Carolyn Gramling

Washington, D.C.

Earth and Climate Writer at Science News

Writer at Science News. I write about geology and climate and oceanography and paleontology and I like Tom Weller (pic).

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Articles

Earth’s landmasses lost trillions of tons of water this century

3 days ago | sciencenews.org | Carolyn Gramling

Earth’s landmasses are holding onto a lot less water than they used to — and this loss is not just due to melting ice sheets. Terrestrial water storage, which includes water in underground aquifers, lakes, rivers and the tiny pore spaces within soil, declined by trillions of metric tons in the early 21st century, researchers report in the March 28 Science.
Could Spinosaurus swim? The fierce dinosaur ignites debate

1 week ago | sciencenews.org | Carolyn Gramling

Scene: A small patrol boat cruises through the water, just offshore of an island somewhere in the Caribbean. Cue the pounding drums, movie-trailer speak for danger approaching. Enter: Spinosaurus. Three large spiny sails slice through the cerulean sea and begin to circle the boat. The water roils. “What the hell are those!?” a passenger asks with trepidation. Cut to: Another passenger clinging precariously to the rigging as the boat lists.
Scotland’s Isle of Skye was once a dinosaur promenade

1 week ago | sciencenews.org | Carolyn Gramling

Scotland’s remote Isle of Skye was once a bustling dinosaur thoroughfare. A newly discovered set of at least 131 fossilized footprints dating to between 170 million and 166 million years ago reveals that both long-necked sauropods and carnivorous theropods splashed through the shallow waters of what was then a balmy, subtropical lagoon, imprinting their tracks onto the soft sands.
Solar geoengineering moves into the spotlight as climate concerns grow

2 weeks ago | sciencenews.org | Carolyn Gramling

Earth’s average temperature is continuing to tick inexorably upward as the world’s nations stall at reducing their atmosphere-warming emissions. In the face of that grim future, strategies to try to turn down the planet’s thermostat are gaining traction. One strategy in particular — solar geoengineering, which aims to cool the planet by reflecting solar radiation back into space — may be having a moment in the sun.
More details about the Myanmar earthquake are emerging

3 weeks ago | sciencenews.org | Carolyn Gramling

As rescue and recovery efforts continue to ramp-up in earthquake-ravaged Myanmar, new details about how the geologic setting amplified the disaster are beginning to emerge. The March 28 magnitude 7.7 earthquake that rocked through Southeast Asia collapsed buildings, dams and bridges, and killed at least 2,700 people. The rupture occurred along several hundred kilometers of a roughly 1,400-kilometer-long fault known as the Sagaing Fault.
Splitting seawater offers a path to sustainable cement production

3 weeks ago | sciencenews.org | Carolyn Gramling

A new cement-making process could shift production from being a carbon source to a carbon sink, creating a carbon-negative version of the building material, researchers report March 18 in Advanced Sustainable Systems. This process might also be adaptable to producing a variety of carbon-stashing products such as paint, plaster and concrete.
3 things to know about the deadly Myanmar earthquake

3 weeks ago | sciencenews.org | Carolyn Gramling

A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake rocked central Myanmar on March 28 at about 12:50 p.m. local time, leaving at least 144 people confirmed dead so far and triggering widespread damage across both Myanmar and Thailand. Buildings collapsed, roads broke and at least one dam and a bridge crumbled. A magnitude 6.4 aftershock followed just 10 minutes later. With both countries declared disaster areas, international aid workers are scrambling to prepare supplies and assess the death toll and damages.
2024 set new record for hottest year, passing a dangerous heat threshold

2 months ago | snexplores.org | Carolyn Gramling |Meghan Rosen

attribution: A field of research, largely used in climate studies. It seeks to test whether — and by how much — climate change may be responsible for certain extreme weather events, such as droughts, extreme flooding, hurricanes, excessive heat or odd storm trajectories. average: (in science) A term for the arithmetic mean, which is the sum of a group of numbers that is then divided by the size of the group.
Earth's first waterfowl may have lived in Antarctica 69 million years ago

2 months ago | sciencenews.org | Carolyn Gramling

An ancient bird that swam in Antarctica’s balmier waters 69 million years ago may be the earliest known waterfowl on Earth, scientists say. A newly discovered and nearly complete fossilized skull found in rocks on the Antarctic peninsula belonged to Vegavis iaai, an ancient bird previously known only from fossilized body parts and a bit of its voice box.
Trump orders sow chaos in global public health

2 months ago | sciencenews.org | Meghan Rosen |Carolyn Gramling

U.S. global health programs are in crisis. A recent flurry of executive orders and surprise actions by the Trump administration have roiled the international public health community, leaving healthcare workers scrambling and aid programs in peril. On January 20, President Donald Trump issued an executive order pausing U.S. foreign development assistance for 90 days to assess “programmatic efficiencies and consistency.” The ripple effects spread immediately.