Mostly Clear
Global Warming
Mauna Loa, the Hawaiian Volcano from which researchers have been monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide for decades. (NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory) The proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is set to break 400 parts per million this month, levels not seen in 3 million years, according to one of the best climate records available. The Keeling Curve, a daily record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, has been running continuously since March 1958, when a carbon dioxide monitor was installed at Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. On its first day, the observatory measured a carbon dioxide concentration of 313 parts per million (ppm). That number means there were 313 molecules of ...
April 5, 2013 Adelie penguins in Antarctica's Ross Sea. (John B. Weller) Antarctic warming has been a boon for one large colony of Adélie penguins, a finding that's surprising scientists. A recent study found that over the last 60 years, a colony of the birds on Beaufort Island in the Ross Sea, south of New Zealand, increased by 84 percent, from 35,000 breeding pairs to 64,000 breeding pairs. This increase has come as glaciers have retreated from the island, leaving more bare, snow-free ground, where the penguins make their nests, according to the study, published this week in the journal PLOS ONE. For food, the penguins still depend on sea ice, from which they forage. As the ...
April 2, 2013 Dr. James E. Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, gestures during an interview in August 2012 in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) Climate scientist James Hansen is retiring from NASA this week to devote himself to the fight against global warming. Hansen's retirement concludes a 46-year career at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, but he plans to use his time to take up legal challenges to the federal and state governments over limiting greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, Hansen, 72, has become an activist for climate change, which didn't sit well with NASA headquarters in Washington. "As a government employee, ...
