Atmospheric

Global Warming Could Cause 50% More Lightning

By Karin Heineman, (Inside Science TV) Every day around the world, lightning strikes the ground about 10 times per second. That's nearly one million strikes a day! In the U.S. there are 20 million strikes on average every year, and now David Romps, a ...

Article - Inside Science - Mar 10 2015 - 11:20am

Monsoons Drove Mammal Evolution In Asia

A new study looked at the pattern of variation of the South Asian monsoon over time and compared it with the evolution of African mole rats and bamboo rats by evolutionary distribution in space and through time and found that weakening and strengthening mo ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 11 2015 - 9:48am

Not Cro-Magnon, Volcanoes May Have Doomed Neanderthals

A new paper notes that the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption in Italy 40,000 years ago, one of the largest volcanic cataclysms in Europe and responsible for injecting a significant amount of sulfur-dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere, coincided with the final ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 20 2015 - 1:05pm

Halocarbons: Japan Earthquake And Tsunami Sped Ozone Loss, Global Warming

It isn't just the forests and tundra that can release climate warming and ozone-depleting chemicals, buildings can do it also, like when they crash into the ground following an earthquake and tsunami.  Emissions of these chemicals, called halocarbons ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 1 2015 - 11:38am

Methane-Generating Microbes In Arctic Lake Sediments Will Increase Production With Warming

A new study finds that in scenarios of increasing global temperatures, methane-generating microbes, found in thawing lake sediments may ramp up production. Though methane stays in the atmosphere for far less time than CO2, it is 25X more potent during that ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 30 2015 - 12:43pm

Petrichor: How The Term For The Smell Of Rain Came To Be

Australia’s CSIRO has come up with some pretty amazing inventions over the past 86 years of research, from polymer banknotes to insect repellent and the world-changing Wi-Fi. But we can also lay claim to something a little more esoteric – we actually inve ...

Article - The Conversation - Mar 31 2015 - 8:00am

Volcanic Eruptions And Long-Term North Atlantic Climate Impact

It is well established that particles emitted during major volcanic eruptions cool the atmosphere for two or three years  due to a 'parasol' effect that reflects sunlight. ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 31 2015 - 8:00am

Climate Change Is Not Causing Extreme Winters

Though the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has asked science journalists and political writers wearing a scientific beard to not attribute every weather event to climate change, it is still common to have every storm, drought and temperatu ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 31 2015 - 8:30am

Will We Ever Get Accurate Hurricane Forecasts?

The biggest challenge facing climate models is similar to those facing economic ones- predicting the past is relatively easy, but predicting the future is far more of a challenge. In the United States, predicting hurricanes is less accurate than NCAA tour ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 31 2015 - 6:35pm

No Permafrost Carbon Bomb Coming, According To New Study

A new review of existing studies suggests a gradual, prolonged release of greenhouse gases from permafrost soils in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. That sounds like bad news, and it is, but the good news is it actually means more time to adjust to ways to ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 8 2015 - 1:25pm