Researchers have found evidence that near-ground biogenic emissions of organics suppress cloud formation in cool-temperate forests in autumn, providing clues to how global warming will affect cloud formation and the overall climate.

Our research cruise is being conducted this year from the Coast Guard Cutter Healy, the newest and most technologically advanced icebreaker in the U.S. fleet.  The Healy was built down around the humid bayous of New Orleans, but was designed to conquer Arctic sea ice.  The boat is a behemoth at 420 feet long and has made its way to the North Pole on several occasions, taking thousands of scientists into the Arctic to collect data that has transformed our understanding of the region.

As Tropical Storm Jose was forming in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, NASA's Aqua satellite analyzed its cloud top temperatures.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Jose as it was consolidating. AIRS analyzed the storm in infrared light providing scientists with temperature data and that's important when trying to understand how strong storms can be. The higher the cloud tops, the colder and the stronger they are. So infrared light as that gathered by the AIRS instrument can identify the strongest sides of a tropical cyclone.

Summer is coming to the Gulf of Maine, longer and warmer than ever — as much as two months longer. That’s the message of a new research article by a team of scientists led by Andrew Thomas of the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences. The study, published in the journal Elementa, examined the seasonality of sea surface temperature trends along the northeast coast of the United States.

For all but a small region immediately north of Cape Hatteras at the southern edge of their study area, the researchers confirmed that surface water temperatures have an increasing trend over the last three decades, with the Gulf of Maine warming at about 0.4 degrees Celsius per decade. The new analysis both mapped the geographic pattern of these trends and showed that the increase is actually much stronger than this in the summer and early fall months, from June to October, and weaker in the winter months.

NASA and NOAA satellites have been providing valuable satellite imagery to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center, and revealed that Hurricane Irma has strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane on Sept. 5 around 8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC).

On Sept. 4 at (1:24 p.m. EDT) 17:24 UTC, NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured this view of Hurricane Irma as a Category 4 hurricane approaching the Leeward Islands. The VIIRS instrument on the Suomi NPP satellite flew over Hurricane Irma on Sept. 4 at 04:32 UTC (12:32 a.m. EDT) when it was a Category 3 hurricane. VIIRS infrared data revealed very cold, very high, powerful thunderstorms on Irma's western side.  Cloud top temperatures in that area were near minus 117.7 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 83.5 degrees Celsius. Storms with cloud tops that cold have the capability to generate very heavy rainfall.

Many tropical or subtropical regions could see sharp increases in natural temperature variability as Earth’s climate warms over coming decades, a new Duke University-led study suggests.

The Labrador Sea in the North Atlantic is one of the few areas in the world ocean where cold, saline seawater sinks to large depths and forms deep water. This convection process also transports oxygen into the deep sea. A team of scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography (San Diego, California), Dalhousie University (Halifax, Canada) and GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel have now published the analysis of data obtained from the mooring K1 in the international scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters. The results show that in winter 2014/2015 an unusually high amount of oxygen was absorbed by the ocean in the region. The actual oxygen uptake at the sea surface is very difficult to determine directly, but the scientists were able to derive the oxygen uptake from the oxygen content measured throughout the water column. One of the questions the scientists were concerned with: Can the strong oxygen uptake in the Labrador Sea compensate the global oxygen loss of the ocean?

The dramatic, worldwide loss of biodiversity is one of today's greatest environmental problems. The loss of species diversity affects important ecosystems on which humans depend. Previous research predominantly addressed short-term effects of biodiversity in small experimental plots planted with few randomly selected plant species. These studies have shown that species-poor plant assemblages function less well and produce less biomass than species rich systems.

Scientists have discovered “massive impacts” on marine life in the Antarctic Ocean when waters are warmed by 1 degree Celsius, including a doubling in growth of some species and a drop in overall biodiversity, according to a new study in the journal Current Biology.

New findings published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) by Desert Research Institute (DRI) Professor Joseph R. McConnell, Ph.D., and colleagues document a 192-year series of volcanic eruptions in Antarctica that coincided with accelerated deglaciation about 17,700 years ago.