This year’s Atlantic hurricane season got off to a busy start, with 6 named storms to date, and may have a busy second half, according to the updated hurricane season outlook issued today by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service. The updated outlook still indicates a 50 percent chance of…

A new atmospheric compound, a type of carbonyl oxide, is connected to both climate change and human health issues. According to researchers at both the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Helsinki, this novel chemical combination in the Earth’s atmosphere has been tested to play a significant role in the field of climate…

From reducing mobile source emissions, to connecting households to drinking water and wastewater services, to clean-up efforts of streams and canals, the United States and Mexico have made a joint effort to protect both human health and the environment in their shared 2,000 mile border region. The bi-national entities along with various stakeholders created the…

There is a lot of dust in the air. From whence does it come? 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…

Environmental concern is greater when the economy is stronger, a study found which looked at environmental advertising in National Geographic over three decades. Specifically, the study, conducted by three researchers at Penn State University, found that consumers are more receptive to environmental appeals and marketers do more environmental advertising when the economy is improving. There…

Long ago life began on Earth. One of the most intriguing questions is what caused it to start just then. A little less than 2 billion years ago, metals including copper, molybdenum and zinc became available to primitive cells, at the same time that the cells began to become much more complex. Some scientists indicate…

According to a new study, areas of salmon conservation should be expanded to streams that don’t actually contain salmon, but whose waters run into salmon habitat. In other words, the entire watershed should be protected and not just the rivers where there are large salmon runs. This is because the various feeder streams have different…

NASA’s most advanced Mars rover Curiosity has landed on the Red Planet. The one-ton rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack, touched down onto Mars Sunday to end a 36-week flight and begin a two-year investigation. The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft that carried Curiosity succeeded in every step of the most complex landing…

A recent rise in deadly, debilitating, and expensive heatwaves was caused by climate change, argues a new statistical analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Climatologists found that extreme heatwaves have increased by at least 50 times during the last 30 years. The researchers, including James Hansen of NASA, conclude…

LAS VEGAS— The Bureau of Land Management today released its long-anticipated final environmental impact statement for the pipeline right-of-way for the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s “groundwater development project.” The project envisions unsustainably siphoning more than 37.1 billion gallons of groundwater per year from at least four valleys in central Nevada and pumping it 300 miles…