Relational agility: Visualizing near-real-time Arctic sea ice data as a proxy for climate change.

This ethnographic study at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) follows a group of scientists and communications specialists as they compose visualizations and analyses of near-real-time Arctic sea ice data. Research participants collectively make scientific judgments about near-real-time data in a highly visible public venue with 'relational agility'. They balance multiple phenomena including knowledge of how sceptics attack climate science, reflexivity about the conventions through which sea ice data is gathered, the needs of journalists working in a news cycle paced by Twitter, and the liveliness and vitality of sea ice itself.

Direct Monitoring Reveals Initiation of Turbidity Currents From Extremely Dilute River Plumes.

Rivers (on land) and turbidity currents (in the ocean) are the most important sediment transport processes on Earth. Yet how rivers generate turbidity currents as they enter the coastal ocean remains poorly understood. The current paradigm, based on laboratory experiments, is that turbidity currents are triggered when river plumes exceed a threshold sediment concentration of ~1 kg/m.