Atmospheric

Less Focus On Power Plants: 21 Percent Of Homes Account For 50 Percent Of CO2 Emissions

During the last American presidential election, the Obama team highlighted that support for their victory was across the board- 8 of the 10 wealthiest counties in America had gone their way, which was meant to show that rich people believed in his vision ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 26 2013 - 12:00pm

Explosion Of Super Greenhouse Gases Expected From India And China Over The Next Decade

India and China were both exempt from restrictions in the Kyoto agreements, because they were considered emerging economies. For that reason, while western nations have reduced their carbon footprints, CO2 emissions worldwide have continued upward. It' ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 30 2013 - 11:33pm

Space Traffic Linked To Increase In Polar Mesospheric Clouds

A recent increase in polar mesospheric clouds- diffuse collections of water ice crystals in the mesosphere near the poles at altitudes of about 50 miles- could be due to a recent increase in space traffic, a new paper in  Geophysical Research Letters sugg ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 7 2013 - 9:57pm

Why Tropical Storm Sandy Was A One-In-700 Year Event

Tropical Storm Sandy had the good fortune to hit New York City and the home of American media publishing during a presidential election. It thus became a Super Storm and  a political rallying cry. ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 7 2013 - 10:00pm

Wildfires Bigger Contributor To Global Warming Than Previously Predicted

Wildfires and their witch's brew of carbon-containing particles significantly degrade air quality, damage human and wildlife health, and interact with sunlight to affect climate. Measurements taken during the 2011 Las Conchas fire near Los Alamos Nat ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 9 2013 - 12:08pm

Extinction (And Size Reduction) Resulted From The Early Triassic Global Warming Event

The end-Permian mass extinction is the most severe biodiversity crisis in the history of life.  Immediately after the extinction, many marine taxa suffered a dramatic size reduction (i.e., the 'Lilliput Effect') and compiled data show that recov ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 14 2013 - 8:30am

Carbon Cycle Feedbacks During The East Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse Of 23 Million Years Ago

New evidence is helping to solve the mystery surrounding a collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet 23 million years ago. The surface of the East Antarctic ice sheet is so cold that models can only simulate its collapse by applying a significant climatic warmi ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 16 2013 - 9:00am

Nighttime Heat Waves On The Rise?

Lots of people who watch the news see when records, some that have stood for a hundred years, are broken in heat waves. But the increase in minimum daily temperatures is telling a more interesting story than maximum ones. Since 1901, nighttime heat waves, ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 21 2013 - 9:51am

Climate Predictions: Better Hindcasts Will Lead To Better Forecasts

It is well known that there are a lot of knobs turning in climate. Current models are assumption-based, with a set of fixed parameters and a solution that involves converging on an answer, and the assumptions impact the value that model accuracy has versu ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 22 2013 - 9:53am

The Impact Of Saharan Dust On... Houston?

Satellite pictures of Saharan dust clouds have been in the news all summer- they don't just impact Africa, they even impact air quality in far-away cities like Houston. Clouds of African dust often migrate across the Atlantic Ocean during summer mont ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 22 2013 - 11:48am