Here and across much of the Eastern United States, dozens of cities experienced a “meteorological winter” — the three months from December through February — that ranked among their 10 warmest on record.

Deepti Singh, a climate scientist in the School of the Environment at Washington State University Vancouver, said the Arctic Oscillation has been in an unusually strong positive phase this winter, which has resulted in a strong polar vortex that’s kept Arctic air trapped up north.

That’s a contrast to some recent winters, when a weaker polar vortex has allowed frigid air to descend, resulting in extremely cold days and strong snowstorms across portions of the United States, she said.

Even when there are cold air outbreaks associated with a weak polar vortex, the cold air coming from the Arctic regions over the Eastern U.S. is warmer than it was a couple of decades ago, Singh said.

Overall, with climate change, she said, spring is generally coming sooner, colder seasons are warming faster “and we are getting fewer extreme cold events.”

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Courier Journal

Organic molecules present in truffles, coal and oil on Earth have been identified on the surface of Mars and may hint at the presence of alien life on the red planet.

These chemicals, called thiophenes, are important molecules as they contain both carbon and sulphur — two ingredients essential for life.

Washington State University Dirk Schulze-Makuch, astrobiologist in the School of the Environment looked into how thiophenes came to exist on Mars.

Their findings, published in the journal Astrobiology, indicate the chemicals were likely produced by biological processes and not chemical reactions.

“We identified several biological pathways for thiophenes that seem more likely than chemical ones, but we still need proof,” Schulze-Makuch said.

“If you find thiophenes on Earth, then you would think they are biological, but on Mars, of course, the bar to prove that has to be quite a bit higher.”

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A 20-acre slab of Rattlesnake Ridge continues its downward slide near Union Gap, but at a significantly slower rate, officials say.

Stephen Reidel, a research professor of geology at WSU’s Tri-Cities campus, said rocks from the slide falling into the nearby Columbia Asphalt quarry are likely to form a buttress that will stop the slide in its tracks.

“If you just take a look at it, the rocks fall down the hill to the quarry,” Reidel said. “It is as far as it is going.”

State and county officials, as well as scientists, have been monitoring the slide since October 2017, when a crack was first spotted in the ridge near Union Gap.

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Yakima Herald

Marc Kramer, an associate professor of environmental chemistry at Washington State University Vancouver, has discovered that one-fourth of carbon within the Earth’s soil is bound to minerals about six feet below the surface. This revelation could lead to new ways to deal with the influx of carbon due to global warming.

Kramer estimates that 600 billion metric tons (known as gigatons) of carbon is currently underneath the Earth’s surface — that amount is more than twice the carbon added into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. Most of this carbon is underneath the world’s wettest forests, which unfortunately, won’t absorb as much carbon as atmospheric temperatures continue to rise.

This “major breakthrough” discovery, as Kramer called it, is a starting point for the process of moving atmospheric carbon underground as climate change and global warming progresses. However, there is still major work to be done.

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earth.com