EurekAlert! News by Subject: Atmospheric Science - News by Subject: Atmospheric Science

Atmospheric Science

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 16-Jun-2025 21:09 ET (17-Jun-2025 01:09 GMT/UTC)

New MSU study explains the delayed rise of plants, animals on land

Michigan State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Michigan State University researcher Dalton Hardisty contributed to a new Yale University-led study finding that Earth’s early atmosphere hosted a battle royal between iodine and oxygen. This war effectively delayed the creation of a stable ozone layer that would shield complex life from much of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, or UVR. The new theory, described in a study in the journal may solve a mystery that has puzzled scientists for hundreds of years.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Climate change linked with worse HIV prevention and care

University of Toronto
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers from the University of Toronto analyzed 22 recent studies exploring HIV-related outcomes in the context of climate change and identified several links between extreme weather events and HIV prevention and care.

Journal: Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases

Study assesses the benefits of alfalfa-almond intercropping

Wiley
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research published in Agrosystems, Geosciences & Environment reveals the increased land use efficiency and environmental benefits in an alfalfa–almond intercropped ecosystem under a Mediterranean climate.

Journal: Agrosystems Geosciences & Environment

Hot weather events shift from dry to wet over polar ice sheets

Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research (OLAR)

While compound extreme events across the bulk of the planet are characterized by hot and dry conditions, those over polar ice sheets are predominantly associated with hot and wet conditions, according to a new study by an international research team. Analyzing 42 years of global weather, the researchers found that extreme warm events, or heatwaves, and extreme precipitation events, such as heavy rainfall, overlapped far more in Antarctica than in lower latitudes. This co-occurrence may also accelerate polar ice sheet melting, the team said.

Journal: Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research

Complex drivers of phytoplankton bloom

Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

06 January 2025/Kiel. The ocean is vital for oxygen, food supply, and carbon storage. At its core is phytoplankton - microscopic algae that produce biomass through photosynthesis, using nutrients, CO2, and sunlight. Researchers from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, in collaboration with Oregon State University and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, have identified how a complex interplay of wind and current patterns affect nutrient delivery and phytoplankton growth in the equatorial Atlantic. Their study, published today in Nature Geoscience, reveals the seasonal nutrient dynamics critical for marine productivity and potential impacts of climate change.

Journal: Nature Geoscience

A change in the weather in the U.S. Corn Belt

National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research led by NSF NCAR shows that the sweeping land use changes and irrigation of the U.S. Corn Belt, along with the influence of the area’s shallow groundwater, have significantly altered precipitation patterns in that vital agricultural region.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

Research explores wildfire smoke’s effect on solar power generation across US

Colorado State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The paper – published today in Nature Communications – shows that while wildfire smoke increasingly covers large portions of the U.S., losses of average, or background, photovoltaic solar resources remain modest outside of the areas immediately surrounding active fires, where smoke plumes are dense.

Journal: Nature Communications

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