Category Archives: Geoscience

Zombie Satellite to Amateur Astronomer: “I’m Not Dead Yet”

Earth’s plasmasphere, as seen by IMAGE’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager on May 24, 2000. Image by B. R. Sandel and the IMAGE/EUV team.

An amateur astronomer has picked up signals from a satellite NASA gave up for dead more than decade ago.

Scott Tilley was scanning the skies for secret military satellites when he picked up a transmission from the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) satellite.

Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
IMAGE Search: Amateur Astronomer Reconnects NASA To Zombie Satellite

In Lawsuit, Scientists Push Back Against EPA Advisory Board Policy

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) this week filed to sue the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court.

The lawsuit is over an EPA policy that changes who can serve on its advisory boards.

Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
Scientists Sue EPA Over Who Can Serve On Advisory Boards

Global Warming and the Future of Wind Power

Predicted wind power changes in North America, 2080-2100. Map courtesy of Kristopher Karnauskas and Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature Geoscience, copyright 2017.

Alternative energy sources like wind offer a way to lessen a country’s carbon footprint. But global warming trends could soon change the way the wind blows.

As rapid arctic warming shrinks the heat gap between the North Pole and equator, Northern Hemisphere winds could lose some oomph — up to 40 percent over the next century, depending on region.

Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
Winds Of Climate Change: How Global Warming Could Alter The Wind Power Landscape

Energy-Efficient Lights Could be Making Light Pollution Worse

Earth’s city lights. Image by Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon/NASA GSFC.

City lights drive back the night a little more each year, disrupting ecological cycles, and the switch from orange-yellow sodium lights to bluish-white LEDs might be making the problem worse.

Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
Artificial Light Pollution On The Rise Globally, LEDs Might Be Making It Worse

Union of Concerned Scientists Issues New “Warning to Humanity”

Photo by Patrick Kelley.

This week marks 25 years since more than 1,700 scientists, led by the Union of Concerned Scientists, issued a “warning to humanity” concerning the costs of continued environmental destruction.

Now, they’ve issued another — this one signed by 15,000 scientists representing 184 countries.

Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
25 Years Later, Global Scientists Issue Second Warning To Humanity