A model based on decades of experimental results can now quantify the products of water ice dissociation caused by radiation and predict the products expelled into an icy body’s outer atmosphere.
Terri Cook
Terri Cook is an award-winning freelance writer whose career has focused on exploring and explaining the 4.5-billion-year-history of the remarkable planet we live on. Cook, who has an M.S. degree in Earth science from the University of California, Santa Cruz, writes about geology, ecology, and the environment—as well as wine, tea, hiking, and biking—for a diverse group of publications, including Eos, Scientific American, NOVA Next, Science News, and EARTH magazine, as well as Avalon Travel and numerous other travel-related publications. Her reporting has taken her to 25 states and 20 countries scattered across 5 continents, from the depths of the Grand Canyon to the sandy Australian Outback to the mist-shrouded summit of Bali’s Mount Batur. As the coauthor of three popular guidebooks, including Hiking the Grand Canyon’s Geology and Geology Underfoot Along Colorado’s Front Range, Cook gives frequent presentations about geology and science communication. She is the recipient of a 2016 European Geosciences Union Science Journalism Fellowship and is based in beautiful Boulder, Colo.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Near-Real-Time Tool to Characterize Global Landslide Hazards
By fusing susceptibility information with precipitation data, a new model generates “nowcasts” to predict the potential for rainfall-triggered landslides in steep terrain between 50°N and 50°S.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
New Insights into Continental Deformation in Northwestern Tibet
A new surface velocity map shows strain localized along major strike-slip features, suggesting the central Tibetan Plateau is not deforming as a fluid in response to gravitational collapse.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Improving Tropical Cyclone Predictions in the Gulf of Mexico
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s newest High Resolution Atmospheric Model captures the influence of intraseasonal oscillations on tropical cyclone activity.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Understanding the Effects of Anthropogenic Space Weather
A large plasma hole generated by the vertical launch of the Formosat-5 satellite created temporary navigating and positioning errors of up to 1 meter, according to a new study.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Harnessing Remote Infrasound to Study Volcanic Eruptions
Data from the 2015 eruption of Chile’s Calbuco volcano suggest the international network built to monitor nuclear explosions may also be used to detect and characterize volcanic activity.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Evidence of Extensive Ice Deposits Near Mercury’s South Pole
New radar observations and refined illumination maps reveal uneven water ice deposits twice the size of those found around the planet’s north pole, suggesting the source may be a recent comet impact.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Tailoring Aerosol Injections to Achieve Desired Climate Effects
Two-dimensional simulations of sulfate aerosol injections suggest that solar geoengineering projects can be customized to maximize solar reflection and help achieve potential climate objectives.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Peering Beneath the Powder: Using Radar to Understand Avalanches
High-resolution radar images from Switzerland’s experimental test site show that snow temperature is a key factor in classifying avalanche behavior.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Dust Does Not Control Surface Ocean Productivity
The first continuous comparisons between daily atmospheric dust and ocean productivity measurements indicate that they are not correlated in the Gulf of Aqaba’s nutrient-limited ecosystem.