The experimental design used in climate vulnerability assessments can strongly influence the assessments’ findings and skew decisions about which factors are most important for informing adaptation.
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 Promising Development for Detecting Ocean Productivity
A comparison of primary productivity measurements across the North Pacific Ocean demonstrates the potential for using autonomous instruments to discern effects of climate change on the marine food web.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A New Way to Fingerprint Drivers of Water Cycle Change
Simulations of tropical ocean convection help distinguish climate effects resulting from large-scale changes in atmospheric circulation from those resulting from higher temperatures.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Experimenting with Underwater Sediment Slides
Sediment-laden currents caused by breaching flow slides are hazardous to flood defenses and seabed infrastructure. New research shows that these phenomena must be accounted for in erosion simulations.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Lake Ice—and Ecosystems—in a Warming World
Extending ice records and standardizing sampling protocols are among recommendations to help researchers better predict how changing ice cover will affect aquatic ecosystems.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Corals Make Reliable Recorders of El Niño Fluctuations
A new tool that reconciles modeling and paleoclimate data builds confidence that tropical Pacific corals reliably archive natural variability in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation climate pattern.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How Are Microplastics Transported to Polar Regions?
New modeling indicates that global subsurface ocean currents distribute submerged microplastics along very different routes than those traveled by floating plastic debris.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Distant Quake Triggered Slow Slip on Southern San Andreas
A high-resolution map of surface displacements indicates that the 2017 Chiapas earthquake caused substantial creep along a segment of the San Andreas Fault, located 3,000 kilometers away.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
New Volcanic Complex Found Below the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea
Researchers have identified a previously unknown volcanic-intrusive complex that originated through the melting of mantle material at the northern edge of the Ionian slab.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Past Climate Sensitivity Not Always Key to the Future
New research suggests that changes in continental configuration, solar brightness, and background atmospheric carbon dioxide levels all conspire to drive Earth’s climate sensitivity over geologic time.