Atmospheric

CO2 gets most of the attention these days but it is not the only pollution the Arctic faces. The environment is complex and the daisy chain of effects is unclear. That's why researchers who measured molecular chlorine levels in the Arctic in the spring of 2009 over a six-week period using chemical ionization mass spectrometry were skeptical of their data.  But by re-running experiments in the years since, they have found that molecular chlorine is being released from sea salt released by melting sea ice and that reacts with sunlight to produce chlorine atoms. These chlorine atoms…

Members of the public generally have a negative view of climate engineering, the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the environment to counteract climate change, according to a new paper. This makes some sense. If we can't predict the weather a week from now, it's very difficult to say we can predict the far more complicated climate after physical changes are made to the inputs. Climate engineering is one idea to combat the rise in atmospheric CO2 due to the burning of fossil fuels. While emissions in the US and some other nations have dropped, places like China, India and Mexico are all…

We hear a lot about carbon storage and the impact on the atmosphere if CO2 is release during warming, but how does that work? Carbon is not evenly distributed in soil, instead the kinds of carbon hot spots that matter are found on about 20 percent of mineral surfaces, according to a new paper. Studies have established that carbon binds to tiny mineral particles and in a new paper researchers show that the surface of the minerals plays just as important a role as their size. "The carbon binds to minerals that are just a few thousandths of a millimeter in size – and it accumulates there…

A new paper in Nature estimates that global average temperatures will rise at least 4°C by 2100 and potentially more than 8°C by 2200 if carbon dioxide emissions worldwide are not reduced -  due to a reestimate of the great unknowns of climate sensitivity, the role of cloud formation and whether this will have a positive or negative effect on global warming. This new higher estimate was created using real world observations of water vapor in cloud formation.  “Our research has shown climate models indicating a low temperature response to a doubling of carbon dioxide from…

 Red Mountain, an abandoned California magnesite mine, is providing geoscientists new insights on how to permanently entomb greenhouse gas emissions in the Earth. The Red Mountain mine is about 70 miles east of the campus and contains some of the world's largest veins of pure magnesium carbonate, or magnesite – a chalky mineral made of carbon dioxide (CO2) and magnesium. How the magnesite veins formed millions of years ago has long been a puzzle but the scientists have an idea for converting CO2, a potent greenhouse gas, into solid magnesite.  "Conventional geological storage…

Global warming has been hopelessly politicized since a Kyoto Treaty was jammed through over objections and then basically ignored by everyone.  A science basis for American cars causing global warming but Chinese cars being exempt from pollution numbers did not exist and the dates for the Kyoto targets far too conveniently matched easy dates for two European countries(1) while penalizing everyone else. Since that time, some science journalists turned from trusted guides to cheerleaders on the issue (good news, though - they are trying to get their credibilty back and bloggers have filled…

Extraction using hydraulic fracturing - fracking - has made North America the world's largest producer of oil and gas, while US CO2 emissions from energy have dropped back to early 1990s levels and the most offensive producer, coal, has been pushed back to 1980s levels. Despite those benefits, there have endless protests from environmentalists that fracking is worse for pollution.  Does drilling for natural gas really cause pollution levels to skyrocket, the way activists claim?  A team of geochemistry researchers affiliated with Concordia University, l'Université du Québec à…

More pollution causes thunderstorms to leave behind larger, deeper, longer lasting clouds, according to a new paper which can help provide a gauge for the accuracy of weather and climate models. Researchers had thought that pollution causes larger and longer-lasting storm clouds by making thunderheads draftier through a process known as convection. But atmospheric scientist Jiwen Fan and her colleagues show that pollution instead makes clouds linger by decreasing the size and increasing the lifespan of cloud and ice particles. The difference affects how scientists represent clouds in climate…

Rain as acidic as undiluted lemon juice may have played a part in killing off plants and organisms around the world about 252 million years ago during the most severe mass extinction in Earth's history, known as the Great Dying. The cause of such a massive extinction is an ongoing scientific debate, centering on several potential causes, including an asteroid collision similar to what likely killed off the dinosaurs 186 million years later; a gradual, global loss of oxygen in the oceans; and a cascade of environmental events triggered by massive volcanic eruptions in a region known today as…

Global warming was set in motion around 1600 AD, it seems.  Because carbon dioxide emissions persist for a long time, even a sudden halt today means the carbon dioxide already in Earth's atmosphere could continue to warm our planet for hundreds of years, according to a numerical model which suggests that it might take a lot less carbon than previously thought to reach the global temperature scientists deem unsafe. The researchers simulated an Earth on which, after 1,800 billion tons of carbon entered the atmosphere, all carbon dioxide emissions suddenly stopped. Scientists commonly use…