The Guardian publishes another classic: “It’s worse than we thought” story. Modelling suggests climate is considerably more sensitive to carbon emissions than thought Oy Worst-case global heating scenarios may need to be revised upwards in light of a better understanding of the role of clouds, scientists have said. Recent modelling data suggests the climate is…
Reposted from the Cliff Mass Weather Blog Twice today I was asked about the difference between partly cloudy and partly sunny. And that inquiry is one of the most frequent I get, for reasons I do not understand. OK…let’s settle this for once and for all. Here is an image of a partly cloudy sky:…
A container ship leaves a trail of white clouds in its wake that can linger in the air for hours. This puffy line is not just exhaust from the engine, but a change in the clouds that’s caused by small airborne particles of pollution. New research led by the University of Washington is the first…
Paul Scherrer Institute Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have developed a new method to analyse particulate matter more precisely than ever before. With its help, they disproved an established doctrine: that molecules in aerosols undergo no further chemical transformations because they are enclosed in other suspended particulate matter. In the smog chamber at…
Paper at Geophysical Research Letters. J. M. Creamean J. N. Cross R. Pickart L. McRaven P. Lin A. Pacini R. Hanlon D. G. Schmale J. Ceniceros T. Aydell N. Colombi E. Bolger P. J. DeMott First published: 15 July 2019 https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083039 Abstract and Introduction~ctm Abstract As Arctic temperatures rise at twice the global rate, sea…
Analysis of massive 2017 cloud of wildfire smoke will help calibrate climate models, including modeling of nuclear winter, geoengineering University of Colorado at Boulder Thunderstorms generated by a group of giant wildfires in 2017 injected a small volcano’s worth of aerosol into the stratosphere, creating a smoke plume that lasted for almost nine months. CIRES…
From Eurekalert Public Release: 25-Jul-2017 University of Washington The idea of geoengineering, also known as climate engineering, is very controversial. But as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in our atmosphere, scientists are beginning to look at possible emergency measures. A new University of Washington study looks at the idea of marine cloud brightening, which a…
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach I stumbled across a lovely article about the Saharan silver ant over at phys.org. These ants have special hairs that reflect strongly in the visual and radiate strongly in the infrared. They show a photo of the ant hairs under a couple different amounts of magnification: Figure 1. Photograph from the phys.org…
From the Brookhaven National Laboratory: Yearlong MAGIC Climate Study Launches Climate instruments mounted aboard the Horizon Spirit container ship begin taking data The Horizon Spirit makes the round trip between Los Angeles and Hawaii every two weeks. UPTON, NY — A Horizon Lines container ship outfitted with meteorological and atmospheric instruments installed by U.S. Department of…
From the AGU weekly highlights Composite image. Data from MODIS. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center. See High Resolution Image Key Points: EFA method is valuable in providing quantitative assessment of feedback Decrease in sea ice leads to increase in cloud Further decline in sea ice will likely result in cloudier Arctic Arctic sea…