News by Subject Atmospheric Science

A surge in major wildfire events in the US West as a consequence of climate change will expose tens of millions of Americans to high levels of air pollution in the coming decades, according to a new Yale-led study conducted with collaborators from Harvard.

A botany researcher at New Zealand's University of Otago and colleagues have developed a new system to map the world's 'biomes' -- large-scale vegetation formations -- that will provide an objective method for monitoring how vegetation reacts as climate changes. The system uses satellite observations of the timing and intensity of vegetation activity and how this relates to temperature and soil moisture to classify the world's vegetation into 24 biome types.

Batches of sand from a beach on the Delaware Bay are yielding insights into the powerful impact of temperature rise and evaporation along the shore that are in turn challenging long-held assumptions about what causes beach salinity to fluctuate in coastal zones that support a rich network of sea creatures and plants.

This week from AGU: Denver's ozone problem, earlier snowmelt, and 3 research spotlights.

A study led by Princeton University researchers shows that weather patterns tied to climate change may increase the severity of algal blooms in Chesapeake Bay as extreme rainfall cycles flush larger amounts of nitrogen from fertilizer and other sources into the Susquehanna River. The researchers found that a spike in rainfall can increase nitrogen levels in the bay even if the amount of fertilizer used on land remains the same, leading to explosive algae growth that poisons humans and wildlife, and devastates fisheries.

An international team led by Takemasa Miyoshi of the RIKEN Advanced Center for Computational Science has used the powerful K computer and advanced radar observational data to accurately predict the occurrence of torrential rains in localized areas.