Why does the Red River of the North have so many floods?
The geology, geography, and climate of the Red River Valley make major floods an inevitability.
REU Opportunity on Stormwater Management and Ecosystem Function
A National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) summer fellowship is open at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. We invite applications from qualified, highly motivated undergraduate students from U.S. colleges/universities to participate in a 12-week lab and field based summer research experience. The program runs from May 23 …
Reverberations of the Honshu tsunami
Cross-posted at Highly Allochthonous On Friday 11 March 2011, when the fault ruptured off of the Japanese coast in a M9.0 earthquake, it caused a sudden vertical movement of the seafloor, displacing the water above it and transferring energy to the ocean. As the water returned to place (thanks, gravity!), …
The scientist-journalist divide: what can we learn from each other?
Cross-posted at Highly Allochthonous Last week, the journal Nature published two research papers on the effects of human-caused global warming on extreme precipitation events. I’m working on a post on the papers, and they’ve already received quite a bit of attention in the media. As glamour mag journals often do …
Pakistan floods: Predicted or Predictable, but a disaster nonetheless
A Geophysical Research Letters paper concludes the 2010 Pakistan floods were predictable, but not predicted. Other reporting suggests they were predicted, but the warning was ignored. Either way, things should have been done differently.
Flooding around the world
Flooding updates from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil.
Edible debris flow
Steep hillslopes with loose sediment are at risk from debris flows triggered by heavy rain or rapid snowmelt. As water is added to the hillslope, surface runoff or positive pore water pressure catastrophically destabilizes a portion of the slope. I decided to undertake my own research and investigate the possibilities for an edible analog for debris flows.
Geology is destiny: globally mapping permeability by rock type
The first maps of the global distribution of the ease of subsurface water flow have been produced, and they are based on maps of rock type.
The blog's 2010 in review
WordPress just emailed me this handy review of blog stats for last year. According to them, these are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010. Given that the point of this blog is to (1) keep prospective students and other people interested in my research and …
AGU Abstract: Spatial heterogeneity in isotopic signatures of baseflow in small watersheds: implications for understanding watershed hydrology
In a few weeks, I’ll be giving the following talk at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in a session on Groundwater/Surface Water Interactions: Dynamics and Patterns Across Spatial and Temporal Scales. My talk will be in Moscone West 3014 at 11:05 am on Wednesday, December 15th, 2010. Spatial heterogeneity …