A new field research facility in the Amazon rainforest sponsored by NASA and the Brazilian government will be completed this month. Experiments at the site will study the region's impact on global change and develop information for sustainable resource management solutions.
After dominating the tropical Pacific Ocean for more than two years, the La Niña "cool pool" is continuing its slow fade and seems to be retiring from the climate stage, according to the latest satellite data from the US-French TOPEX/Poseidon mission.
The arrival from the Sun of billion-ton electrified-gas clouds that cause severe space storms can now be predicted to within a half-day. Scientists have created a model that reliably predicts how much time it takes for these clouds to traverse the gulf between the Sun and the Earth.
An increase in summer-season heat stress in the New York City area is expected to be a major health effect in the future caused by global warming. A warmer climate is also likely to raise the demand for electricity and cause increased stress to the electric utility systems.
About 25 percent of the ocean's tidal energy is lost to the deep ocean near the rugged bottom terrain of seamounts and mid-ocean ridges. The new results, published in the journal Nature, are based on observations from the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite.