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Organic carbon dissolved in water plays a vital role in the Earth's carbon cycle. Understanding carbon cycling is central to understanding climate change and how aquatic communities are structured and supported. Senior Lecturer Anssi Vähätalo and his research group from Department of Biological and Environmental Science at the University of Jyväskylä has found out that solar radiation mineralizes more terrestrial dissolved organic carbon in the ocean than in the inland waters.

The Silk Road pattern in meteorology, is a wave-like teleconnection pattern in summer propagating eastward under the wave-guidance of the upper-tropospheric Asian westerly jet stream. It shows up as alternate southerly and northerly anomalies (or cyclonic and anticyclonic circulation anomalies) along the jet, and is the leading mode of the interannual variability of upper-tropospheric meridional winds. It is interesting that this meteorological teleconnection pattern covers most domains along the ancient Silk Road, and exerts significant influences on climatic anomalies over a broad area of the Eurasian continent.

Struggling to keep my balance, I teeter along a narrow plankway that wends through the rolling foothills near Denali National Park and Preserve. Just ahead, Northern Arizona University ecologist Ted Schuur, a lanky 6-footer, leads the way to Eight Mile Lake, his research field site since 2003. Occasionally I slip off the planks onto the squishy vegetative carpet below. The feathery mosses, sedges and diminutive shrubs that grow here—Labrador tea, low bush cranberry, bog rosemary—are well-adapted to wet, acidic soils.

Predicting the weather a few days in advance is a complex undertaking. But what about the weather 3 to 4 weeks from now? Producing that kind of forecast is a daunting challenge  — but is crucial for a slew of communities. These future forecasts, called sub-seasonal predictions, can help energy companies determine how much power to produce to meet demands for upcoming months; they assist water resource managers controlling reservoir levels ahead of upcoming water use; they even help farmers understand which crops to plant in the face of potential dry weather.

Environmental scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have led an international collaboration to improve satellite observations of tropical forests.