Atmosphere News

January 29, 2025

Top Headlines

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 mid-latitudinal areas are a major source of these ...

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 ...

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 brought about a modest reduction of the amount of ...

Latest Headlines

updated 8:19pm EST

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

New Approach to Measure Ocean Memory: North Atlantic Ocean Has Nearly Two Decades Memory, Study Finds

Dec. 3, 2024 — A research team has developed new approach to measure ocean memory and found that the North Atlantic Ocean has a memory of approximately one to two ...

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 ...

The Amazon Rainforest as a Cloud Machine: How Thunderstorms and Plant Transpiration Produce Condensation Nuclei

Dec. 4, 2024 — The rainforest in the Amazon basin transpires vast amounts of gaseous isoprene. Until now, it was assumed that this molecule is not transported far up into the atmosphere, as it rapidly declines when ...

Rainforest Emissions Linked With New Particle Formation at High Altitudes

Dec. 4, 2024 — Why are there so many newly formed aerosol particles in the upper troposphere over tropical regions such as the Amazon? Tropical forests play an important role in global climate regulation; however, ...

Clay Minerals: Researchers Observe for the First Time How Sediment Particles Align During Deposition

Dec. 2, 2024 — Clay minerals are a major constituent of the earth's surface and are mainly found in the sediments of lakes, rivers and oceans. The properties of clay and claystone crucially depend on how the ...

Oceans Emit Sulfur and Cool the Climate More Than Previously Thought

Nov. 27, 2024 — Researchers have quantified for the first time the global emissions of a sulfur gas produced by marine life, revealing it cools the climate more than previously thought, especially over the Southern ...

Quantum Mechanism Identified as a Key to Accelerating Ocean Temperatures

Nov. 26, 2024 — Accelerating rates of heat uptake by oceans that don't fit current climate models can now be explained by quantum ...

Improving Hurricane Modeling With Physics-Informed Machine Learning

Nov. 19, 2024 — Researchers employ machine learning to more accurately model the boundary layer wind field of tropical cyclones. Conventional approaches to storm forecasting involve large numerical simulations run ...

Nanoparticle Bursts Over the Amazon Rainforest

Nov. 8, 2024 — Atmospheric aerosol particles are essential for the formation of clouds and precipitation, thereby influencing the Earth's energy budget, water cycle, and climate. However, the origin of aerosol ...

Hurricane Helene's Gravity Waves Revealed by NASA's AWE

Nov. 7, 2024 — On Sept. 26, 2024, Hurricane Helene slammed into the Gulf Coast of Florida, inducing storm surges and widespread impacts on communities in its path. At the same time, NASA's Atmospheric Waves ...

Microplastics Impact Cloud Formation, Likely Affecting Weather and Climate

Nov. 7, 2024 — Scientists have spotted microplastics, tiny pieces of plastic smaller than 5 millimeters, in some of the most pristine environments on Earth, from the depths of the Mariana Trench to the snow on Mt. ...

How Life Began on Earth: Modeling Earth's Ancient Atmosphere

Oct. 31, 2024 — This model reveals how vastly different the atmosphere was on ancient Earth, and how life may have first ...

Optimal Standing Positions and Ventilation in Airport Smoking Lounges

Oct. 29, 2024 — New research shows that not all standing positions in airport smoking lounges are created equal. Scientists found that the thermal environment and positioning of smokers influences how particles ...

Dinosaurs Thrived After Ice, Not Fire, Says a New Study of Ancient Volcanism

Oct. 29, 2024 — The Triassic-Jurassic Extinction, 201.6 million years ago, has been considered by some to have been a fairly slow-burn event, driven by rising temperatures and ocean acidification. A new study says ...

Watershed Moment: Engineers Invent High-Yield Atmospheric Water Capture Device for Arid Regions

Oct. 25, 2024 — As a megadrought stresses the water supply throughout the Southwest, revolutionary research is answering this problem with a groundbreaking technology that pulls large amounts of water from the air ...

Weather-Changing El Nino Oscillation Is at Least 250 Million Years Old

Oct. 21, 2024 — A new modeling study shows that the El Nino event, a huge blob of warm ocean water in the tropical Pacific Ocean that can change rainfall patterns around the globe, was present at least 250 million ...

Microbes Drove Methane Growth Between 2020 and 2022, Not Fossil Fuels

Oct. 21, 2024 — Microorganisms growing in landfills, on agricultural land and in wetlands are contributing to skyrocketing levels of atmospheric methane, a potent greenhouse gas, according to new ...

Research Improves Hurricane Intensity Forecasting

Oct. 17, 2024 — A collaboration between is improving hurricane forecasting by incorporating the effects of sea spray into the models that predict hurricane ...

Microplastics Detected in Dolphin Breath

Oct. 17, 2024 — U.S. researchers have detected microplastic particles in air exhaled by wild bottlenose dolphins, suggesting that inhalation may be a relevant route of exposure to these potentially harmful ...