NEWSLETTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EARTH, ATMOSPHERIC AND PLANETARY SCIENCES
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Ocean Activity a Key Control on Monsoons
An interplay between atmospheric winds and the ocean south of India has a major influence over the strength and timing of the South Asian monsoon.
Read the story at EAPS News
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North Atlantic Productivity Declines in Past 150 Years
MIT-WHOI scientists investigate steady decline in phytoplankton coinciding with warming temperatures in the Industrial Era.
Read the story at EAPS News
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“One of the most fascinating and interesting and useful parts of science is actually...quantifying the level to which we’re uncertain.”
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Tropical Pacific Key Driver of Global Heat Transport
Gael Forget and David Ferreira find the region exports four times as much heat as is imported in the Atlantic and Arctic.
Read the story at EAPS News
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Corals and Microbes as Next-door Neighbors
MIT-WHOI student Laura Weber examines microbial communities surrounding corals and their role in reef ecosystems.
Read the story at EAPS News
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Valuing Nature, for Growth
2019 Kendall Lecturer Gretchen Daily evaluates local ecology as a capital asset and incentivizes communities to invest in the environment when making development decisions, helping to ensure their future and that of the planet.
Read the story at EAPS News
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Hidden Heroines of Chaos
The story of how MIT's Ed Lorenz discovered chaos theory has been well-circulated, but as EAPS' Dan Rothman uncovered and shared with science journalist Joshua Sokol, it left out the contributions of two key women programmers who made this work possible: Ellen Fetter and Margaret Hamilton.
Read the story at Quanta Magazine
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A Bendable Mirror is a Step Toward Finding Life Outside Our Solar System
Launching this year, a CubeSat from Kerri Cahoy's STAR Lab will be the first space-based test of a proven ground-based telescopic mirror design which combats image distortion—potentially leading to larger satellite instruments with a sharper view of exoplanetary atmospheric compositions in the hunt for signs of life.
Read the story at MIT Tech Review
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How Earth Life Could Come Back from a Sterilizing Asteroid Impact
Ben Weiss is part of the discussion around how microbes carried on ejected bits of planetary bodies could possibly seed life on neighboring planets, based on research he presented at the Breakthrough Discuss conference.
Read the story at Space.com
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A Look at How Long-Banned PCBs Persist in the Ocean
Noelle Selin and Gael Forget contribute to new work using the MIT general circulation model to understand how climate dynamics affect the distribution and persistence of these manufactured organic pollutants.
Read the story at EOS
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EAPS oceanographers Stephanie Dutkiewicz, Oliver Jahn, and Jonathan Lauderdale model how climate and CO2 conditions affect phytoplankton, the tiny organisms whose global influence goes beyond forming the base of the marine food chain to providing much of the world's oxygen and capturing carbon dioxide—and coloring the oceans based on their abundance or scarcity in the process.
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On May 23rd, at the end of the Earth Resources Laboratory's annual meeting, ERL members and EAPS faculty and friends convened to celebrate the 85th birthday of Nafi Toksöz, emeritus professor of geophysics and ERL founding director—pictured here with ERL members Jie Zhang, co-event chair Ken Tubman, and Chuck Peng.
In addition, the semester wrapped up with a few personnel changes in the department. After defending her thesis on "Quantifying melting and chemical differentiation processes on Earth and the Moon" in EAPS, Stephanie Brown joins us as a postdoctoral associate. We wish farewell to PAOC science writer Kelsey Tsipis, who is now at the Broad Institute, and to the EAPS Education Office's Julianne Ormerod, who rejoined Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Congratulations to Brandon Milardo who has been promoted to Senior Administrative Assistant in the Education Office.
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Maria Zuber Awarded the 2019 Gerard P. Kuiper Prize in Planetary Sciences
The honor from the American Astronomical Society recognizes scientists whose achievements have most advanced our understanding of the planetary system.
Read the story at EAPS News
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Andrew Babbin Selected for 2019 Simons Early Career Investigators Award
The Simons Foundation has named nine scientists, including Babbin, to receive three-year awards intended to help launch the careers of outstanding investigators in the area of marine microbial ecology and evolution.
Read the story at EAPS News
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Clara Maurel Earns Stephen E. Dwornik Planetary Geoscience Award for Best Graduate Oral Presentation
The Planetary Geology Division of the Geological Society of America chose Maurel’s presentation, "Partial Differentiation and Magnetic History of the IIE Iron Meteorite Parent Body," from among 128 talks considered this year.
Read the story at EAPS News
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Student Profile: Christine Chen, Mentor and Explorer
The McGee Lab's Christine Chen, a graduate student in paleoclimatology, was recently recognized with the MIT Larry G. Benedict Leadership Award and featured in the National Geographic Kids Almanac 2020.
Read the story at EAPS News
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THIS MESSAGE WAS SENT BY
MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 54-918
Cambridge, MA 02139
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© 2019 MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
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