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By Bob Berwyn The latest anomaly in the climate system that cant be fully explained by researchers is a record annual jump in the global mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured in 2024.
In that year, El Nio added to the increased warming caused by the build-up of heat-trapping emissions in the atmosphere, leading to that record-breaking heat. Humans have a direct effect on albedo through emitting industrial aerosols such as sulfates, which accumulate in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Last month, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report on a relatively new field of research – atmospheric methane removal. The Sabin Center contributed one of these papers on Legal Considerations for Atmospheric Methane Removal.
New scientific information has yielded insights, including updates to our understanding of, and ability to model, the atmosphere, and the studies of the long-term effects of radiation on affected populations have yielded new information. New studies are being published and commissioned and research gaps are being identified.
Climate change makes heavy rain even heavier, beginning with warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico that produce more evaporation into the atmosphere. By Sean Sublette After early signs of drought from Georgia through Virginia this spring, a slow-moving storm brought flooding rain to the Southeast this week.
Climate models are the main tool scientists use to assess how much the Earths temperature will change given an increase in fossil fuel pollutants in the atmosphere. The atmosphere around us is an invisible fluid (at least to the human eye): we can apply math to that fluid to predict how it will look in the future.
Climate models are the main tool climate scientists use to predict how Earth will respond to more heat-trapping pollutants in the atmosphere. Just by looking at the name, you can see that a GCM is a model that simulates the circulation of Earths different physical systems like the atmosphere and ocean. What causes a circulation?
The potential collapse of the AMOC—which could happen within this century, or be triggered within this century and play out over a longer timeframe—comes as a result of climate change caused by additional heat-trapping emissions like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But what exactly would cause the AMOC to collapse? What is the AMOC?
The comparisons cover surface air temperatures, sea surface temperatures, tropospheric atmospheric temperatures (TLT, TMT), stratospheric temperatures, and a few variations on these themes that have been of interest in the past. (It We use the same collations of Hansen81/Hansen88/CMIP3/CMIP5/CMIP6 model output as previously.
Swain and the other authors note that previous research has focused solely on the precipitation side of the equation rather than the full bloom-and-burn cycle driven not just by lack of rain but by an increasingly thirsty atmosphere evaporating moisture out of plants and soil.
It shows the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and tells a story about the carbon cycle, involving Earth’s crust, the atmosphere, land surface, the biosphere, and the oceans. The Keeling curve, highlighted with the release of important climate reports and climate summits.
Scientists are now reporting a dramatic surge in lightning in the far north and are scrambling to parse how this could affect wildfires, the chemistry of the atmosphere, and Arctic ecosystems. A warmer world is expected to bring more thunderstorms, especially at higher latitudes. Read more on E360 →
Research with climate models in recent years shows that when carbon dioxide emissions stop, the rise in atmospheric temperatures will likely also stop. This means that there would be no additional warming of the atmosphere from carbon dioxide itself, but the many complex systems on Earth will continue to respond to the heat already trapped.
On the coast of Newfoundland, waste from a shuttered asbestos mine has been a troubling source of contamination for decades. Now, a company plans to process the waste to draw CO2 from the air — one of several projects worldwide that aim to turn this liability into an asset. Read more on E360 →
Nature, Published online: 04 June 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09023-w Using a global database of the radiocarbon content of rivers combining new and published measurements, isotopic mass balance suggests that about 60% of river CO2 emissions are derived from millennial or older carbon sources.
Nature, Published online: 04 June 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09047-2 Increased atmospheric evaporative demand in recent years has increased drought severity by an average of 40% globally across both dry and wet regions, and the trend is likely to continue under future warming scenarios.
Both hurricanes were exacerbated by warmer ocean surface temperatures, and are examples of “what hurricanes will look more like in the future,” according to Dr. Marc Alessi, an atmospheric scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. We need to stop burning fossil fuels immediately.
was simply telling the story of the Keeling Curve.Thats a daily record of global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration devised by Charles Keeling and taken from the Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii every day starting in 1958. My poor students thought I was in distress.I
Glacial ice offers a detailed record of the atmosphere, preserved in discrete layers, providing researchers with a valuable tool for studying human history. A sample taken from a glacier in the European Alps dates back at least 12,000 years, making it the oldest ice yet recovered in the region. Read more on E360 →
For the first time, the Arctic Report Card assessed that the Arctic is faltering as a reliable area for storing carbon away from the atmosphere ( Natalie et al., It was its first failing grade after thousands of years holding onto more carbon than released to the atmosphere. in Arc2024 ). Methane releases were sustained as well.
Farms commonly spread crushed limestone on fields to make the soil less acidic – and this practice can also help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
A flash flood in Allegany and Garrett counties has stretched local emergency systems and emphasizes the need to turn climate resilience planning into tangible action.
We also know what is needed to stop global warming: the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane must stabilise, and the forests must be protected. Landgren, "CMIP6 models project a shrinking precipitation area", npj Climate and Atmospheric Science , vol. References A. Dobler, R.E. Benestad, C.
Achieving climate goals requires significant investments in clean energy, transportation, and other climate technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere.
Guest commentary by Robert Hart, Kerry Emanuel , & Lance Bosart The National Weather Service (NWS) and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), delivers remarkable value to the taxpayers. This efficiency can be demonstrated by its enormous return on investment.
laws governing atmospheric methane removal (AMR) via soil amendments. AMR refers to human interventions to accelerate the conversion of methane in the atmosphere to a form that causes less warming (e.g., Rising human and natural emissions have caused methane concentrations in the atmosphere to grow to 2.5
Thawing permafrost may release methane into the atmosphere, which subsequently increases the greenhouse effect and leads to further global warming. Melting land ice contributes to a higher global sea level. The overall Arctic ice loss has contributed far more to global sea-level rise than any other region on Earth.
Skip to main content Scientific American Opinion July 4, 2025 5 min read A Thought Experiment Reveals the Fingerprints of Climate Change Came Early Climate change left its signature on the atmosphere early in the industrial revolution, reveals a thought experiment investigation By Ben Santer , Susan Solomon , David W. The consequence?
The loss of snow cover in temperate forests is set to slow their growth and reduce their ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere, an overlooked consequence of climate change
In the corporate accountability sphere, a court in Hamburg, Germany recently affirmed that major polluters, like RWE, one of Germany’s largest electricity producers, can be held liable for their contributions of heat trapping gases to the atmosphere and the climate impacts that follow from that pollution.
Previous attribution research published by my Union of Concerned Scientists colleagues have allowed us to draw causal connections between sources of heat-trapping emissions and resulting impacts, like present day increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, air temperatures, sea levels , ocean acidification , and wildfire burned area.
Glacial ice offers a detailed record of the atmosphere, preserved in discrete layers, providing researchers with a valuable tool for studying planetary history. A sample taken from a glacier in the European Alps dates back at least 12,000 years, making it the oldest ice yet recovered from the region. Read more on E360 →
since the 1850-1900 baseline is very clearly associated with the increases in greenhouse gases, slightly (and decreasingly) modulated by the changes in atmospheric pollution. Dessler, "Evolution of the Climate Forcing During the Two Years After the Hunga TongaHunga Ha'apai Eruption", Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres , vol.
When wetlands are damaged or destroyed, that stored carbon is released into the atmosphere, where it traps heat, warms the planet, and fuels extreme weather, including catastrophic floods. But wetland loss doesnt just increase flood riskit also drives climate change.
There, a group of scientists, water managers, and engineers worked with the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the California Department of Water Resources to find a solution.
City-sized droplets and twisting streams of plasma have been picked up by incredibly detailed images of the suns corona, showing our star as weve never seen it before
Nature, Published online: 30 July 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-02377-1 Large-scale shifts in atmospheric circulations can reshape global weather patterns and extremes, and they imprint their signatures in cloud motion.
Biochar-amended soil can further sorb atmospheric CO2 for more carbon sequestration. This work is aimed … Continue reading Biochar-amended soil can further sorb atmospheric CO2 for more carbon sequestration Communications Earth & Environment, 6(1), 5.
By Georgina Gustin At its annual conference on climate change this week, the United Nations released a major report saying the world has little hope of reaching global climate targets without quickly lowering emissions of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that’s nearly 300 times more powerful at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
Four RCP scenarios describe different levels of radiative forcing in the atmosphere by 2100. Radiative forcing is the change in energy balance in the Earths atmosphere due to heat trapping emissions. Studies show that high-emission scenarios like SSP5-8.5
Pennsylvania Sea Grant is supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Penn State University, and through federal, state, and local funding. For additional details or questions, contact Amber Stilwell, Pennsylvania Sea Grant’s Lake Erie Coastal Outreach Specialist at ars26@psu.edu.
While gases like carbon dioxide trap heat in the atmosphere, aerosols lower temperatures because they reflect sunlight away from the planet, either directly or by changing clouds. When you look at a spatial map of where concentrations of aerosols are in the atmosphere, it’s where people are,” says Persad.
The second perspective we offer in our new analysis comes from pulling back the lens to take into account not just carbon at the smokestack, but also the carbon from other steps in the process, as well as other gases that also trap heat when thrown up into the atmosphere.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory investigated natural atmospheric patterns known as planetary waves. They found that these kinds of stalled atmospheric patterns have tripled over the last 70 years. But the new study adds to the evidence that Arctic warming plays a role.
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