Atmospheric

Deforestation Leads To Cooling, Not Warming, In US And Canada

New research in Nature has a surprising conclusion; the impact of deforestation on global warming varies with latitude, which at least explains a frustrating lack of warming in the U.S. even though global warming has been measured higher overall. The rese ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 18 2011 - 11:21am

CO2 From Peat May Be Underestimated

The climate change effect of CO2 released from peat may be far greater than assumed. Drought causes peat to release far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than has previously been realized, according to new research. ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 29 2011 - 6:31am

USA Shows Sharp Decline In Coal Power Pollution

Researchers using the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura satellite have confirmed major reductions in the levels of sulfur dioxide, a key pollutant generated by coal power plants which contributes to the formation of acid rain, in the e ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 4 2011 - 1:23pm

Climate Change- As If We Care

Do we really care about climate change? Since we do very little to reduce or limit activities that we believe we know cause climate change one could argue that we- do- not- in- fact- care. Come again?! I can almost hear you say. At a AGU Town Hall meeting ...

Blog Post - Bente Lilja Bye - Dec 7 2011 - 1:46pm

Despair in the depth of a degree program, and the need to write and communicate

Okay, not despair. But frustration. This is my fourth year in this PhD program, and it's getting to be crunch time. Everything that influences and directs my degree program are pushing me formore work, more specialization, and less of everything else. ...

Blog Post - Benjamin Brown-St... - Jan 7 2012 - 1:39am

What Caused The Early Ice Ages? Plants

Plants help keep us cool by absorbing CO 2- sometimes too cool.  The arrival of the first plants 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages, according to a research team that set out to identify the effects that the first land plants had on the c ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 1 2012 - 11:28am

Updated Temperature Charts

I found a problem where the original data from NCDC lost the tenth of a degree place during importing. So I corrected this problem and regenerated my graphs. Also based on emails with Dr Roy Spencer, he suggested that I remove stations that are not present ...

Blog Post - Mi Cro - Mar 7 2013 - 12:37pm

A Perfect Storm: What Caused "Snowmageddon"?

You've heard or at least read about the pledge of the United States Postal Service: " Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds."  Well, that was before government workers had a union beca ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 14 2012 - 12:59pm

Storm Of The Century May One Day Be Just Another Storm

In August of 2011, Hurricane Irene hit the Caribbean and and then traveled up parts of the eastern United States, bringing widespread wreckage in some places and, thanks to threatening midtown Manhattan, even more media coverage. The Category 3 storm whipp ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 14 2012 - 12:54pm

Criegee Biradicals: Could This Particle Cool The Planet?

Criegee biradicals, invisible chemical intermediates, are powerful oxidizers of pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide produced by combustion and can naturally clean up the atmosphere. Sounds like fiction, right? These chemical intermediate ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 29 2012 - 7:08pm