New research is helping scientists understand why moisture-laden atmospheric rivers of similar intensities have different effects on land.
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Posted inEditors' Highlights
Atmospheric Rivers Trigger Heavy Snowmelt in Western USA
A rare atmospheric phenomenon that transports large quantities of water vapor into the coastal watersheds of the western USA is responsible for up to 10–20% of intense snowmelt events in the region.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Satellite Measurements of Stratospheric Forest Fire Smoke
Intense boreal forest fires in August 2017 caused smoke plumes that reached record levels in the stratosphere; satellite measurements show that the effects rivaled a moderate volcanic eruption.
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Antarctic Ice Cores Offer a Whiff of Earth’s Ancient Atmosphere
Bubbles of greenhouse gases trapped in ice shed new light on an important climate transition that occurred about a million years ago.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Curiosity Rover Reveals Oxygen Mystery in Martian Atmosphere
An air-sampling study has captured long-term trends in the concentrations of five key atmospheric gases for the first time.
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Sparks May Reveal the Nature of Ash Plumes
In lab experiments and models, researchers uncover how ash can affect the standing shock waves of erupting volcanoes. Their findings may lead to new predictions of volcanic ash hazards.
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Golden State Blazes Contributed to Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
A new case study investigates causes and effects of California’s 2017 wildfire season.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Atlantic Circulation Consistently Tied to Carbon Dioxide
Past ocean surface conditions suggest that over the past 800,000 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels typically rose on millennial timescales when Atlantic overturning was weaker and vice versa.
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Did Bacterial Enzymes Cap the Oxygen in Early Earth’s Atmosphere?
A new theory suggests that nitrogenase from cyanobacteria could be the reason oxygen levels remained low after the Great Oxidation Event.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Polar Stratosphere Resolves North Atlantic Jet “Tug of War”
Getting the polar stratosphere right is critical in the simulation of North Atlantic climate change, which is shaped by the interaction of Arctic Amplification and tropical upper tropospheric warming.