Temperatures Are Likely to Go From Warm to Warmer
December 31 — Climate experts say global temperatures in 2003 could match or beat the modern record set in 1998, when temperatures were raised sharply by El Niño, a periodic disturbance of Pacific Ocean currents that warms the atmosphere. (New York Times)

Colorado Had Driest Year on Record
December 31 — The Denver metro area today wraps up its driest year on record, with below-average mountain snowpack across Colorado offering scant hope of a quick turnaround. (Scripps-McClatchy Western Service)

Shifts in Rice Farming Practices in China Reduce Greenhouse Gas Methane
December 20 — Changes to farming in rice patties in China may have led to a decrease in methane emissions, and an observed decline in the rate that methane has entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the last 20 years, a NASA-funded study finds. (ScienceDaily Magazine)

World Takes Battering As Global Temperatures Rise Again in 2002
December 17 — 2002 was the second warmest year on record and global warming is continuing to accelerate, the UN’s weather agency said on Tuesday. (SpaceDaily, Los Angeles Times)

Exploding Stars: Threat to Earth Lower But Still Real
December 17 — Since the early 1970s, astronomers have speculated about the dangers posed to our planet by exploding stars called supernovae. But a new detailed set of calculations shows that such events are probably extremely rare. (Space.com)

NASA Launches Satellite to Keep Tabs on Thickness of Globe’s Ice Sheets
December 15 — NASA scientists hope to get new insight into the future of global ocean levels with the launch this week of a laser-equipped satellite designed to measure the waxing and weaning of the planet’s largest ice sheets. (San Diego Union-Tribune, CBS News, MSNBC News, Washingtonpost.com, CNN, AP)

Is Global Warming Killing the Polar Bears?
December 14 — Scientists for the first time have documented multiple deaths of polar bears off Alaska, where they likely drowned after swimming long distances in the ocean amid the melting of the Arctic ice shelf. (The Wall Street Journal)

Snails Mount Attack on U.S. Wetlands
December 14 — Swarms of fungus-eating snails have laid waste to miles of southern U.S. coastal wetlands that are already reeling from drought, say researchers. (Nature)

Coral Reefs Start Slow Recovery
December 13 — Coral reefs in several parts of the world are showing tentative signals of recovery after years of damage, scientists say. (BBC)

Earth’s Volcanism Linked to Meteorite Impacts
December 13 — Large meteorite impacts may not just throw up huge dust clouds but also punch right through the Earth’s crust, triggering gigantic volcanic eruptions. (New Scientist)

El Niño Weather Patterns Fully Developed
December 13 — The government’s top weather forecasters said Thursday the nation?s weather is being affected by a classic “El Niño” weather pattern that is bringing needed rain to the South and will result in a slightly warmer temperature in the North. (CNN)

NOAA: El Niño to Bring Warmer Winter to Northern US
December 12 — El Niño will bring milder temperatures this winter to the northern half of the United States, government forecasters said Thursday. (ABC, CNN, CBS)

2002 Heading for No. 2 Spot in Climate Records
December 12 — Temperature data for the first 11 months of the year show that the average global temperature is on the rise. (Environment News Service)

Earth’s Equatorial Obesity
December 11 — Fluctuations associated with climate warming are behind the Earth’s mysterious expanding waistline, scientists said this week. (BBC, Nature)

Lasers Analyze Bus Exhaust
December 11 — Laser technology can detect exactly how much and what types of pollutants are spewing from the back of a New York City bus. (UPI)

NASA Set to Probe Wind, Sea, Ice, Space
December 10 — Three Earth-orbiting NASA probes are being readied for launch, two of them to look downward at ice sheets and ocean winds and the third to peer outward at a gas-filled region in our galactic neighborhood. (Orlando Sentinel, Newsday, New York Times)

Asian Emissions Level Off
December 10 — For now, at least, industrial pollution wafting from Asia across the Pacific Ocean on prevailing winds is leveling off, new research shows. (Nature)

NASA Tree-ring Study Reveals Long History of El Niño
December 10 — El Niño is not a new weather phenomenon, according to a recent NASA study that looks 750 years into the past using tree-ring records. (Cosmiverse)

Smaller Ozone Caused by Larger Waves
December 10 — A reduced Antarctic ozone hole this fall came from planetary-sized waves moving from the lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere, NASA researchers say. (UPI, Environment News Service)

Typhoons Help Ocean Life, Scientists Say
December 7 — Typhoons, the violent storms that are the bane of life across much of Asia, are a boon for sea life, where the cyclones stir up the nutrients that microscopic algae crave, scientists said Saturday. (AP, ABC)

Rising CO2 Could Cause Contradictory Effects
December 6 — Multiple environmental changes, not just increased carbon dioxide levels, must be considered in assessing the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, conclude researchers at Stanford University. (Environment News Service)

Researcher Examines Fossils for Carbon Dioxide
December 2 — Jennifer McElwain will spend her next year chipping her way through more than a ton of sediment and plant fossils at the Field Museum, hoping to find rock-solid evidence of global warming?s ecological toll. (AP, Canadian TV, ABC)

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