Research news

Indonesia, May 2006 - Several mud eruptions started in the North East of Java Island. Villages were burried and people were forced to flee. The most active eruption called Lusi is still active and scientist now link this to a nearby volcanic system.

The Hawaiian-Emperor volcanic island chain in the NW Pacific Ocean is well known for its peculiar 60° bend. This bend has been heavily debated for decades. Researchers from University of Oslo, GFZ Potsdam, and Utrecht University now definitely demonstrate that to form the observed bend requires an abrupt change in the motion of the Pacific tectonic plate, while southward drift of the mantle plume that has sourced the chain since ~80 Ma is required to explain its entire 2000 km length.

Across the globe, sea level has been rising for decades, but we don’t know how fast. Researchers have now analyzed tide gauge data and reconstructed global mean sea level since 1902. Their record yields a slower average rise before 1990 than previously thought, but similar high rates of about 3.1 mm/yr as observed from independent satellite observations from 1993-2012. This suggests that global mean sea level has been accelerating much faster than previously assumed in the past two decades.

What has Einstein and Newton got to do with the motion of the solar system bodies?

A warming Arctic will give an extended growing season particularly due to an earlier spring, and it has been believed that this will give a greater uptake of CO2 in plants and an increased carbon sink. An impact potentially offsetting some of the anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases. A new study suggest that the “warmer spring, bigger sink” hypothesis may no longer hold.