Snow Science, Not Sport, in the Rockies
February 26, 2002This month, dozens of scientists on the ground, in the air and using satellite observations will begin a multi-year experiment to study winter snow packs on the Colorado side of the Rocky Mountains. (Denver Rocky Mountain News, Science Daily)
Satellites Track Mosquitos
February 25, 2002Temperature and vegetation data from satellites are helping scientists track and predict the course of West Nile Virus in North America. (UPI, Winona Health Online, Newsfactor.com, Yahoo News)
NASA's Aqua Satellite Shipped to Launch Site
February 25, 2002NASA's Aqua spacecraft is ready to be shipped to Vandenburg Air Force Base in California to begin launch preparations. (UPI, Spaceflight Now, Santa Maria Times)
The Growing Season Is Growing as Warming Trend Persists
February 25, 2002Winter is scheduled to make a guest appearance this week, but if recent years are any barometer, the region's backyard gardeners will be getting down and dirty before they know it. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Is Europe About to Freeze?
February 25, 2002One of the odd possibilities that could emerge from global warming is that much of Europe, robbed of the ocean current patterns that help keep it warm, could abruptly enter a deep freeze. (Space Daily)
Skeptics Denounce Climate Science ?Lie?
February 25, 2002A group of scientists in the US and the UK says the accepted wisdom on climate change remains unproved. (BBC News)
Snow-Pit Project to Predict Flooding
February 22, 2002Snow researchers began a field experiment in the Rocky Mountains, by ground, by air and by satellite to learn more about snow and snowmelt, that can be applied to flood forecasting. (Rocky Mountain News)
Fish Bones Give Clues to the Beginning of El Nino
February 21, 2002Scientists studying fossilized otoliths, tiny sea creatures found in the inner ears of se catfish believe that warmer waters off the Peruvian coast during the mid-Holocene period caused them to thrive. (USA Today.com)
Global Warming Will be Around the Next 100 Years
February 20, 2002Research indicates that even if fossil fuel consumption is dramatically reduced, global warming will continue for the next 100 years. (Spacedaily.com)
Polar Warming Continues With Ice Mass Losses
February 20, 2002A study of the Arctic during the summer of 2000 by international scientists noted that temperatures in the Arctic were the warmest in 400 years, and that there has been an 18-year downturn in ice cover of over the Atlantic Ocean. (Spacedaily.com)
Pollution Drying Up Rainfall
February 19, 2002New satellite data shows that tiny airborne particles are changing rainfall patterns around the world, and make it more difficult for clouds to precipitate. (United Press International, Nature news)
Sea Level Set To Rise Dramatically
February 18, 2002New satellites designed to monitor the oceans may soon confirm that global sea levels may rise between 7 and 11 inches this century. (Nature news, Cosmiverse.com)
Forecasters Get New Ally
February 16, 2002NASA's QuikSCAT satellite can detect winds that may enable forecasters to see tropical cyclones forming up to 46 hours before current means. (The Atlanta Journal Constitution)
Terra Takes Sea Surface Temperature With Precision
February 15, 2002NASA's Terra satellite is collecting the most detailed measurement of sea surface temperatures ever made, enabling scientists to advance their studies on ocean-atmosphere interactions that help define the Earth's climate. (Spaceflightnow.com)
A Satellite With an Icy Mission
February 14, 2002The European Space Agency has confirmed that it will be building the CryoSat satellite, that will measure changes in the thickness of ice sheets and polar ocean sea ice cover. It will be launched in 2004. (Spacedaily.com)
Links Between El Nino, Disease
February 14, 2002Scientists from NASA and the Uniformed Services University have found evidence linking periodic surges of the disease Bartonellosis in the Peruvian Andes to the habits of a sand fly and the El Nino phenomenon in the eastern Pacific Ocean. (Baltimore Sun newspaper)
Warming World 'Means Longer Days'
February 12, 2002Belgian scientists say that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will slow the Earth's rotation, making every day a little longer than it is already. (BBC News on-line)
Satellites Blow the Surprises of World's Wild Weather
February 12, 2002Predicting extreme weather is one of the topics that will be addressed at this week's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. (Boston Globe)
Reduced Carbon Dioxide Feedback to Atmosphere from Oceans
February 12, 2002NOAA scientists say that the ocean circulation that brings cool water from the ocean depths to the surface has been slowing since the 1970s, decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide that comes up with it. (Spacedaily.com)
New Iceberg Breaks Free in Antarctica
February 8, 2002An iceberg more than twice the size of Manhattan Island, New York has separated from the Matusevich Glacier in Antarctica. (CNN.com)
Satellites Help Track Disease Epidemics
February 7, 2002Satellite images of droughts, floods and heatwaves are now helping scientists track and predict the conditions that are favorable for transmissions of diseases such as West Nile Virus in the U.S., and Rift Valley Fever and Ebola in Africa.
(Space.com, Cosmiverse.com, Environment News Service)
Equatorial Water Belt Slackens
February 7, 2002A recent slowing in the circulation of Pacific Ocean could have raised sea surface temperatures. It may mean less carbon has reached the atmosphere from the ocean surface over the past two decades. (Nature Science Update)
El Niño Taking Baby Steps
February 5, 2002Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say they have observed a slow trend toward El Niño, as ocean temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific have warmed to above normal temperatures. (CBSNews.com)
Climate Threat to Australian Forests
February 5, 2002A new study indicates that up to half of Australia?s tropical rainforests could be threatened if global temperatures lift by an average of one degree Celsius. (CNN.com)