News: EAS

According to new research from Professor Sara Pryor from EAS and Professor Rebecca Barthelmie from MAE, the United States could generate 20% of its electricity from wind energy within 10 years. “The United States currently produces about 7% of its electricity from wind energy,” said Sara C. Pryor, professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “This research shows that a quadrupling of the installed capacity of wind turbines from 2014 levels will allow us to attain the goal of 20% of electricity from the wind, without requiring additional land, or negative impacts on systemwide... Read more

Assistant Professor Gregory McLanskey, a field faculty member in Geological Sciences, received the $500,000 National Science Foundation early career award. The award supports “early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization,” according to the NSF website. The academic work worthy of this award should work toward “integrating education and research.” Read more

New research investigates dust’s role in primary production during the Carboniferous and Permian periods. "It is fascinating that this mechanism that has been explored extensively in the current climate, and the glacial/interglacial cycles, could also be operating so far in the past," said EAS Professor Natalie Mahowald. Read more

About 35 researchers traveled to campus for the workshop, where they were joined by about 20 Cornell faculty members, students and facilities professionals to design experiments that could be incorporated into the university’s proposal to dig a 2.5-mile-deep borehole as part of an enhanced geothermal energy system. Patrick Fulton, Assistant Professor in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences was a member of the workshop’s organizing committee. “By studying the processes and conditions that operate here, there is excitement about the potential for showcasing how sustainable energy solutions can be... Read more

Warren Allmon, Hunter R Rawlings III Professor of Paleontology, used to frequently host President Frank Rhodes in his paleobiology course. When Rhodes visited the paleobiology course as a guest lecturer, Allmon’s students were able to learn about how paleontology research has evolved over the past several decades. Read more

A comet once thought to be a quiet dirty snowball cruising through the solar system becomes quite active when seen up close. Read more

Graduate student Paul Morgan and Professor Rick Allmendinger discuss craters in a Chilean desert that preserve the trajectories of giant rocks, allowing scientists to study the physics of rockslides. There’s a place in Chile’s Atacama Desert where trails of depressions punctuate the fine chusca dust. But what might seem like the footsteps left by a giant creature are in fact exquisitely preserved evidence of boulders that tumbled down a nearby cliff face before bouncing to their final resting place. The site, the Chuculay Boulder Field, is home to thousands of granite goliaths, some as big as... Read more

Cornell geologists, examining the desolate Vavilov ice cap on the northern fringe of Siberia in the Arctic Circle, have for the first time observed the rapid ice loss from an improbable new river of ice, according to new work in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. “This glacier went from doing basically nothing to doing something very unusual – evolving into an ice stream,” said Matthew Pritchard, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and a fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. Could the stream be a result of climate change? Yes, Pritchard said, as a portion of... Read more

“In California, there is a strong element of climate change, but much of the problem also stems from land use, such as people building houses in ecosystems that traditionally burn regularly in the chaparral ecosystem of Los Angeles County,” Prof. Natalie M. Mahowald, earth and environmental sciences, said. “The current wildfires in California are certainly consistent with the expectations of a warming climate leading to increasing drought conditions in the western U.S.,” Brown said. According to Prof. Peter Hess, biological and environmental engineering, California is often struck by wildfires... Read more

"On Monday, the Trump administration officially notified the United Nation of the United States’ intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, a pact signed by over 200 countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, triggering a host of criticism from Cornell professors," including Bruce Monger (EAS). Read more