Earth

Carbon dioxide pumped into the air since the Industrial Revolution appears to have changed the way the coastal ocean functions, according to a new analysis published this week in Nature.

A comprehensive review of research on carbon cycling in rivers, estuaries and continental shelves suggests that collectively this coastal zone now takes in more carbon dioxide than it releases. The shift could impact global models of carbon's flow through the environment and future predictions related to climate change.

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 2, 2013 – As an acoustical engineer, Craig Dolder – currently a graduate student at the University of Texas, Austin – knew that loud noises can damage hearing. Even so, when Canada's Formula 1 Grand Prix coincided with an Acoustical Society of America (ASA) meeting that he was attending in Montreal, Quebec, earlier this year, Dolder was drawn to the racetrack and the deafening roar of the Formula 1 engines.

And he brought his sound level meter with him.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Coastal portions of the world's oceans, once believed to be a source of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere, are now thought to absorb as much as two-thirds more carbon than they emitted in the preindustrial age, researchers estimate.

Massive earthquakes that strike deep within the Earth may be more efficient at dissipating pent up energy than similar quakes near the surface, according to new research by Wei et al. The authors analyzed the rupture of the most powerful deep earthquake ever recorded.

Researchers from the University of Southampton have identified regions beneath the oceans where the igneous rocks of the upper ocean crust could safely store very large volumes of carbon dioxide.

For the past three decades, as the climate has warmed, the massive plates of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean have shrunk: In 2007, scientists observed nearly 50 percent less summer ice than had been seen in 1980.

Regional climate changes can be very rapid. A German-British team of geoscientists now reports that such a rapid climate change occurred in different regions with a time difference of 120 years. Investigation in the west German Eifel region and in southern Norway demonstrated that at the end of the last glaciation about 12,240 years before present climate became warmer, first recognised in the Eifel region and 120 years later in southern Norway. Nonetheless, the warming was equally rapid in both regions.

A team working at the SACLA X-ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL) in Japan has succeeded in generating ultra-bright, two-color X-ray laser pulses, for the first time in the hard X-ray region. These light pulses with different wavelengths, whose time separation can be adjusted with attosecond accuracy, are very powerful tools to investigate the structure of matter and the dynamics of ultrafast physical processes and chemical reactions.

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Deep inside the dramatic subpolar fjords of Antarctica, researchers from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa have discovered an unexpected abundance and diversity at the seafloor. During a recent expedition, UH scientists for the first time studied the seafloor communities of glacier dominated fjords along the west Antarctic Peninsula, a region undergoing very rapid climate warming.

PLOS ONE publishes "Assessing Dangerous Climate Change: Required Reductions of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature" from James Hansen and colleagues, and announces call for papers on responses to climate change:

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 27, 2013 – Our voice can reveal a lot about us: our age, our gender, and now – it seems – our height as well. A new study by researchers at Washington University, UCLA, and Indiana University found that listeners can accurately determine the relative heights of speakers just by listening to them talk. The key clue may be contained in a particular type of sound produced in the lower airways of the lungs, known as a subglottal resonance.

Private development along the edges of most public forests in Oregon and Washington more than doubled since the 1970s, a new study conducted by the U.S. Forest Service Pacific's Northwest (PNW) Research Station has found.

Small test strips made of silver or other metals, called "coupons," are frequently used to assess and predict the speeds at which metals used in outdoor environments—pipelines, aircraft, bridges, as well as countless other types of infrastructure and machinery—will succumb to corrosion.

"Silver is commonly used as a coupon, so it's important to understand what controls its corrosion rate," explains Gerald Frankel, director of the Fontana Corrosion Center, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 27, 2013 – The mating roar of a male harbor seal is supposed to attract a partner, not a predator. Unfortunately for the seals, scientists have found evidence that marine-mammal-eating killer whales eavesdrop on their prey. The researchers will present their work at the 166th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), held Dec. 2 – 6 in San Francisco, Calif.