A new study investigating ancient methane trapped in Antarctic ice suggests that global increases in wildfire activity likely occurred during periods of abrupt climate change throughout the last Ice Age.

Advances in Atmospheric Science recently published a special topic​ on solar energy meteorology, led by scientists from the Harbin Institute of Technology and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This issue consists of five invited articles featuring progress and challenges in satellite remote sensing, solar system modeling, photovoltaic power forecasting, thermal balance of solar panels and decarbonization strategy.

Recently, a research team led by Professor Shuxiao Wang from the School of Environment at Tsinghua University integrated a comprehensive global natural archive database of mercury (Hg) accumulation with modelled global atmospheric Hg deposition data. This integration revealed how global ecosystems respond to changes in atmospheric Hg input. The findings of this research were published in the National Science Review.

Climate change induced by human behaviors, or anthropogenic climate change, has been a hot topic for decades and is not going away. As with any problem, reviewing datasets from the past to analyze trends and garner information is one of the first steps towards a solution. Gross primary productivity, or GPP, is a key indicator of the overall health of an ecosystem and is the amount of CO₂ fixed by plants per unit of time and area. Researchers have come together to identify the drivers of change in GPP to gain a more thorough understanding of where the trends are likely to lead us and what efforts must be taken to stay in accordance with the Paris Agreement’s goals of mitigating global temperature increases by at least 2℃.