Atmospheric

The ten warmest years on record have all occurred between 1997 and 2008 but the 2008 temperature in the US was not much different than the 1951-1980 mean, which makes it cooler than all the previous…

Globally, tropical trees in undisturbed forest are absorbing nearly a fifth of the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels, according to a 40-year study of African tropical forests published in Nature.…

Aerosols are fine particles suspended in the atmosphere. Sources of human-generated aerosols include industry, motor vehicles and vegetation burning. Natural sources include volcanoes, dust storms…

Picture a tree in the forest. The tree "inhales" carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, transforming that greenhouse gas into the building materials and energy it needs to grow its branches and leaves.…

Half a mile underground is probably the last place you might expect to be able to observe atmospheric phenomena. If you knew about the MINOS experiment, however, you might think otherwise. MINOS,…

Cosmic-rays detected half a mile underground in a disused U.S. iron-mine can be used to detect major weather events occurring 20 miles up in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, according to a new study…

Climate prediction is difficult stuff.   As you know, it's impossible to predict the weather 10 days from now much less six months and aside from "it will get a lot worse" no one can say with…

Never 'heard' of thundersnow?  It's a rare sort of thunderstorm but the precipitation is snow rather than rain and because the snow dampens the sound so while you might  thunder from a…

I have a list of jerks already lined up for powering a space elevator, putting them in mortal danger of dying a painful death by plummeting elevator. Carefully Timed Jerks Could Power Space Elevator…

Big volcanic eruptions over the past 450 years have temporarily cooled weather in the tropics but suggest that such effects may have been masked in the 20th century by rising global temperatures, say…