Atmosphere News

April 19, 2024

Top Headlines

Ice Age Climate Analysis Reduces Worst-Case Warming Expected from Rising CO2

Apr. 17, 2024 — A detailed reconstruction of climate during the most recent ice age, when a large swath of North America was covered in ice, provides information on the relationship between CO2 and global ...

Tracing the Largest Solar Storm in Modern Times from Tree Rings in Lapland

Apr. 4, 2024 — A research group was able to measure a spike in radiocarbon concentration of trees in Lapland that occurred after the Carrington flare. This discovery helps to prepare for dangerous solar ...

How Extratropical Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions Can Contribute to the Variability of Jet Streams in the Northern Hemisphere

Mar. 28, 2024 — Ocean-atmosphere coupling, the exchange in energy between the ocean and atmosphere, influences teleconnection patterns, the climate effects across vast geographical areas. However, its impact outside ...

Scientists on the Hunt for Evidence of Quantum Gravity's Existence at the South Pole

Mar. 26, 2024 — An Antarctic large-scale experiment is striving to find out if gravity also exists at the quantum level. An extraordinary particle able to travel undisturbed through space seems to hold the ...

Latest Headlines

updated 8:53am EDT

Satellite Data Assimilation Improves Forecasts of Severe Weather

Mar. 21, 2024 — In 2020, a line of severe thunderstorms unleashed powerful winds that caused billions in damages across the Midwest United States. A new technique that incorporates satellite data could improve ...

Meteorology: Weak Polar Vortex Makes Weather More Predictable

Mar. 15, 2024 — Events in the stratosphere are making long-range weather in Northern Europe easier to forecast, researchers have ...

Vehicle Brakes Produce Charged Particles That May Harm Public Health

Mar. 12, 2024 — Scientists know relatively little about particles released into the air when a vehicle driver brakes, though evidence suggests those particles may be more harmful to health than particles exiting the ...

AI Analysis of Historical Satellite Images Show USSR Collapse in 1990s Increased Methane Emissions, Despite Lower Oil and Gas Production

Mar. 12, 2024 — An AI-powered analysis of 25 years of satellite images yields the surprising finding that methane emissions in Turkmenistan, a former Soviet republic ...

Study Explores Impacts of Arctic Warming on Daily Weather Patterns in the U.S.

Mar. 11, 2024 — Arctic sea ice is shrinking as the world continues to warm, and a new study may provide a better understanding of how the loss of this ice may impact ...

2020 Extreme Weather Event That Brought Fires and Snow to Western US

Mar. 2, 2024 — The same weather system that led to the spread of the devastating Labor Day wildfires in 2020 brought record-breaking cold and early-season snowfall to parts of the Rocky Mountains. Now, new research ...

Emergency Atmospheric Geoengineering Wouldn't Save the Oceans

Feb. 29, 2024 — Climate change is heating the oceans, altering currents and circulation patterns responsible for regulating climate on a global scale. If temperatures dropped, some of that damage could theoretically ...

New Cloud Model Could Help With Climate Research

Feb. 21, 2024 — When clouds meet clear skies, cloud droplets evaporate as they mix with dry air. A new study has succeeded in capturing what happens in a model. Ultimately, this could lead to more accurate climate ...

Side Effects of Wide Scale Forestation Could Reduce Carbon Removal Benefits by Up to a Third

Feb. 22, 2024 — The side effects of large-scale forestation initiatives could reduce the CO2 removal benefits by up to a third, a pioneering study has ...

New Study Sheds New Light on Forests' Role in Climate and Water Cycle

Feb. 7, 2024 — Forests, which cover a third of Earth's land surface, are pivotal in carbon storage and the water cycle, though the full scope of their impact remains to be fully understood. In a new study, ...

Blueprint for Mandating Indoor Air Quality for Public Buildings in Form of Standards

Mar. 29, 2024 — A group of international experts has presented a blueprint for national indoor quality standards for public buildings. The experts addressed setting standards for three key indoor pollutants -- ...

What Turned Earth Into a Giant Snowball 700 Million Years Ago? Scientists Now Have an Answer

Feb. 7, 2024 — Inspired during field work in South Australia's Flinders Ranges, geoscientists have proposed that all-time low volcanic carbon dioxide emissions triggered a 57-million-year-long global ...

Ice Age Could Help Predict Oceans' Response to Global Warming

Jan. 21, 2024 — A new way to measure the ocean oxygen level and its connections with carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere during the last ice age could help explain the role oceans played in past glacial ...

Wobbling Particles in the Sky

Jan. 19, 2024 — Tiny particles such as ice crystals or ash particles tend to oscillate as they settle through the atmosphere. In their experiments, the scientists were able to track non-spherical particles of size ...

Climate Change Isn't Producing Expected Increase in Atmospheric Moisture Over Dry Regions

Jan. 17, 2024 — The warming climate has not lead to an expected increase in atmospheric moisture over arid and semi-arid regions of the world. The finding, which has surprised scientists, indicates that some regions ...

Microplastics from Natural Fertilizers Are Blowing in the Wind More Often Than Once Thought

Jan. 17, 2024 — Though natural fertilizers made from treated sewage sludge are used to reintroduce nutrients onto agricultural fields, they bring along microplastic pollutants too. And according to a small-scale ...

More Aerosol Particles Than Thought Are Forming Over Siberia, Study Finds

Jan. 13, 2024 — A new study finds that, contrary to previous beliefs, large amounts of aerosol particles can form over vast areas of the West Siberian taiga in the spring. When temperatures rise, this can have a ...

Reduced Air Pollution During Pandemic Points to Way to Preserve Himalayan Glaciers

Dec. 21, 2023 — Reducing air pollution to levels similar to those during the coronavirus pandemic could protect the glaciers in the Himalayas and prevent them from disappearing by the end of the century. This is the ...

Exoplanets' Climate -- It Takes Nothing to Switch from Habitable to Hell

Dec. 18, 2023 — The Earth is a wonderful blue and green dot covered with oceans and life, while Venus is a yellowish sterile sphere that is not only inhospitable but also sterile. However, the difference between the ...

How Forests Smell -- A Risk for the Climate?

Dec. 13, 2023 — Plants emit odors for a variety of reasons, such as to communicate with each other, to deter herbivores or to respond to changing environmental conditions. An interdisciplinary team of researchers ...

When Is an Aurora Not an Aurora?

Dec. 8, 2023 — While auroras occur at high latitude, the associated phenomena Steve and the picket fence occur farther south and at lower altitude. Their emissions also differ from aurora. A physics graduate ...

Geoscientists Map Changes in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Over Past 66 Million Years

Dec. 7, 2023 — An international consortium of geoscientists has reconstructed atmosphereric levels of carbon dioxide going back 66 million years using proxies in the geoloogical record. Today's concenteration, ...

The Ocean May Be Storing More Carbon Than Estimated in Earlier Studies

Dec. 6, 2023 — The ocean's capacity to store atmospheric carbon dioxide is some 20% greater than the estimates contained in the latest IPCC report. Scientists looked at the role played by plankton in the ...

Harvesting Water from Air With Solar Power

Dec. 5, 2023 — Researchers have developed a promising new solar-powered atmospheric water harvesting technology that could help provide enough drinking water for people to survive in difficult, dryland areas: They ...

Commitments Needed to Solve Aviation's Impact on Our Climate

Nov. 28, 2023 — Researchers could find no simple solution to limiting non-CO2 emissions from ...

Solar Activity Likely to Peak Next Year

Nov. 28, 2023 — Researchers have discovered a new relationship between the Sun's magnetic field and its sunspot cycle, that can help predict when the peak in solar activity will occur. Their work indicates that ...

Giant Sea Salt Aerosols Play Major Role in Hawai'i's Coastal Clouds, Rain

Nov. 27, 2023 — A new study from atmospheric scientists revealed that the coastline can produce up to five times the concentration of giant sea salt aerosols compared to the open ocean and that coastal clouds may ...

Massive Antarctic Ozone Hole Over Past Four Years: What Is to Blame?

Nov. 21, 2023 — Despite public perception, the Antarctic ozone hole has been remarkably massive and long-lived over the past four years; researchers believe chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) aren't the only things to ...

Effect of Aerosol Particles on Clouds and the Climate Captured Better

Nov. 21, 2023 — Global measurements and model calculations show that the complex relationship between the chemistry and climate impact of aerosol particles can be successfully captured by a simple ...

Massive 2022 Eruption Reduced Ozone Layer Levels

Nov. 20, 2023 — The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano changed the chemistry and dynamics of the stratosphere in the year following the eruption, leading to unprecedented losses in the ozone layer of up to 7% ...