20240315
Editor’s summary
The modern explosion in the volume of data across multiple disciplines, driven by a greatly enhanced ability to collect and process observations of all kinds, has provided never-before-realized opportunities for new discovery in the past decade. Vance et al. reviewed how recent developments in the realm of Big Data have affected the Earth Sciences, specifically in the fields of hydrology, oceanography, and atmospheric science. In addition to the data themselves, the key to these advances is the emergence of numerical models that allow us to use these data to represent Earth systems in the past, present, and future. —H. Jesse Smith
https://www.science.org/cms/10.1126/science.adh9607/asset/8f8c3a49-52ba-4066-bf61-e3860654d8e4/assets/images/large/science.adh9607-f2.jpg
Arctic melting—from both floating sea ice and glaciers on Greenland and elsewhere—is adding roughly 6000 cubic kilometers of water or more to the ocean per decade, more than enough to fill the Grand Canyon. As that freshwater pours into the North Atlantic Ocean, it sits on top of heavier ocean saltwater and impedes mixing. With less heat being stirred in from below, the surface water gets colder than usual during the fall and winter months, says Marilena Oltmanns, a climate scientist at the U.K. National Oceanography Centre. This phenomenon may explain the so-called “cold blob,” a patch of sea in the North Atlantic that NASA modeling suggests is one of the few spots on Earth getting colder.
For more than a decade, geophysicists have pushed telecom operators to consider smart cables. For a 10% to 20% increase in cost, they say, companies could squeeze three simple sensors—for seafloor motion, water pressure, and temperature—into the cables’ repeaters, widened sections that amplify the optical signal every 70 kilometers or so. Until recently, it’s been hard to get operators to install them, says Charlotte Rowe, a geophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “It’s been a very slow curve, but I think it’s getting steeper now,” Rowe says.
The U.S. National Science Foundation is considering connecting Antarctica to New Zealand with a smart cable, while several groups are seeking to connect Europe to Japan under the Arctic through the Northwest Passage.
NSF announces the release of a comprehensive desktop study (DTS) assessing the feasibility of connecting NSF's McMurdo Station to either Australia or New Zealand via a subsea telecommunications cable through the South Pacific region. This comprehensive study includes data on the Southern Ocean's properties, marine life, seabed geology, climate conditions, national/international regulations and environmental review and permitting requirements for the region.