Latest Global dimming Stories

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online In the 1980s, decades of drought in central Africa reached the worst point. This caused Lake Chad, a shallow lake used to water crops in neighboring countries, to dry out almost completely. Initially blamed on overgrazing and bad agricultural practices, the shrinking lake and extended drought have become examples of global warming. A new study from the University of Washington reveals that the drought was cause in part by Northern...

FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology Solar radiation in Spain has increased by 2.3% every decade since the 1980s, according to a study by researchers from the University of Girona and the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. This increase is linked to the decreased presence of clouds, which has increased the amount of direct radiation reaching us from the Sun. "The mean annual G series over Spain shows a tendency to increase during the 1985-2010 period,...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online When you want to protect your skin from the harmful rays of the Sun, you employ some sort of sun block. It might be a lotion or a cream; it might even be a shirt or an umbrella to filter the effects. But what would you use to protect the entire planet from the Sun? Apparently that is the question that an increasing number of scientists are trying to answer; ways to temporarily reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth to stave...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Imagine futuristic ships shooting salt water into the clouds over the world's oceans to create clouds that reflect sunlight. Sounds like science fiction, but it could be reality before too long. An international team of researchers is taking a second look at this controversial idea to slow global warming effects and has published their concept in this month's Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. University of...

[ Watch the Video: Imported Dust in American Skies ] April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online In a joint study between NASA and University of Maryland, College Park, scientists have made the first measurement-based estimate of the amount and composition of tiny airborne particles that arrive over North America each year. With a 3D view of the atmosphere now possible from satellites, the team calculated that dust, not pollution, is the main ingredient. According to the...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA and university scientists have made the first measurement-based estimate of the amount and composition of tiny airborne particles that arrive in the air over North America each year. With a 3-D view of the atmosphere now possible from satellites, the scientists calculated that dust, not pollution, is the main ingredient of these imports. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) According to a new analysis...

The past decade has witnessed a significant growth in Asian air pollution, causing a great concern for air quality and climate. If government policy makers hope to contain the problem, they will need increased research and better computer models of black carbon and other aerosol pollutants, also known as atmospheric brown cloud (ABC), according to University of Iowa engineering professor Gregory Carmichael. Carmichael made the case for more research and better-informed policy makers when...

A recent increase in the intensity of Arabian Sea cyclones may be the result of increasing air pollution over the Indian sub-continent, according to a new multi-institutional study. Traditionally, prevailing wind shear patterns prohibit cyclones in the Arabian Sea from becoming major storms.  However, the study suggests that weakening winds have enabled the formation of stronger cyclones in recent years -- including storms in 2007 and 2010 that were the first recorded storms to enter the...

Cities release more heat to the atmosphere than the rural vegetated areas around them, but how much influence these urban "heat islands" have on global warming has been a matter of debate. Now a study by Stanford researchers has quantified the contribution of the heat islands for the first time, showing that it is modest compared with what greenhouse gases contribute to global warming. "Between 2 and 4 percent of the gross global warming since the Industrial Revolution may be due to urban...

A new study of dust-like particles of soot in the air — now emerging as the second most important — but previously overlooked — factor in global warming provides fresh evidence that reducing soot emissions from diesel engines and other sources could slow melting of sea ice in the Arctic faster and more economically than any other quick fix, a scientist reported here today. In a presentation at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Mark Z....