A new paper estimates that fires in the continental United States and Alaska release about 44 metric tons of mercury into the atmosphere every year. It is the first study to estimate mercury…

Planetary scientists on both sides of the Atlantic have tracked down a rare molecule in the atmospheres of both Mars and Venus. The molecule, an exotic form of carbon dioxide, could affect the way…

Some of the elements necessary to support life on Earth are widely known - oxygen, carbon and water, to name a few. Just as important in the existence of life as any other component is the presence…

Deep-sea temperatures rose 1,300 years before atmospheric CO2, ruling out the greenhouse gas as the driver of the meltdown, says a new study. “There has been this continual reference to the…

An international team of researchers has determined there was a "whiff" of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere about 2.5 billion years ago, the earliest time any significant amount of oxygen has been…

The growth and conversion of biofuel crops could raise rather than lower greenhouse gas emissions, says a new study led by Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, best known for his work on the…

Scientists believe that shortly after Earth was formed, it had a glowing surface of molten rock extending down hundreds of miles. As that surface cooled, a rigid crust was produced near the surface…

Observations and climate model results confirm that human-induced warming of the planet is having a pronounced effect on the atmosphere’s total moisture content. “When you heat the planet, you…

Overturning the conventional theory that airborne soot emissions cause regional cooling it has been found that brown clouds of airborne soot can contribute up to a third of atmospheric warming…

Easily 40 percent of the observed atmospheric warming in the Pacific is due to the shroud of soot drifting eastward from Asia. Prof. V. Ramanathan and fellow researchers are reporting that soot's 2.5…