...

Located about 50 miles northwest of Columbus, Ohio, Campbell Hill, at 1,549 feet, is Ohio’s state highpoint. The “hill” is actually a glacial moraine, left behind by the massive Laurentide Ice Sheet that covered millions of square miles of Canada and the Northern...

Ecology is the scientific study of interactions among organisms and their environment. It focuses on understanding how living organisms, including plants, animals, and microorganisms, interact with each other and their physical surroundings, such as air, water and...

For the last couple of weeks, parts of the southern US and Mexico have been enduring severe heat, with temperatures soaring to record highs in several cities in Texas. For example, Del Rio, a city on the Texas/Mexico border, has seen 8 straight days with daily record...

Most likely, we’ve all heard this before: eating a high-fiber diet is good for you. But now a new study published in Nature Communications reveals some potential mechanisms for WHY. In a nutshell, when it comes to calories from high-fiber whole foods versus...

Redcloud and Sunshine Peaks are 14ers (peaks over 14,000 feet) in the remote San Juan Mountains in Colorado. These are among the largest (by area), most varied and, one can argue, most scenic mountains in the state. Volcanism in this area began about 35 million years...

Earlier this week, scientists from NOAA and the Scripps Institution for Oceanography (at UC San Diego) announced that the carbon dioxide levels measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii have peaked at 424 parts per million (ppm) during the month of May. You may...

Granite Peak, the highest point in the state of Montana, located in the Beartooth Mountains, is known for its technical climbing routes and, because of this, along with poor weather and the challenging route-finding, it is considered one of the most difficult of the...

This Science Wednesday explores Mauna Kea, the state highpoint of Hawaii at 13,796 feet, and Mauna Loa, which houses a climate observatory on the north flank of the volcano at an elevation of 11,135 feet above sea level. The observatory is a premier atmospheric...

It’s an honor being part of the BIG: North Pole 2022 (Before It’s Gone) Project, which has been sampling snow and ice across the Arctic, looking at presence and impacts of heavy metals, microplastics and black carbon (BC). Last week in Iceland, I picked up their...

Hvannadalshnúkur is a peak on the northwestern rim of the summit crater of the Öræfajökull volcano, the highest active volcano in Iceland. It’s situated in Vatnajokull National Park and the summit, at nearly 7,000 feet, is Iceland’s highest peak. Öræfajökull has...

If you’re a coffee drinker, take note! Climate change is expected to have a significant impact on the global coffee industry, as coffee plants are sensitive to changes in temperature, rainfall patterns, and humidity, which can affect their growth, yield, and quality....

The National Renewable Energy Lab’s Flatirons Campus is home to the National Wind Technology Center in Arvada, Colorado. On the campus, there are a few research turbines for studying more efficient blade design, powering capabilities beyond just the campus (feeding...

As climate continues to change, it’s important that we start planning for a sustainable future – now. NREL, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, Colorado, is a leader not only in the development of renewable energy technologies but also in making a...

When scientists talk about rising sea levels, they are referring to land-based ice that ends up in the water. Sea ice is frozen ocean and, while it doesn’t change sea levels, it plays a very important role in regulating our climate. First off, sea ice acts as a...

Now that it’s spring in the Northern Hemisphere, I was interested in taking a look back to our winter here in Colorado. It seems like it’s been quite cold – since November! Looking at the data, indeed, this is the coldest winter we’ve had (in Denver) since 2010....

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet, long thought to be the more stable part of the ice in the land down under, way under, contains enough ice that, when melted, could raise sea levels up to 52 meters (170 feet). While the West Antarctic ice sheet (containing ice that, when...

The state of California has been dealing with an unprecedented amount of moisture this year, thanks to a slew of long, narrow currents of exceptionally wet air called atmospheric rivers. Much like a river is water that moves over land, an atmospheric river is water...

The North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, where I work as head of communications, strives to help natural and cultural resource managers use actionable and open data, tools, and innovative science and information to...

Warmer-than-usual temperatures in Antarctica (1.5 degrees Celsius above normal, on average across the continent and upwards of 3 degrees Celsius above normal in the Peninsula) are having an impact not only on sea ice melt, glacial melt, and snow melt this season....

It’s summer right now in Antarctica. So, you might expect there to be less sea ice (the ice that freezes in the ocean). And indeed, there is. But this year is exceptional in that winds and warmer air and water have reduced sea ice extent to its lowest amount since...

“February 2023 will be a moment in time of a gathering of great minds for commitments to resolve what it takes, to move from where we are now to get to a better future. This can be Your Legacy; you can help change the current course from a catastrophic outcome to a...

Diet fads come and go, and, in the long run, don’t actually do much to help people keep off the weight that they may initially lose. So, what can potentially work, aside from exercise and eating healthy, like we talked about a few weeks ago? Do we really need three...

At Taum Sauk Mountain, Missouri’s highpoint (1,772 feet), a light-colored rock can be found along the ground. Upon closer inspection, it is not a sedimentary rock, like one might expect in the middle of the contiguous United States. Instead, it is an igneous volcanic...

As we’re at the International Blues Challenge this week, it follows that this week’s Science Wednesday is about music! Pitch is based on frequency relationships among sounds. The basic pitch structure is an interval, or a pair of frequencies presented melodically...

A parade of strong storm systems has brought much needed relief to drought-stricken California over the last month. However, this is turning into a case of “too much of a good thing” as atmospheric rivers – long, narrow currents of exceptionally wet air - are dumping...

We hear about “healthy eating” all the time, but how does that actually transform into tangible and tasty meals when it comes time to eat? Healthy eating is much more about eating nutrient-dense foods than simply restricting calories. Just because a food is high in...

It’s that time again – when resolutions are made for the New Year – when we’re extra motivated to tackle goals and put past failures behind us. But for the majority of people, these pledges last only a few weeks into the New Year. A research study dating back to the...

Extreme weather events from 2022, ranging from heat waves to historic low river water levels to drought and wildfire, highlight a destabilized climate and a precursor of what’s to come in the future. The last few years have experienced cooling due to the La Niña...

Some people – especially cruise-goers – may know the “polar plunge” as taking a dip in the frigid waters (like the Arctic or Antarctic Ocean). But another polar plunge, resulting in air temperatures 30 – 50 degrees lower than normal in some regions, is coming to the...

Splitting and combining atoms both produce heat and energy. We’re already familiar with fission, as this is the process used in nuclear reactors and atomic bombs. It involves a large atom splitting into two or more smaller ones. Fusion, just as its name implies,...

A few weeks ago, Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, situated on the island of Hawaii showed signs of activity such as low-magnitude earthquakes and inflation of the ground, testament to underground magma on the move. Just this weekend, the 74-mile behemoth...

The Artemis I mission took off spectacularly last week and made a close approach to the Moon this week, inspiring hope for the next phase of planetary exploration. This includes a return of humans to the Moon and building a lunar base. Given the exposure to radiation...

Over the last 200 million years, Antarctica’s climate has changed from a long-lived warm period during the age of the dinosaurs, when lush forests covered the land, to progressively cooler climates, to the ice-covered landscape we see today. Antarctica is also home to...

We’re currently in the southernmost Argentine province, named Tierra del Fuego. The first Europeans (Spaniards during Magellan’s 1520 expedition) who came to explore the southern tip of South America saw the campfires of the native inhabitants of the area (the...

Imagine walking down a beach and then suddenly seeing thousands of mismatched pairs of shoes – Nike shoes – washed up ashore. This actually happened in November 1990 along Oregon’s coast. Six months earlier, in May 1990, a storm struck a carrier en-route to the United...

This week I’m at the National Adaptation Forum in Baltimore, Maryland, representing the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (University of Colorado Boulder). The Forum gathers the adaptation community to foster knowledge exchange, innovation, and mutual...

It’s Science Wednesday! A few weeks ago, we heard about the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission that managed to successfully impact its target asteroid, Dimorphos. It was a first-of-its-kind mission, demonstrating usage of asteroid deflection technology in...

While here in Albuquerque for an Early Career Workshop with the regional climate adaptation science centers, I fit in a trail run with friends and colleagues at the Piedras Marcadas Canyon. It offers a unique and beautiful insight into the geologic, cultural, and...

This season has seen an active Atlantic, most recently with hurricanes Fiona and Ian, leading to loss of lives and causing billions of dollars of destruction in Puerto Rico, Cuba and Florida. Strong tropical cyclones, called hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the...