Scientists Find Good News About Methane From the Ocean Floor
December 20 — Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is emitted in great quantities as bubbles from seeps on the ocean floor near Santa Barbara, Calif., but researchers have discovered that only one percent of this dissolved methane escapes into the air � good news for the Earth's atmosphere. (University of California � Santa Barbara press release) More

Supercomputers Offer New Explanation of Tanguska Disaster
December 18 — The stunning amount of forest devastation at Tunguska a century ago in Siberia may have been caused by an asteroid only a fraction as large as those postulated in previously published estimates, supercomputer simulations suggest. (DOE/Sandia National Laboratories press release) More

Climate's Remote Control on Hurricanes
December 13 — Natural climate variations, which tend to involve localized changes in sea surface temperature, may have a larger effect on hurricane activity than the more uniform patterns of global warming, a new study suggests. (University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science press release) More

Greenland Melt Accelerating
December 11 — The 2007 melt extent on the Greenland ice sheet broke the 2005 summer melt record by 10 percent, making it the largest ever recorded there since satellite measurements began in 1979. (University of Colorado at Boulder press release) More

Tibetan Ice Cores Missing A-Bomb Blast Markers
December 11 — Ice cores drilled last year from the summit of a Himalayan ice field lack the distinctive radioactive signals, suggesting that that the ice field has been shrinking at least since the A-bomb test half a century ago. (Ohio State University press release) More

Terrestrial Carbon Dioxide Uptake Estimates Revised
December 10 — Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new model of global carbon and nitrogen cycling that will fundamentally transform the understanding of how plants and soils interact with a changing atmosphere and climate. (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign press release) More

Rising CO2 Promises Wetter Storms for Northern Hemisphere
December 10 — While two new studies predict wetter storms for the Arctic and for the Northern Hemisphere because of global warming, whether or not this means more net precipitation depends on the latitude. (University of Colorado at Boulder press release) More

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