Drought and Floods in NOAA’s ‘Mixed Bag’ Spring Outlook
The West and South will continue to face more drought this spring, while the Midwest is likely to see heavy rains and some serious flooding as the northern snowpack melts, according to a seasonal forecast released by the U.S. government on Thursday. The Seasonal Outlook, a product of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration… Read More
Ancient Extinction Has Ominous Lessons for Today: Study
Scientists have nailed down the cause of a planet-wide catastrophe that wiped out nearly all living species 200 million years ago and paved the way for the rise of the dinosaurs. The culprit was carbon dioxide; the same greenhouse gas that’s causing global warming today says a new report. The new study, which was published Thursday in the journal S… Read More
Greening Tundra Shows Impacts of Spreading Warmth
The Arctic is on the move. The North Pole is in the same place, but Arctic conditions have begun to shift. A study of 30 years of satellite data confirms that the difference in temperatures between the seasons has diminished. Conditions now have shifted the equivalent of four or five degrees of latitude southward. At the same time, vegetation has … Read More
Warming ‘May Harm Rainforests Less’ Than First Thought
Scientists think they have found some good news for the Amazon and other tropical forests. They say they appear more able to withstand the effects of climate change than previous studies had suggested. The research team, including climate scientists and tropical ecologists from the UK, U.S., Australia and Brazil, concluded that the forests are less… Read More
February Keeps the Planet’s Warm Streak Alive: NOAA
Warm conditions in February 2013 helped keep sustain the planet’s remarkable hot streak, marking the 336th consecutive month that global temperatures rose above the 20th century average, according to data released Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The average global temperature reached 54.93 degrees Fahrenheit last … Read More
Rules Needed for Geoengineering Research, Experts Say
With no clear rules to guide new research, scientists are shying away from examining whether geoengineering technologies can effectively cool the planet, and at what cost. That’s the warning put forth by a pair of climate change experts in an essay published Thursday in the journal Science, which argues that the global geoengineering debate is in… Read More
Large Fractures Spotted in Vulnerable Arctic Sea Ice
During the end of February and continuing into early March, large fractures in the sea ice were observed off the north coast of Alaska and Canada, from near Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic to Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the U.S.… Read More
Volcanic Eruptions May be Masking ‘Lost’ Warming
Climate scientists think they may have found at least part of the answer to a conundrum which has been puzzling them recently — why the atmosphere has not warmed as much as expected over the last decade or so. A team led by the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU-Boulder) thinks the reason may be emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2), a known … Read More
