J. Besl

1 week ago | cincinnatimagazine.com | J. Besl

Sacha Brewer spent a good part of her senior year at the University of Cincinnati on top of a ladder, hoisting a methane sampler over gaslights in various city neighborhoods. The stately lampposts are a local landmark. When she perched next to one with a tinfoil funnel, people tended to notice. “We got some strange looks,” she says. The city of Cincinnati still has 1,126 of these gaslights, the last remnants of a once-sprawling system. Many are from the 1890s. The oldest might be from the 1850s.

1 month ago | eos.org | J. Besl

The Northeast Greenland Ice Stream is a relatively fast-moving slice of ice. It’s Greenland’s largest ice stream, a frozen tributary that transports roughly 12% of the island’s annual ice discharge into the North Atlantic. That makes it a considerable contributor to sea level rise. But so far, simulations of ice discharge haven’t matched the ice stream’s actual movement. The ice is flowing faster than anticipated. Seismologists recently made an accidental discovery that may explain the gap.

Dec 12, 2024 | eos.org | J. Besl

Coastlines are dynamic by nature, shaped by the push of inland sediment and the pull of ocean tides. A recent study gives a new view of coasts around the world. Researchers used changes in ocean color to show that sediment in the water has declined. That could have significant effects on everything from habitat health to coastal infrastructure.

Dec 11, 2024 | eos.org | J. Besl

Michael Flynn was surveying the beach in Rodanthe, N.C., after a nor’easter swept through. Storm surges are common in the state’s thin strip of barrier islands known as the Outer Banks. Flynn, a physical scientist with the National Park Service who lives nearby, is often first on the scene to survey any damage. Something odd caught his eye. A log of weathered wood protruded straight up from the beach, close to the waterline.

Oct 9, 2024 | eos.org | J. Besl

It started on 16 September 2023. Broadband seismometers started rhythmically rocking, first near Greenland and then worldwide, within hours. Each station tracked the same signal, a low, droning 10.88-millihertz wave recurring every 92 seconds. The noise lasted an incredible 9 days. Seismic signals are often sharp and abrupt. This signal was more like the sound of a gong radiating across Earth itself. It was officially dubbed a USO, or an unidentified seismic object.