Aurora Elmore

National Geographic Society | NGS · Science and Exploration

We present the first report of Pallas’s cat Otocolobus manul in eastern Nepal, within Sagarmatha National Park, Mount Everest Region, based on genetic evidence from scat samples. We collected the samples from two locations 6 km apart at 5,110 and 5,190 m elevation. DNA metabarcoding analysis identified two individuals from the collect- ed samples....

The predictability of the weather on Mt. Everest’s upper slopes can be a matter of life or death for those trying to climb the world’s highest mountain, yet the performance of forecasts has been almost unknown due to a lack of surface observations. The extent to which climate change may be affecting this iconic location is also uncertain for the sa...

Species composition in high-alpine ecosystems is a useful indicator for monitoring climatic and environmental changes at the upper limits of habitable environments. We used environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis to document the breadth of high-alpine biodiversity present on Earth’s highest mountain, Mt. Everest (8,849 m a.s.l.) in Nepal’s Khumbu region....

We find that the historic first wintertime ascent of K2 in January 2021 by a Nepalese team was aided by weather that was anomalously favourable. An upper‐level ridge brought low wind speeds, and relatively high temperatures and air pressures that were quite uncharacteristic of winter. Extraordinary ability in the climbing team aligning with opportu...

Humid tropical forests play a dominant role in the functioning of Earth but are under increasing threat from changes in land use and climate. How forest vulnerability varies across space and time and what level of stress forests can tolerate before facing a tipping point are poorly understood. Here, we develop a tropical forest vulnerability index...

This case study provides a framework for future monitoring and evidence for human source pollution in the Khumbu region, Nepal. We analyzed the chemical composition (major ions, major/trace elements, black carbon, and stable water isotopes) of pre-monsoon stream water (4300-5250 m) and snow (5200-6665 m) samples collected from Mt. Everest, Mt. Lobu...

The Everest region is characterized by its alpine glacial environment. In an effort to understand environmental change and tectonic activity, our team cored Taboche Lake, situated at 4,712 m along the western margin of the Ngozumpa Glacier. This research catalogs past earthquakes using geological records of the lake core that are important for the...

The Amazon Basin is at the center of an intensifying discourse about deforestation, land-use, and global change. To date, climate research in the Basin has overwhelmingly focused on the cycling and storage of carbon (C) and its implications for global climate. Missing, however, is a more comprehensive consideration of other significant biophysical...

Records from new high altitude weather stations reveal the meteorological conditions on Mt Everest during the 2019 monsoon. Using data from June–October, we show that the temperature, humidity and winds announce the arrival of the monsoon, with changes that amplify with elevation. The largest change is therefore at the summit, where we estimate tha...

Precipitation is critical to the water towers of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya-Karakoram region, exerting an important control on glacier mass balance and the water resources for 1.65 billion people. Given that hydroclimatic extremes and water stress have emerged as key hazards in the context of climate change, Nepal's Khumbu region overlaps key vulnerab...

Global audiences are captivated by climbers pushing themselves to the limits in the hypoxic environment of Mount Everest. However, air pressure sets oxygen abundance, meaning it varies with the weather and climate warming. This presents safety issues for mountaineers but also an opportunity for public engagement around climate change. Here we blend...

In April and May 2019, as part of National Geographic and Rolex's Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, an interdisciplinary scientific effort conducted a suite of research on the mountain and recognized many changing dynamics, including emergent risks resulting from natural and anthropogenic changes to the biological system. In this Primer, the div...

Graphical Abstract Highlights d Microplastics were found in snow and stream water samples on Mt. Everest d The highest microplastics were discovered in a sample from 8,440 m.a.s.l. d Most microplastics were polyester fibers, likely from clothing and equipment d Technological advances could minimize microplastic pollution from exploration In Brief A...

The accurate quantification of current and past Himalayan glacier mass budgets is vital if we are to understand the evolution of the Asian water tower, which provides water to the planet’s most populous region. In this work, we generated a geodetic time series spanning six decades over 79 glaciers surrounding Mt. Everest and found consistent accele...

Mt. Everest (known as Sagarmatha and Qomolangma in Nepal and China, respectively) is an iconic peak sitting within the vulnerable water tower of high-mountain Asia. This issue of One Earth features initial outcomes from the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, which examined the effects of climate change on the wo...

Between April and June 2019, the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition—ten research teams composed of 34 international and Nepali scientists—journeyed to the top of the world’s tallest mountain in pursuit of new knowledge of these vulnerable and dynamic systems. This is our story.

The National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition is a multidisciplinary project dedicated to understanding climate change and its impacts, improving climate predictions, and providing a framework for future research in mountain environments. This issue of One Earth offers a first look at the science emerging from the expedition...

Ama Dablam (6812m) in the Khumbu (Everest) region as storm clouds build. (Photo credit: L.B. Perry/National Geographic.) image

As the highest mountain on Earth, Mount Everest is an iconic peak that offers an unrivalled natural platform for measuring ongoing climate change across the full elevation range of Asia’s water towers. However, Everest’s extreme environment challenges data collection, particularly on the mountain’s upper slopes, where glaciers accumulate mass and m...

Mountains are the water towers of the world, supplying a substantial part of both natural and anthropogenic water demands1,2. They are highly sensitive and prone to climate change3,4, yet their importance and vulnerability have not been quantified at the global scale. Here, we present a global Water Tower Index, which ranks all water towers in term...

Significance Isolated congenital asplenia (ICA) is characterized by the absence of a spleen at birth without any other developmental defect. ICA predisposes individuals to severe bacterial infections early in childhood. In 2013, we showed that very rare deleterious mutations in the protein-coding region of RPSA, which codes for a protein in the rib...

Isolated congenital asplenia (ICA) is the only known human developmental defect exclusively affecting a lymphoid organ. In 2013, we showed that private deleterious mutations in the protein-coding region of RPSA, encoding ribosomal protein SA, caused ICA by haploinsufficiency with complete penetrance. We reported seven heterozygous protein-coding mu...

The Mg and Sr content of ostracod valves have been used to reconstruct past temperature and salinity, and their stable isotopes have been used to reveal aspects of marine, lake and estuary hydrology. However, significant uncertainties surround ostracod calcification processes, the incorporation mechanisms of trace elements, and the sensitivity of p...

The Mg and Sr content of ostracod valves have been used to reconstruct past temperature and salinity, and their stable isotopes have been used to reveal aspects of marine, lake and estuary hydrology. However, significant uncertainties surround the ostracod calcification processes, the incorporation mechanisms of trace elements, and the sensitivity...

Changes in ocean circulation are thought to have contributed to lowering glacial atmospheric CO2 levels by enhancing deep ocean sequestration of carbon that was returned to the atmosphere during glacial terminations. High-resolution benthic foraminiferal δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O records from a depth transect of cores in the Southwest Pacific Ocean presented h...

Over the last 5 million years, the global climate system has evolved toward a colder mean state, marked by large-amplitude oscillations in continental ice volume. Equatorward expansion of polar waters and strengthening temperature gradients have been detected. However, the response of the mid latitudes and high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere...

Understanding the interaction between climate and biotic evolution is crucial for deciphering the sensitivity of life. An enigmatic mass extinction occurred in the deep oceans during the Mid Pleistocene, with a loss of over 100 species (20%) of sea floor calcareous foraminifera. An evolutionarily conservative group, benthic foraminifera often compr...

Over the last 5 million years, the global climate system has evolved toward a colder mean state, marked by large amplitude oscillations in continental ice volume. Equatorward expansion of polar waters and strengthening temperature gradients have been detected. However, the response of the mid- and high-latitudes of the southern hemisphere is not we...

Reconstruction of intermediate water properties is important for understanding feedbacks within the ocean-climate system, particularly since these water masses are capable of driving high–low latitude teleconnections. Nevertheless, information about intermediate water mass evolution through the late Pleistocene remains limited. This paper examines...

A greater amount of CO 2 was stored in the deep sea during glacial periods, likely via greater efficiency of the biologic pump and increased uptake by a more alkaline ocean. Reconstructing past variations in seawater carbonate ion concentration (a major component of alkalinity) enables quantification of the relative roles of different oceanic CO 2...

This study examined sources of mixed layer and shallow subsurface waters in the subtropical Bay of Plenty, New Zealand across the last deglaciation (~30-5 ka). δ18O and δ13C from planktonic foraminifera Globgerinoides bulloides and Globorotalia inflata in four sediment cores were used to reconstruct surface mixed layer thickness, δ18O of seawater (...

Ostracods are a prominent source of freshwater [1,2] and marine [3] palaeoproxies. The Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios of their ‘calcitic’ carapace are used as proxies for salinity and temperature. Recently, a number of uncertainties have been raised regarding several aspects of our understanding of these proxies: the hydrological processes ostracods are us...

We report a new method for HR-ICP-MS based accurate and precise B/Ca determination from low mass natural carbonates (≤ 5 µg CaCO3), utilizing a mixed acid matrix (0.1 M HNO3 & 0.3 M HF) and accurate matrix matching technique. Our procedural B/Ca blank of 2.0 ± 1.0 µmol/mol, internal precision ≤ 1.0%, average within run external precision ≤ 4.0% (2σ...

The reconstruction of past surface, intermediate and deep-water temperatures is critical for our understanding of feedbacks within the ocean-climate system on orbital time-scales. Intermediate water temperature reconstruction is particularly important since intermediate waters, including Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW), could drive high-low lat...

Improving estimates of past ocean temperatures is paramount to our understanding of ocean circulation and its role in climate change. Magnesium/calcium (Mg/Ca) ratios of carapaces of the benthic ostracod genus Krithe were determined from new, globally distributed core top samples from the Norwegian Sea, Cape Hatteras shelf, Gulf of Mexico, Sulawesi...

The relative 14C ages of surface and deep marine waters reflect the balance between air-sea exchange of 14CO2 in deep-water formation areas, the radioactive decay of 14C during subsurface circulation, and the mixing between adjacent water masses. The Δ14C of the interior ocean is known to vary due to the major reorganization of circulation and CO2...

During the last deglaciation, abrupt changes in Southern Ocean ventilation are linked to corresponding abrupt changes in climate, where ventilation began with a flush of the shallow interior and progressively spread well-ventilated waters deeper as the deglaciation continued. Ventilation changes in the New Zealand region of the Southern Ocean were...

Neodymium isotopes provide a paleoceanographic proxy for past deep water circulation and local weathering changes and have been measured on various authigenic marine sediment components, including fish teeth, ferromanganese oxides extracted by acid-reductive leaching, cleaned foraminifera, and foraminifera with Fe-Mn oxide coatings. Here we compare...

The Younger Dryas, the last large millennial-scale climate oscillation (12.9–11.6 ka), has been widely attributed to a massive meltwater discharge event that disrupted ocean circulation and plunged the circum–North Atlantic back into a near-glacial state. Low-resolution deep-water reconstructions indicate lower North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) prod...

This dissertation reconstructs late Pleistocene oceanic circulation variability within the North Atlantic, a critical region of deep-water formation, using proxies that reconstruct surface and deepwater changes. Unlike other studies that examine North Atlantic circulation as a whole, my study focuses on changes in Iceland Scotland Overflow Water (I...

The varved sediments that accumulate in the Cariaco Basin provide a detailed archive of the region’s climatic history, including a record of the quantity of fluvial and wind-transported material. In this study, we examine the sedimentological characteristics (clay mineralogy and grain size) of both surface sediments and sinking lithogenic material...

Northern Component Water (NCW; analogous to modern NADW) circulation has been described as bi-modal with shallow flow associated with the last glacial maximum (LGM) and a deeper current associated with the Holocene. We have generated foraminiferal stable isotope records as well as grain size records from cores collected on the Eirik and southern Ga...

Changes in ocean circulation and climate are linked on orbital to millennial time-scales. We describe results of stable isotope and total carbonate analyses in cores collected within a sediment wave field on Gardar Drift 946 km south of Iceland. Two jumbo piston cores (JPCs) collected from either side of a km-scale migrating mudwave during Knorr cr...

Thesis (M.S.)--University of South Carolina, 2005.

The varved sediments that have accumulated in the Cariaco Basin throughout the Holocene provide a detailed archive of the region's climatic history, and act as a historical record for the occurrence of phenomena such as earthquakes and coastal flooding. In this study we compare the sedimentological characteristics of lithogenic material collected f...