The Arctic Oscillation has been linked to wide-ranging climate effects in the Northern Hemisphere, but new evidence shows that in recent decades it has been the key in preventing freezing temperatures from extending as far south as they had previously.
Author: Vince Stricherz
I spent more than 20 years as a reporter and editor in broadcast, print and wire service news, and have been covering physical sciences at UW for more than a decade. I currently cover Earth and space sciences, chemistry and physics, and also handle some editing duties for UW Today and the Faculty & Staff Insider Web pages.
A giant “corpse flower,” native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra, is inching closer to blooming in the University of Washington botany greenhouse. The event is expected to occur within the next several days.
University of Washington researchers on Monday will discuss the first scientific results from Canada’s Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) — findings that will bolster the understanding of neutrinos from the sun, of the sun itself and of the effect of neutrinos on the evolution of the universe.
As the Earth’s average temperature has risen in the last half-century with the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, many scientists have come to see clouds as the biggest puzzle in interpreting the planet’s changing climate picture because they reflect so much of the sun’s heat into space.
For years, scientists have known that Eurasian weather turns on the whim of a climate phenomenon called the North Atlantic oscillation. But two University of Washington researchers contend that the condition is just a part of a hemisphere-wide cycle they call the Arctic oscillation, which also has far-reaching impact in North America.
Like a collage of photographs showing a human being from infancy to old age, a striking new picture unveiled today by a University of Washington astronomer shows various stages in the life cycle of stars, all occurring at one time.
Chemicals trapped in ancient glacial or polar ice can move substantial distances within the ice, according to new evidence from University of Washington researchers. That means past analyses of historic climate changes, gleaned from ice core samples, might not be entirely accurate.
Scientists trying to replicate conditions that existed in the first microsecond after the Big Bang have discovered that gold ions ramming each other at nearly the speed of light produce a surprisingly powerful but unexpectedly brief explosion.
Scientists know that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide have risen sharply in recent years, but a study released today in Paris reports a surprising and dramatic increase in the most important greenhouse gas — water vapor — during the last half-century.
The United States seriously lags behind England and Germany when it comes to computer-driven climate research, and a University of Washington scientist says it is time to take dramatic steps toward leadership in the field.
Third annual University of Washington astronomy department open house
While the Puget Sound region was being shaken by the magnitude 6.8 Nisqually earthquake, George Thomas and his University of Washington team were preparing for the next temblor – and the one after that.
The University of Washington’s research into understanding and finding life in the universe received a major boost today with a multimillion-dollar grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and membership in NASA’s Astrobiology Institute.
The ground in the Puget Sound region didn’t just shake during the magnitude 6.8 Nisqually earthquake, it moved — literally.
The Puget Sound region is being plagued by rumors that another major earthquake is imminent, but University of Washington scientists say the rumors are being fueled by people who have no scientific basis for their far-fetched claims.
A committee of leading physicists today advocated the renovation of the 125-year-old Homestake Gold Mine in the Black Hills of South Dakota as a unique underground science laboratory.
Seismologists, geologists and engineers from the University of Washington, the United States Geological Survey and the private sector discuss specific information about Wednesday’s magnitude 6.8 Nisqually earthquake, including results from the strong-motion network; after-effects such as landslides and liquefaction; potential economic impact; current damage; and hazards that might lie ahead
University of Washington scientists today were finding evidence of liquefaction in areas south of downtown Seattle, some of them heavily damaged in Wednesday’s major earthquake.
University of Washington scientists using gravity measurements to hunt for evidence of dimensions in addition to those already known have found that those dimensions would have to occupy a space smaller than 0.2 millimeter.
Rumors that record sub-zero temperatures will hit Seattle next week are based on sketchy data and have virtually no chance of coming true, a University of Washington scientist said today.
Argentine penguins are turning up off the coast of Brazil in record numbers, and a University of Washington scientist believes it is because unusually prolonged cold water has kept their food supply – primarily sardines, anchovies and squid – farther north much longer than usual.
The greatest mass extinction in Earth history eliminated 85 percent to 90 percent of all marine and land vertebrate species 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian Period and the beginning of the Triassic. New evidence from researchers at the University of Washington and the South African Museum shows the extinction was accompanied by a massive loss of vegetation, causing major changes in river systems.
A researcher at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington and a Japanese colleague have found similarities in bone structure suggesting that birds did, in fact, evolve from a group of dinosaurs.
A state-of-the-art University of Washington research aircraft will be a key element in the Southern Africa Regional Science Initiative (SAFARI 2000) campaign, taking low-altitude readings that will be correlated to data from a high-flying NASA aircraft and from a satellite that is part of NASA’s Earth Observing System.
Climbers who conquer the world’s highest peak are about one-third as likely to die during descent if they use supplemental oxygen during the journey than if they rely only on the limited oxygen in thin mountain air, a University of Washington researcher has found.
It’s a smaller world after all – that is, if new measurements by University of Washington physicists turn out to be correct. Their new calculations for the Earth’s mass came from work that could establish the most precise measurement ever achieved of Isaac Newton’s gravitational constant.
WHAT: Second annual University of Washington Astronomy Department open house.
Steve Malone began studying Mount St. Helens in 1973. He didn’t know that just seven years later he would be tracking swarms of earthquakes signaling that the mountain was about to blow its top.
Since the discovery of the Seattle Fault in the early 1990s, many people have worried how the region’s most-recognizable sports stadium would fare in a major earthquake. Now scientists hope the planned destruction of the Kingdome will give them a better picture of the fault and its associated risks to downtown Seattle.
A short-term climate cycle that builds in the Indian Ocean and moves eastward through the equatorial Pacific Ocean is a key factor in the formation of hurricanes and tropical storms over the Gulf of Mexico and the western Caribbean Sea, University of Washington researchers have found.
University of Washington research, to be published in the Feb. 17 edition of the journal Nature, suggests the health of the ecosystem is rooted in a complex codependency between plants and animals that produce organic matter and simple organisms that break it down.
A new book by two University of Washington scientists contends that, contrary to popular thought, we just might be alone and Earth might be unique, if not in the universe at least in this celestial neighborhood.
The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years will occur Thursday and, barring cloudy skies, Northwest residents should get some spectacular views.
The Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium’s recent move into new offices could be profitable for K-12 teachers throughout the Northwest, giving them easy access to a wealth of science teaching materials produced by the nation’s space agency.
To paraphrase an old car ad, “This is not your father’s universe.
Seventy-five years after Edwin Hubble demonstrated that the universe extended beyond the Milky Way, three University of Washington astronomers using the telescope that bears his name have made some surprising discoveries about one object of his research.
A growing body of evidence indicates that a climate phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation has wide-ranging effects in the Northern Hemisphere and operates differently from other known climate cycles.
A new technique using ice-penetrating radar is allowing scientists for the first time to reveal long-ago changes in West Antarctic ice streams, rivers of ice believed to be linked to the stability of the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet
A plume of pollution that crossed the Pacific Ocean from Asia earlier this year contained ozone at levels high enough to violate a new federal ozone standard.
Can Washington, Oregon and Idaho handle average temperatures more than 5 degrees warmer, 5 percent more annual precipitation, one-third less winter snowpack and a mountain snow line as much as 1,500 feet higher?
Climate models show such changes are possible in the three-state Columbia River Basin by the middle of the next century as a result of human causes, primarily the spewing of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a broad panel of scientists and policy analysts said today.