The USGS estimates that 10 million tons of CO2 was released over the 9 hour eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. That’s a pretty huge number, but passenger vehicles in the USA alone emit as much CO2 as a Mt St. Helens eruption happening somewhere in America every 3 days.
Remember the difference between weather and climate? We know what happens when the weather changes—it’s obvious. Climate is another story. Read on. When it rains, you put on a raincoat or take your umbrella when you go out. It snows: time for high boots, a heavier coat, scarf, and warm gloves. And sunny days, well,
Weather and climate are similar but different. For the most part, they are very distinct phenomena. Below, we talk about the weather first, and then delve into the climate. Weather We measure what’s going on in our atmosphere over a short period of time—usually in a particular place on a particular day—by assessing the weather. Could be
Or do you? It’s time to pay attention to climate change now—as if it wasn’t back in 1800, when our current problems started. We all need to acknowledge that stunning industrial achievements can carry with them enormous unforeseen risks and challenges. Americans should take particular note, because on the whole we are wa-a-a-y behind on this.
Would you like to chase satellites, print out custom sky charts whenever you wish, and locate real-time iridium flares without a telescope or binoculars? Heavens Above has just the features you’re looking for. It’s dedicated to helping people observe and track, with only the naked eye, satellites orbiting Earth. Chris Peat, a physicist and space-industry
OCO-2 is only a little thing, about 6 ft long, 3 ft in diameter, and less than half a ton in weight (NASA/JPL-Caltech, artist’s conception). It will be harder to deny the existence of climate change now that NASA has successfully launched Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2. A United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air
There are the good wildfires, and there are the bad. Unfortunately, the latter often overwhelm the beneficial ones. We’ll go on with stories from San Diego in a minute—it’s a long story of an actually short time—but here’s a word about the bright side first. Whoopi Goldberg had a thought that’s worth repeating: When you
In a spot aired this afternoon called “Geoengineers: Who will rule the climate?” the world’s third largest radio station, Voice of Russia, seems to be wobbling on whether or not wholesale scientific experimentation could alter the destructive path of anthropomorphic climate change. VOR, reportedly the first radio station to broadcast internationally, serves about 109 million listeners of
The prestigious BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award will be presented to Isaac Held, Ph.D., a senior research scientist with the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., at a ceremony in Madrid, Spain, in June of this year for his scientific contributions that have improved our understanding of climate change and atmospheric circulation systems.
A new study has suggested that wind farm operators could come to better understand the amount of power being generated at any one time by looking to the stability of the atmosphere for clues. The energy generated by a wind farm, as expected, is very much at the mercy of wind speeds. However, the shape
Orbiting our planet at altitudes between 250-to-500 miles (400–to-800 km), the C/NOFS satellite* has detected special resonating waves of electromagnetic energy — generated by lightning flashes in the Earth’s atmosphere — for the first time. These waves are known as Schumann resonances and they propagate around the earth at very low frequencies (as low as
“The ocean is taking up less carbon because of the warming caused by the carbon in the atmosphere.”
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which took place some 55.9 million years ago, is the best analogue that we currently have for understanding what might happen if greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed soon, and according to a new study, the rate of release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere today is 10 times as fast when compared to the PETM.
According to a new study, the increase in global temperatures may play a significant role in altering the capacity trees have to store carbon dioxide, by changing the forest nitrogen cycle.
After a month of partial and failed fixes to three of the Dai-ichi Fukushima nuclear plants, the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan (NISA) has just now raised the level of severity to ‘7’ — the same rating ascribed to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Its previous rating of the disaster’s severity had been ‘5’.
The scientists used a general circulation model known as ModelE (developed at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York). The model calculates ocean-atmosphere coupling effects in addition to allowing varying aerosol inputs.
The initial input for the simulation was 5 teragrams (megatons) of black carbon particles injected into Earth’s upper troposphere. This is the estimated result of the surface detonation of 100 Hiroshima-size bombs (each equivalent to 15K tons of TNT).
The 20th Century Reanalysis Project (20CR), a joint project between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado, has brought together 27 international climatologists to create a comprehensive reanalysis of all global weather events from 1871 to present day, effectively creating an accessible time machine for climate scientists. The project allows
Scientists have long assumed that the long-lasting and severe cold spells in Europe that have taken place since the Last Glacial Maximum some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago have been the result of changes in the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean currents. New research led by Cardiff University has now shown that ocean circulation changes
An international team of researchers led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has delved into understanding the self-cleaning properties of our atmosphere and found that, relatively speaking, the atmosphere has a seemingly stable capacity to rid itself of most pollutants. The study, published online in the journal Science, shows that global levels of
According to a new study the amount of dust in the planet’s atmosphere has doubled over the last century, and unsurprisingly is affecting climate and ecology around the world. Led by Natale Mahowald, an associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University, the study set out to use available data combined with computer
A new paper published in the Journal of Climate has shone the light on the inefficiency that currently exists in the modelling of clouds in climate models. The authors of the paper presented a new approach that will help in understanding the clouds role in and their response to global warming. “All the global climate
Global warming will have a varying effect on weather systems depending on which hemisphere they are in, according to new research from MIT’s Paul O’Gorman, who found that the warming of the planet will affect the availability of energy to fuel large-scale weather systems that occur at Earth’s middle latitudes. O’Gorman found that more intense
Research by scientists from the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology has found that the real C02 threat’s to Earth’s climate have yet to be built. Scientists Steven Davis and Ken Caldeira believe that as it stands, we can prevent the inertia in our production of carbon tipping our climate past the point of no
How is it clear humans are causing global warming or climate change? Check out the image and explanations in this article to find out.
The Earth’s upper atmosphere expands and contracts a bit naturally. But a recent record-breaking collapse has scientists confused.
A research team confirms “extensive out-gassing of methane to the atmosphere” over the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf, and confirm its source to be venting from sea-bed sediments. Though acknowledging their findings do not seriously alter climate change predictions, the team also asserts that the sub-sea permafrost layer is failing and advise more urgent investigation.
Apart from the major disruption in flight traffic and the economy, the Icelandic volcano eruption promises in the short-term to disrupt upper atmospheric circulation patterns and temperatures, with an additional impact due to sulfuric acid “nucleation” and subsequent acid rain. But the medium to long-term impacts of continuous, or increasing, volcanic eruptions is a matter of on-going scientific debate.
[social_buttons] Nasa scientists have told government’s that a simple cut in worldwide emissions of soot could lead to a dramatic reduction in the effects of global warming, as well as preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths from air pollution. Soot contains black carbon, thought to be the second largest cause of global warming after carbon
Over our history eclipses have been the portent of the gods wrath, new things to come, or simply a pretty light show. But would you have expected our last lunar eclipse to have been of any help to researchers looking at climate change? Researchers at the University of Colorado in Boulder, US, found that Earth’s
I played around for a few minutes with a heading that said something along the lines of “Scientists alert us to the Obvious… etc” for this story. It seems to me that I am dealing more and more with people who simply intend to live their lives with their heads buried in the sand. That
