EurekAlert! - Atmospheric Science

Scientists endure Arctic for last campaign prior to CryoSat-2 launch

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(European Space Agency) An international group of scientists has swapped their comfortable offices for one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet to carry out a challenging field campaign that is seen as the key to ensuring the data delivered by ESA's ice mission CryoSat will be as accurate as possible.

Federal polar bear research critically flawed, says study in INFORMS journal

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Research done by the US Department of the Interior to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.The Interior Department has been ordered to make a determination by May 15.

Everything's coming up corals

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science) Two University of Miami students have received prestigious Graduate Research Fellowships from the NSF for their doctoral work on coral reefs. In fall they will be joined by Ross Cunning, who also received an Honorable Mention in the same NSF competition. They will all be part of the team working in the lab of 2008 Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation Dr. Andrew Baker who is helping to develop groundbreaking techniques to enhance the thermal tolerance of corals, and help them to survive dangerously warming oceans.

NCAR installs 76-teraflop supercomputer for critical research on climate change, severe weather

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Computer analyses of global climate have consistently overstated warming in Antarctica, new research concludes. The study can help scientists improve computer models and determine if Earth's southernmost continent will warm significantly this century, a major research question because of Antarctica's potential impact on global sea-level rise.

Newest GREET model updates environmental impacts

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(DOE/Argonne National Laboratory) The newest version of the Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy use in Transportation model from the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory will provide researchers with even more tools to evaluate and compare the environmental impacts of new transportation fuels and advanced vehicle technologies.

New gas sensors for monitoring carbon dioxide sinks

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres) A novel gas sensor system makes it possible to monitor large areas cost-effectively the first time. The patented gas sensor is based on the principle of diffusion, according to which certain gases pass through a membrane faster than others. Using a tube-like sensor it is possible to measure an average gas concentration value over a certain distance without influencing or distorting conditions in the measuring environment.

Climate models overheat Antarctica, new study finds

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Global climate models both agree and disagree with actual Antarctic data

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Ohio State University) Scientists who compared recorded Antarctic temperatures and snowfall accumulation to predictions by major computer models of global climate change offer both good and bad news. The models' predictions covering the last 50 years broadly follow the actual observed temperatures and snowfall for the southernmost continent, although the observations are very variable. That's the good news.

Penguins exposed to DDT from melting glaciers

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(New Scientist) Decades after most countries stopped using the insecticide DDT, frozen stores of the chemical are now dripping out of melting Antarctic glaciers -- and into penguins.

Cyclone Nargis and Myanmar floods seen from space

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(European Space Agency) Envisat captured Cyclone Nargis making its way across the Bay of Bengal just south of Myanmar on May 1, 2008. The cyclone hit the coastal region and ripped through the heart of Myanmar on Saturday, devastating the country.

Rainfall and river networks prove accurate predictors of fish biodiversity

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Princeton University, Engineering School) Princeton researchers have invented a method for turning simple data about rainfall and river networks into accurate assessments of fish biodiversity, allowing better prediction of the effects of climate change and the ecological impact of man-made structures like dams.

Amazon under threat from cleaner air

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Exeter) The Amazon rainforest, so crucial to the Earth's climate system, is coming under threat from cleaner air say prominent UK and Brazilian climate scientists in the leading scientific journal Nature.The new study identifies a link between reducing sulphur dioxide emissions from burning coal and increasing sea surface temperatures in the tropical north Atlantic, resulting in a heightened risk of drought in the Amazon rainforest.

Biodiversity -- it's in the water

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) What if hydrology is more important for predicting biodiversity than biology?Research published in the May 8 issue of the journal Nature challenges current thinking about biodiversity, and opens up new avenues for predicting how climate change or human activity may affect biodiversity patterns.

University of Oklahoma professor publishes 2 books

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Oklahoma) May Yuan, associate dean for the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences at the University of Oklahoma, has published two books, titled "Computation and Visualization for Understanding Dynamics in Geographic Domains: A Research Agenda" and "Understanding Dynamics of Geographic Domains."

Chile's Chaiten volcano one of scores of active volcanoes in region, says CU-Boulder professor

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Colorado at Boulder) The Chaiten volcano now erupting in southern Chile is one of 200 to 300 volcanoes in the "Andean Arc" region of Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Columbia considered active by volcanologists, some of which lie in much more densely populated areas, said a University of Colorado at Boulder geologist who has studied Chaiten.

Berkeley Lab researchers propose a new breed of supercomputers

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Three researchers from the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have proposed an innovative way to improve global climate change redictions by using a supercomputer with low-power embedded microprocessors, an approach that would overcome limitations posed by today's conventional supercomputers.

Arable land can have a negative impact on air quality

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres) Fallow agricultural land and steppe-formation processes are evidently capable of having a much greater effect on global air quality than was previously assumed. This is the conclusion drawn by researchers after examining a dust cloud that formed over parched fields in southern Ukraine and led to extremely high concentrations of particulate matter in Central Europe. On March 24, 2007, the dust cloud spread across Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic to Germany.

Stressed seaweed contributes to cloudy coastal skies, study suggests

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Manchester) Scientists at the University of Manchester have helped to identify that the presence of large amounts of seaweed in coastal areas can influence the climate.

May 14 AAAS Lecture and videoteleconference on artworks by Siberian schoolchildren

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(American Association for the Advancement of Science) Schoolchildren from a Siberian village will discuss their artworks via a videoteleconference beginning at 6 p.m. May 14 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Their art is on display at the AAAS Gallery. R. Max Holmes, an earth system scientist at Woods Hole Research Center -- co-sponsor of the exhibit at AAAS -- will give a lecture on his Arctic field studies and research collaborations with Siberian students interested in science.

Expert predicts 'Monsoon Britain'

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Durham University) Prepare for more floods -- in ways we are not used to -- that's the message from experts at Durham University who have studied rainfall and river flow patterns over 250 years. Last summer was the second wettest on record and experts say we must prepare for worse to come.

Sounding out Congo Red

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Inderscience Publishers) Brightly colored dyes such as the shimmering Congo Red commonly used in silk clothing manufacture are notoriously difficult to dispose of in an environmentally benign way.

Unmanned aircraft to study Southern California smog and its consequences

Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of California - San Diego) Using sophisticated unmanned aircraft, research scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego hope to assess Southern California's potential for climate change and better understand the sources of air pollution.

Global warming will negatively impact tropical species

Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of California - Los Angeles) Global warming is likely to reduce the health of tropical species, scientists from UCLA and the University of Washington report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

More efficient fuel-cells, thanks to a new catalyst

Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Elhuyar Fundazioa) Methanol fuel cells are an efficient and sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, but they are still not economically viable Nevertheless, for his Ph.D., University of the Basque Country research chemist, José E. Barranco, has developed new materials that enable the manufacture of cheaper and more efficient methanol fuel cells.

65-million-year-old asteroid impact triggered a global hail of carbon beads

Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Indiana University) The asteroid presumed to have wiped out the dinosaurs struck the Earth with such force that carbon deep in the Earth's crust liquefied, rocketed skyward, and formed tiny airborne beads that blanketed the planet, say scientists from the US, UK, Italy, and New Zealand in this month's Geology.