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The way clouds cover the Earth may be changing because of global warming, according to a study published Monday that used satellite data to track cloud patterns across about two decades, starting in the 1980s.

Clouds in the mid-latitudes shifted toward the poles during that period, as the subtropical dry zones expanded and the highest cloud-tops got higher.

These changes are predicted by most climate models of global warming, even though those models disagree on a lot of other things related to clouds, says Joel Norris, a climate scientist at the University of California, San Diego.

Combinando los datos del clima y la mortalidad, los investigadores han estimado que 315 muertes en Londres y 735 muertes en el centro de París pueden ser fuertemente vinculados a la ola de calor en 2003, con temperaturas récord en toda Europa. Tomando un paso más allá su análisis, se determina que 64 (± 3) muertes por el conjunto de datos de Londres y 506 (± 51) muertes por el conjunto de datos de París son atribuibles al cambio climático antropogénico

An MIT analysis of how best to reduce fine particulate matter in the atmosphere has brought some surprising results. Due to past regulations, levels of key emissions that form those harmful particles are now lower than they were a decade ago, causing some experts to suggest that cutting them further might have little effect. Not true, concludes the MIT study. Using an atmospheric model, the researchers found that new policies to restrict the same emissions would be even more effective now than they were in the past. Further analysis elucidated the chemical processes — some unexpected — that explain their findings. Their results demonstrate the importance of tailoring air pollution policies to specific situations and of addressing a variety of emissions in a coordinated way.

For only the second time in a year, a NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured a view of the moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth.

"For the second time in the life of DSCOVR, the moon moved between the spacecraft and Earth," said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The project recorded this event on July 5 with the same cadence and spatial resolution as the first 'lunar photobomb' of last year."

The images were captured by NASA's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four-megapixel CCD camera and telescope on the DSCOVR satellite orbiting 1 million miles from Earth. From its position between the sun and Earth, DSCOVR conducts its primary mission of real-time solar wind monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Destacados científicos advierten: la contaminación del fósforo es una preocupación importante. Tenemos que acelerar los tratamientos de recuperación de los lagos, o aceptar la mala calidad del agua dulce. En una serie de estudios publicados en un número especial de la revista Water Research, los principales científicos evalúan cómo controlar la contaminación por fósforo en los lagos.