Atmospheric

A new mathematical model developed by University of Michigan atmospheric and planetary scientist Nilton Renno says that dust devils, water spouts, tornadoes, hurricanes and cyclones are all born of the same mechanism and will intensify as climate change warms the Earth's surface. Renno hopes the new equation will allow scientists to more accurately calculate the maximum expected intensity of a spiraling storm based on the depth of the troposphere (the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere) and the temperature and humidity of the air in the storm's path. This equation improves upon current…

Researchers here now have a picture of a key molecule that lets microbes produce carbon dioxide and methane, the two greenhouse gases associated with global warming. The findings relate to organisms called methanogens and cap a 12-year effort into how industrial processes might be improved, explained Michael Chan, professor of biochemistry, and Joseph Krzycki, professor of microbiology, both of Ohio State University. Methanogenesis is the process by which the gas methane is made, and it takes place everywhere across the globe, from swamps to landfills, releasing the gas that ultimately seeps…

Want to really store carbon? Get old ... and underwater. Researchers at the Missouri Tree Ring Laboratory in the Department of Forestry discovered that trees submerged in freshwater aquatic systems store carbon for thousands of years, a significantly longer period of time than in a forest, thus keeping carbon out of the atmosphere. The team studied trees in northern Missouri, a geographically unique area with a high level of riparian forests (forests that have natural water flowing through them). They discovered submerged oak trees that were as old as 14,000 years, potentially some of the…

Large amounts of ozone, 50% more than predicted by the most recent climate models, are being destroyed in the lower atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic Ocean. This discovery by a team of scientists from the UK's National Centre for Atmospheric Science and Universities of York and Leeds has particular significance because ozone in the lower atmosphere acts as a greenhouse gas and its destruction also leads to the removal of the third most abundant greenhouse gas; methane. The findings come after analysing the first year of measurements from the new Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory,…

A new analysis of Martian soil data led by University of California, Berkeley, geoscientists suggests that there was once enough water in the planet's atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew to hit the ground, leaving tell-tale signs of its interaction with the planet's surface. The study's conclusion breaks from the more dominant view that the liquid water that once existed during the red planet's infancy came mainly in the form of upwelling groundwater rather than rain. To come up with their conclusions, the UC Berkeley-led researchers used published measurements of soil from Mars that were…

It's an ingredient found in dandruff shampoos and, if you're a movie buff, you also know it was used to help fight off alien invaders in the film "Evolution." Scientists at the University of Leicester are now using selenium as a tool in investigating how the oxygen content of the oceans has changed over geologically recent time. Selenium is an anti-oxidant and an essential trace nutrient in our diet. It belongs to a group of elements whose behavior is controlled by the concentration of oxygen in the environment. Now scientists are using selenium as part of a research project to measure the…

Scientists are deploying an advanced research aircraft to study a region of the atmosphere that influences climate change by affecting the amount of solar heat that reaches Earth's surface. Findings from the project, based at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), will be used by researchers worldwide to improve computer models of global climate in preparation for the next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The project, running from April to June, is known as START 08 (Stratosphere-Troposphere Analyses of Regional Transport). It focuses on a remote…

The odds are poor that humanity will ever curtail CO2 emissions sufficiently fast against even the mid-case global warming scenarios forecast by climatologists. A possible near-term remedy, however, has been found in the form of a simple pollution abatement strategy in the mitigation of airborne soot. Airborne soot falls from the air in a matter of weeks, so its abatement is far more efficacious - in terms of tangible environmental benefits - than first migitating CO2 emissions. Recent studies now show that soot - in the air as aerosol brown clouds and on the ice as dirty snow - has…

Ramanathan has served on IPCC WG2 Panels, he headed the UN's INDOEX project and he's as solid a climate scientist as we have. Ramanathan's surprising field data found that tropospheric soot (with or without white sulfates) are causing nearly 40 percent of warming over the vast Pacific alone. Consistently the field data found 42% of the sootfall on the American West Coast was from China (75% of California 's own emissions). That's 30% of the Earth's surface, which would make for 12% of the temperature anomalies. http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/03/16/chinasoot_pla.html http://www.…

Clouds have typically posed a problem to scientists using satellites to observe the lowest part of the atmosphere because they block the satellite's ability to capture a clear, unobstructed view of Earth's surface. But these "obstructions" are worth a closer look, as clouds and their characteristics actually serve a valuable role in Earth's climate. That closer look is now available by satellites comprising the Afternoon Constellation, or A-Train. The five satellites – NASA's Aqua, Aura, CloudSat and CALIPSO and the French Space Agency's PARASOL – of the A-Train orbit only eight minutes…