School of Earth & Sustainability hydrologists Natalie Jones and Abe Springer have been researching the origins of Grand Canyon spring water. Read more at: NAU grad student looking for clues in the mystery of the Grand Canyon’s water supply (NAU News), Searching For Grand Canyon National Park’s Water Source (KJZZ), and Tracking the Grand Canyon’s Mysterious Springs (Eos).
Tune in to hear NAU Geologist Michael Smith talk to KJZZ’s The Show about past and future climate variation. Michael explains how detailed records from warm periods in the past (from the NSF-funded Green River Eocene Earth and Climate Observatory project) could help us to predict the where and when of current and future increases in temperature.
NAU faculty in Biological Sciences and the School of Earth and Sustainability have recently published research showing that plant traits such as plant height and dispersal ability have impacted their ability to move across the landscape in response to 10,000 years of changing climate conditions. How can we know this about the past? Packrat middens! Read the NAU News story or jump straight to the research article.
SES researchers Michael Erb, Nick McKay, and Darrell Kaufman are part of a global effort to bring together all possible data about past climate variability, providing a better baseline to evaluate recent anthropogenic change. Their latest work in Nature Geoscience shows that no matter how you look at it, our current actions are causing exceptionally rapid change. Read the story in NAU News or jump straight to the paper.
Intentionally introduced tamarisk beetles do a great job of beating back invasive tamarisk along Arizona’s rivers, but what does this mean for the habitat available to endangered flycatchers? Matt Johnson explains the need for follow-up plantings of native trees and shrubs to fill the hole left by the beetles. Read the AP story here.
School of Earth & Sustainability professor Mike Smith is studying past climate warming to learn about the future. Smith is part of a new multidisciplinary study involving eight institutions and a multimillion-dollar National Science Foundation grant. Read more at NAU News.