Metallic plasma layers in Earth's ionosphere interfere with radio communications and produce odd echo behavior at specific frequencies.
everything atmospheric
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Shooting Stars and Cosmic Dust Help Form Clouds, Fertilize Plankton
Tons of cosmic dust enter Earth’s atmosphere each day, triggering a range of phenomena that scientists are only just beginning to understand.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
What Drove Sea Surface Temperature Change During the Pleistocene?
New information suggests that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was just one of the main drivers of warming sea surface temperatures in the Pleistocene.
Posted inScience Updates
Investigating Climate Change from the Stratosphere to Space
8th Workshop on Long-Term Changes and Trends in the Atmosphere;
Cambridge, United Kingdom, 28–31 July 2014
Posted inScience Updates
Counting the Ocean's Greenhouse Gas Emissions
A new database seeks to improve estimates of oceanic emissions of methane and nitrous oxide.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Polar Warming Makes the Jet Stream Stable, Not Wavy or Blocked
An idealized climate model suggests polar warming stabilizes the jet stream and reduces atmospheric blocking at midlatitudes.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Modeling Waves in the Atmosphere
How can a complex atmospheric process be simplified for a model?
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Colorado Hydrocarbon Leakage Rates Much Higher Than Reported
Airborne measurements put methane emissions from Colorado's Denver-Julesburg Basin at 12 to 26 tons per hour.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Atmospheric Carbonyl Sulfide Hit a Minimum 5,000 Years Ago
A new ice core measurements-based record of a climate-active gas shows variability on millennial timescales.
Posted inFeatures
Coastal Fog, Climate Change, and the Environment
To climate scientists, marine fog's physical opacity symbolizes how much remains to be discovered about the atmospheric phenomenon.