The geological importance of caves to time climate change
By Dilpreet Raju Medill Reports Some of the interweaving drivers of Earth’s climate change remain a mystery, but many of the world’s leading paleoclimatologists work every day to fill in the gaps. Paul Töchterle, a geological Ph.D. candidate at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, is working to revise the methods scientists use to date […]
Stalagmites reveal clues to changing ocean currents, changing climate
By Ilana Wolchinsky Medill Reports Climatologist Laura Endres began her Ph.D. a year ago at ETH Zürich in the paleoclimate field, drawing on her background in earth and climate sciences. Endres uses climate records encased in cave stalagmites to reveal past climate patterns — paleoclimate — that give clues to how fast climate change is […]
Will evaporation dry up water sources as climate change worsens?
By Gabrielle Rancifer Medill Reports “If we didn’t have evaporation, we wouldn’t have water in the atmosphere,” said Thomas Lowell, a geology professor at the University of Cincinnati. Researchers closely follow and evaluate both evaporation and precipitation because they are key components of the water cycle. Evaporation delivers water to the atmosphere, and precipitation delivers […]
Alaskan memories inspire climate change work
By Grace Finnell-Gudwien and Gabrielle Rancifer Medill Reports Every year as a child, oceanographer Joellen Russell watched the sea ice break apart and float out into the ocean off the shores of Kotzebue, Alaska, a native fishing village about 30 miles north of the Arctic Circle. “You could hear it and smell it before the […]
WATCH: Russian Immigrant shares poignant memories about the war
By Ivy Fan Medill Reports Ekaterina Korsounskaia, born in Moscow moved to the United States more than 30 years ago. She now teaches Russian as a clinical professor at New York University. Coming through several emotionally draining months since Russia invaded Ukraine, she speaks about the war’s impact on her home country, the complication of […]
WATCH: The journey of 2 adaptive rock climbers
By Ivy Fan, Gelsey Plaza and Lauren Turner Medill Reports John Freeland and Meaghan Cusack, who both have had amputations, use prosthetic limbs to rock climb. Coming to the sport during different seasons of their lives, they now compete in national and world competitions, breaking stereotypes and proving that anything is possible if you put […]
1 dating method, 3 ecosystems, many clues to pace of climate change
By Grace Finnell-Gudwien Medill Reports Inside caves, lakes and corals, small crystals dot the landscapes and scaffold into majestic pillars up to 4 meters high. These cream- to brown-colored crystal formations not only look beautiful, but they also provide paleoclimate scientists with a time capsule peering into the past — almost as far back as […]
Time-lapse, satellite imagery show how meltwater plumes trigger calving ice
By Kala Hunter Medill Reports As Greenland’s glaciers melt from an abruptly warming climate, scientists are studying how mammoth glaciers are losing their ice. The research is urgent to better predict the speed of global glacial retreat that leads directly to sea level rise across the globe. “You study Greenland because it’s the future of […]
Groundwater gases from 6 continents reveal more extreme land temperatures 20,000 years ago than previously known
By Kala Hunter Medill Reports How sensitive is the climate? This is the question that prompted marine and geochemist Alan Seltzer, a Ph.D. assistant scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and climate scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography to look at land temperatures at the end of the last ice age. While computational models have […]
Amid national attacks on trans athlete rights, Illinois policies can offer false sense of security
By Alyssa Haduck Medill Reports When rower Cillian Mullen competes, he tunes everything else out. From the first stroke of his oar on the water, the world falls away. He forgets about the river, the weather and the competition, settling into a focused zone and using all his energy to thrust backward and propel his […]