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Global warming means more snowstorms: scientists
Climate change is not only making the planet warmer, it is also making snowstorms stronger and more frequent, US scientists said on Tuesday.
Workers remove snow from a runway at O’Hare International Airport on February 3, in Chicago, Illinois. Climate change is not only making the planet warmer, it is also making snowstorms stronger and more frequent, US scientists said on Tuesday.
“Heavy snowstorms are not inconsistent with a warming planet,” said scientist Jeff Masters, as part of a conference call with reporters and colleagues convened by the Union of Concern Scientists.
“In fact, as the Earth gets warmer and more moisture gets absorbed into the atmosphere, we are steadily loading the dice in favor of more extreme storms in all seasons, capable of causing greater impacts on society.”
Masters said that the northeastern United States has been coated in heavy snowfall from Read more…
Limited Nuclear War Could Deplete Ozone Layer, Increasing Radiation
By Chris Schneidmiller
WASHINGTON — A nuclear conflict involving as few as 100 weapons could produce long-term damage to the ozone layer, enabling higher than “extreme” levels of ultraviolet radiation to reach the Earth’s surface, new research indicates (see GSN, March 16, 2010).
(Feb. 24) – A 1971 French nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll. The ozone layer could sustain lasting harm from a nuclear exchange involving as few as 100 weapons, allowing increased levels of ultraviolet radiation to reach the Earth’s surface, according to new research (Getty Images).
Increased levels of UV radiation from the sun could persist for years, possibly with a drastic impact on humans and the environment, even thousands of miles from the area of the nuclear conflict.
“A regional nuclear exchange of 100 15-kiloton weapons … would produce unprecedented low-ozone columns over populated areas in conjunction with the coldest surface temperatures experienced in the last 1,000 years, and would likely result in a global nuclear famine,” according to a presentation delivered on Friday at a major science conference in Washington.
Today, there are five recognized nuclear powers — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. India, Israel and Pakistan are all known or widely assumed to hold nuclear weapons, while North Korea has a Read more…
NASA: Huge Solar Flare Jamming Radio And Satellite Signals, Could Affect Electric Grid, Bright Auroras Expected
According to NASA, a large solar eruption triggered a giant geomagnetic storm that has disturbed radio communications and could disrupt electrical power grids, radio and satellite communication in the next days
The calm before the storm. Three CMEs are enroute, all a part of the Radio Blackout events on February 13, 14, and 15 (UTC). The last of the three seems to be the fastest and may catch both of the forerunners about mid to late day tomorrow, February 17. Watch this space for updates on the impending — G2, possibly periods of G3 — geomagnetic storming.
Watch Today’s Space Weather for the most recent activity.
This is a composite image of the Sun at the moment of the X2.2 flare. Image courtesy of SDO
(NASA)
Credit: NASA/SDO
A strong wave of charged plasma particles emanating from the Jupiter-sized sun spot, the most powerful seen in four years, has already disrupted radio communication in southern China.
Solar Activity Forecast: Read more…
Climate phenomenon La Nina to blame for global extreme weather events
Cyclone Yasi over Australia in February 2011. Image credit: NASA
(PhysOrg.com) — Recent extreme weather events as far as Australia and Africa are being fueled by a climate phenomenon known as La Nina — or “the girl” in Spanish. La Nina has also played a minor role in the recent cold weather in the Northeast U.S.
The term La Niña refers to a period of cooler-than-average sea-surface temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean that occurs as part of natural climate variability. This situation is roughly the opposite of what happens during El Niño (“the boy”) events, when surface waters in this region are warmer than normal. Because the Pacific is the largest ocean on the planet, any significant changes in average conditions there can have consequences for temperature, rainfall and vegetation in distant places.
Scientists at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), part of Columbia’s Earth Institute, expect moderate-to-strong La Niña conditions to continue in the tropical Pacific, potentially causing additional shifts in rainfall patterns across Read more…
CO2 Fears After Amazon Rainforest Droughts
Two severe Amazon droughts have sparked fears that the rainforest’s ability to absorb carbon emissions is being diminished – and, worse still, it may soon release almost as much CO2 as the US.
A rare drought in 2005 – billed as a once-in-a-hundred-years event – was then followed by another drought in 2010 that may have been even worse, according to a study by a team of British and Brazilians scientists in the journal Science.
With a huge number of trees dying as a result of the droughts, the scientists predict that the Amazon will not be able to absorb as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as usual in future.
This would remove an important global buffer against pollution.
Even worse, rotting trees may release into the atmosphere as much as five billion tons of C02 in the coming years.
That would be almost as much as the 5.4 billion tons emitted from fossil fuel use by the US in 2009.
Based on the impact of the dry spell on tree deaths in 2005, the team projected that Read more…
Mysterious Night-Shining Clouds Getting Brighter
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| After the sun sets on a summer evening and the sky fades to black, you may be lucky enough to see thin, wavy clouds illuminating the night, such as these seen over Billund, Denmark, on July 15, 2010. Jan Erik Paulsen/ NASA Earth Observatory. |
Clouds bright enough to see at night are not as hard to find as they once were.
These so-called night-shining clouds are still rare — rare enough that Matthew DeLand, who has been studying them for 11 years, has seen them only once. But his odds are increasing. [Related: In Images: Reading the Clouds.]
These mysterious clouds form between 50 and 53 miles (80 and 85 kilometers) up in the atmosphere, altitudes so high that they reflect light long after the sun has dropped below the horizon.
DeLand, an atmospheric scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., has found that night-shining clouds — technically known as polar mesospheric or noctilucent clouds — are forming more frequently and becoming brighter. He has been observing the clouds in data from instruments that have been flown on satellites since 1978.
For reasons not fully understood, the clouds’ Read more…
Arctic Sea-Ice Controls the Release of Mercury
Mercury is the most high profile atmospheric contaminant entering the Arctic because it is a potent neurotoxin that biomagnifies in food webs. In the troposphere (lower atmosphere) it is primarily present in the form of gaseous elemental mercury. 
Photochemical reactions during the Arctic spring (Figure 1) combine salts from sea ice and the gaseous mercury in the air to create an oxidized reactive form of mercury. This mercury is then deposited to snow and ice. These deposition events require salty sea ice and snow crystal surfaces so they are widespread in the Polar Regions.
Mercury (Hg) is the only heavy metal that is essentially found in gaseous form in the atmosphere. Since the industrial revolution, emissions of anthropogenic Hg resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels have exceeded natural emissions. Both anthropogenic emissions and natural emissions (which mainly stem from the oceans and gases released by volcanoes) reach the Polar Regions under the action of atmospheric currents. In this way, fallout from global atmospheric pollution contributes to depositing mercury in Arctic ecosystems, even though these are far away from major anthropogenic emission sources. Read more…
Earth Is Twice as Dusty as in 19th Century, Research Shows
ScienceDaily
If the house seems dustier than it used to be, it may not be a reflection on your housekeeping skills. The amount of dust in the Earth’s atmosphere has doubled over the last century, according to a new study; and the dramatic increase is influencing climate and ecology around the world.
Mahowald presented the research at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco Dec. 13.
Desert dust and climate influence each other directly and indirectly through a host of intertwined systems. Dust limits the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth, for example, a factor that could mask the warming effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. It also can influence clouds and precipitation, leading to droughts; which, in turn, leads to desertification and more dust.
Ocean chemistry is also intricately involved. Dust is a major source of iron, which is vital for plankton and other organisms that draw carbon out of the atmosphere.
To measure fluctuations in desert dust over the century, the researchers gathered existing data from ice cores, lake sediment and coral, each of which contain information about past concentrations of desert dust in the region. They then linked each sample with its likely source region and calculated the rate of dust deposition over time. Applying components of a computer modeling system known as the Community Climate System Model, the researchers reconstructed the influence of desert dust on temperature, precipitation, ocean iron deposition and terrestrial carbon uptake over time.
Among their results, the researchers found that regional changes in temperature and precipitation caused a global reduction in terrestrial carbon uptake of 6 parts per million (ppm) over the 20th century. The model also showed that dust deposited in oceans increased carbon uptake from the atmosphere by 6 percent, or 4 ppm, over the same time period.
While the majority of research related to aerosol impacts on climate is focused on anthropogenic aerosols (those directly emitted by humans through combustion), Mahowald said, the study highlights the important role of natural aerosols as well.
“Now we finally have some information on how the desert dust is fluctuating. This has a really big impact for the understanding of climate sensitivity,” she said.
It also underscores the importance of gathering more data and refining the estimates. “Some of what we’re doing with this study is highlighting the best available data. We really need to look at this more carefully. And we really need more paleodata records,” she said.
Meanwhile, the study is also notable for the variety of fields represented by its contributors, she said, which ranged from marine geochemistry to computational modeling. “It was a fun study to do because it was so interdisciplinary. We’re pushing people to look at climate impacts in a more integrative fashion.”
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