Atmosphere News

April 28, 2025

Top Headlines

Why Are Patagonian Glaciers Rapidly Losing Mass?

Apr. 23, 2025 — Over the past two decades, satellite-based planetary observations have recorded rapid mass loss of Patagonian glaciers, contributing approximately 0.07 mm per year to global sea-level rise. A study links this mass loss to a poleward shift of ...

Sunscreen, Clothes and Caves May Have Helped Homo Sapiens Survive 41,000 Years Ago

Apr. 16, 2025 — A study suggests that Homo sapiens may have benefited from the use of ochre and tailored clothing during a period of increased UV light 41,000 years ago, during the Laschamps ...

Tree Rings Track Atmospheric Mercury Cheaply

Apr. 9, 2025 — Wild fig tree rings offer a cheap method for tracking toxic atmospheric mercury, a byproduct of gold mining in the Global South, according to a new ...

Southern Ocean Warming Will Mean a Wetter West Coast, US

Apr. 2, 2025 — As global temperatures warm, the Southern Ocean -- between Antarctica and other continents -- will eventually release heat absorbed from the atmosphere, leading to projected long-term increases in precipitation over East Asia and the Western U.S., ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:50pm EDT

The Proportion of Harmful Substances in Particulate Matter Is Much Higher Than Assumed

Mar. 31, 2025 — People breathing contaminated air over the course of years are at greater risk of developing numerous diseases. This is thought to be due to highly ...

Peatlands' Potential to Capture Carbon Upgraded as Temperatures Rise

Mar. 20, 2025 — According to a predictive model, the microalgae present in peat bogs could offset up to 14% of future CO2 emissions, thanks to their photosynthetic activity. This conclusion was reached by basing the ...

Delhi Air Pollution Worse Than Expected as Water Vapor Skews Figures

Mar. 12, 2025 — New Delhi's air pollution is more severe than previously estimated with particles absorbing atmospheric water vapor leading to particulate matter levels across the city being underestimated by up to ...

Earth's 'Dirty Mirror' Effect Is Accelerating Climate Change

Mar. 11, 2025 — Cloudy areas over oceans are reflecting less sunlight to space than ...

Climate Change Will Reduce the Number of Satellites That Can Safely Orbit in Space

Mar. 10, 2025 — Aerospace engineers found that greenhouse gas emissions are changing the environment of near-Earth space in ways that, over time, will reduce the ...

Are Volcanoes Behind the Oxygen We Breathe?

Mar. 10, 2025 — It is widely believed that Earth's atmosphere has been rich in oxygen for about 2.5 billion years due to a relatively rapid increase in microorganisms capable of performing photosynthesis. ...

Researchers Reveal Nitrogen's Dominant Role in Global Organic Aerosol Absorption

Mar. 6, 2025 — A collaborative research team has introduced a nitrogen-centric framework that explains the light-absorbing effects of atmospheric organic aerosols. ...

The Ozone Hole Is Healing, Thanks to Global Reduction of CFCs

Mar. 5, 2025 — A new study confirms the Antarctic ozone layer is healing as a direct result of global efforts to reduce ozone-depleting ...

Heat from the Sun Affects Seismic Activity on Earth

Mar. 4, 2025 — Researchers explore the likelihood that Earth's climate, as affected by solar heat, plays a role in seismic activity. Using mathematical and computational methods, they analyzed earthquake data ...

Air Inside Your Home May Be More Polluted Than Outside Due to Everyday Chemical Products

Feb. 18, 2025 — Bringing aromas indoors with the help of chemical products -- yes, air fresheners, wax melts, floor cleaners, deodorants and others -- rapidly fills ...

Clean Air Policies Having Unintended Impact Driving Up Wetland Methane Emissions by Up to 34 Million Tons

Feb. 5, 2025 — Reducing sulphur in the air may inadvertently increase natural emissions of methane from wetlands such as peatlands and swamps, a new study has found. The resulting additional future release of 20-34 ...

Discovery of Water Droplet Freezing Bridges Atmospheric Science, Climate Solutions

Feb. 4, 2025 — A groundbreaking study on the freezing of water droplets suspended in air sheds light on a key process in Earth's water cycle: the transformation of supercooled water into ...

We Have Underrated the Climate Effects of New Particles in Urban Areas

Feb. 3, 2025 — A recent study has uncovered compelling evidence suggesting that the climate effects of new particles in urban areas have been significantly ...

How Does the Atmosphere Affect Ocean Weather?

Jan. 31, 2025 — A new study of satellite imagery and high-resolution climate model data upends previous assumptions and provides insight about how the atmosphere and ocean weather patterns interact. The new research ...

Unraveling the Connection Between Canadian Wildfires and Arctic Ice Clouds

Jan. 27, 2025 — Ice nucleating particles as a kind of aerosols have a significant impact on the Arctic climate by promoting the formation of ice clouds at a temperature above -- 38 degrees Celsius. Wildfires in ...

From Soot Particle Filters to Renewable Fuels

Jan. 22, 2025 — Unraveling the chemical processes in soot particle filters reveals new ways to produce synthetic ...

Technology for Oxidizing Atmospheric Methane Won't Help the Climate

Jan. 17, 2025 — Atmospheric scientists show proposed 'geoengineering' effort to remove methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere could worse air quality while providing minimal climate ...

Pioneering Research Exposes Huge Loss of Glaciers in One of the Fastest-Warming Places on Earth

Jan. 16, 2025 — A new study has revealed the alarming extent glaciers have shrunk over the past 40 years in a global warming hotspot -- and the biggest retreat has occurred in recent ...

Clouds Have a Surprising Effect on Surface Warming

Jan. 15, 2025 — Researchers have discovered that changes in clouds are slightly mitigating global warming. While greenhouse gases continue to cause temperatures to rise, a reduction in low-cloud cover over land has ...

New Data on Atmosphere from Earth to the Edge of Space

Jan. 10, 2025 — Researchers have created a dataset of the whole atmosphere, enabling new research to be conducted on previously difficult-to-study regions. Using a new data-assimilation system called JAGUAR-DAS, ...

Earth's Air War: Explaining the Delayed Rise of Plants, Animals on Land

Jan. 7, 2025 — If you like the smell of spring roses, the sounds of summer birdsong, and the colors of fall foliage, you have the stabilization of the ozone layer to thank for it. Located in the stratosphere, where ...

Increased Wildfire Activity May Be a Feature of Past Periods of Abrupt Climate Change

Jan. 2, 2025 — 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 ...

Dripstones Offer Insights Into Climate Dynamics in Europe

Dec. 20, 2024 — Investigations into precipitation patterns in eastern Central Europe since the end of the last ice age have shown that dynamic processes in atmospheric circulation, such as the North Atlantic jet ...

Changes in Store for Atmospheric Rivers

Dec. 19, 2024 — Communities up and down the West Coast of the United States can expect atmospheric rivers to evolve as the climate warms. But residents in Southern California will see much different changes than ...

First Results from 2021 Rocket Launch Shed Light on Aurora's Birth

Dec. 19, 2024 — Scientist have begun to reveal the particle-level processes that create the type of auroras that dance rapidly across the sky. The Kinetic-scale Energy and momentum Transport experiment -- KiNET-X -- ...

Scientists Solving Meteorological Mysteries on Mars

Dec. 19, 2024 — Scientists are changing our understanding of climate and weather on Mars and providing critical insights into Earth's atmospheric processes as ...

Aerosol Pollutants from Cooking May Last Longer in the Atmosphere

Dec. 10, 2024 — New insights into the behavior of aerosols from cooking emissions and sea spray reveal that particles may take up more water than previously thought, potentially changing how long the particles ...

Record-Low Antarctic Sea Ice Can Be Explained and Forecast Months out by Patterns in Winds

Dec. 6, 2024 — Researchers show that the all-time record low in winter sea ice extent in 2023 can be explained by warm Southern Ocean conditions and patterns in the winds that circled Antarctica months earlier, ...

Desert Ants Use the Polarity of the Geomagnetic Field for Navigation

Dec. 6, 2024 — Desert ants of the Cataglyphis nodus species use the Earth's magnetic field for spatial orientation, but rely on a different component of the field than other insects. The survey suggests that ...

Researchers Use Data from Citizen Scientists to Uncover the Mysteries of a Blue Low-Latitude Aurora

Dec. 5, 2024 — Colorful auroras appeared around Japan's Honshu and Hokkaido islands on May 11, 2024, sparked by an intense magnetic storm. Usually, auroras observed at low latitudes appear red due to the ...