the last four decades, scientists have observed a 1.3% per decade decline in the amount of sun reaching the Earth’s surface. This phenomenon, coined “solar dimming” or “global dimming,” is due to changes in clouds and air pollution that are impeding the suns ability to penetrate. Scientists believe that the combination of growing quantities of man-made aerosol particles in the atmosphere and more moisture are causing the cloud cover to thicken.

Despite this decline in solar radiation, the E

The 150-kilometre-per-hour winds of Typhoon Nida brought destruction and death to the Philippines this week. At least 31 people were killed and hundreds more were made homeless as the storm passed across the eastern part of the country on Wednesday.

Envisat acquired this image of the eye of the Typhoon on Tuesday 18 May, using its Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) in reduced resolution mode. The 1200-metre resolution image is some 1150 km wide.

The storm caused floods

URI graduate student reports 50 percent reduction in populations of invertebrates on beaches where driving is permitted

When off-road vehicles drive on beaches, they can reduce the number of creatures living on the beach by as much as 50 percent, according to a recently completed three-year study by a University of Rhode Island graduate student.

“The effect of traffic on the beaches is significant,” said Jacqueline Steinback of East Falmouth, Mass., who studied the creatures

On June 19, NASA will launch Aura, a next generation Earth-observing satellite. Aura will supply the best information yet about the health of Earth’s atmosphere.

Aura will help scientists understand how atmospheric composition affects and responds to Earth’s changing climate. The satellite will help reveal the processes that connect local and global air quality. It will also track the extent Earth’s protective ozone layer is recovering.

Aura will carry four in

NASA and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) are teaming up to create one of the most complete databases of magnetic properties of Earth’s rocks ever assembled. The partnership demonstrates ongoing interagency collaboration.

Satellite data of Earth’s magnetic field combined with rock magnetic data collected on the ground will provide more complete insight into Earth’s geology, gravity and magnetism.

Satellites, including NASA’s Magsat, have detected magnetic signals in the

Data from NASA’s Terra satellite is adding to our understanding of how pollution spreads around the globe. The information will help scientists protect and understand the Earth.

NASA funded scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colo., will present two studies focusing on global air pollution. Their presentations are part of the 2004 Joint Assembly of the American and Canadian Geophysical Unions.

David Edwards will discuss “Observations

Leading-edge technology is being used by two CSIRO Livestock Industries’ research teams to identify genes that enable sheep to resist intestinal parasites.

The discovery of such genes could lead to new products, control strategies, and markers to identify superior animals in selective breeding programs, which will substantially improve the overall health and welfare of the national flock.

With support from Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) and Australian Wool Innovation (A

The floods of 1997 and 2002 devastated much of Europe. But can we learn and be better prepared to cope with future extreme weather? The IST project OSIRIS has developed some practical solutions to help address the challenge.

The so-called ’Flood of the Century’ in 1997, caused havoc the length of the Oder valley, flooding swathes of land in Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. The death toll was 55; the cost of damages estimated at some 3.5 billion euro; and the human cost, in t

Neither massive volcanic eruptions nor extraterrestrial impacts are sufficiently powerful on their own to cause mass extinctions of life on Earth, research by University of Leicester geologists suggests.

Instead, both events coincidentally occurring together may be required to cause the worst mass extinctions.

In the last 300 million years, life on Earth has suffered three major mass extinctions: those of the end-Permian, end-Triassic and end-Cretaceous periods.

The thir

Russian scientists are investigating the opportunity to bring wisents (Bison bonasus) back to the forests of Central Russia. Their effort has been funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Federal Target Scientific and Technical Program called “Conservation of Rare Species”.

The story of rescuing wisents (Bison bonasus) which had been practically on the verge of extinction became classical and was included in schoolbooks. However, this does not mean that wisents are thrivin

The most northerly active volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula is once again erupting, dusting the surrounding snow-white landscape with a wide expanse of dark ash that is visible from 800 km away in space.

This image of the Kamchatka Peninsula on Russia’s East Coast was acquired on 11 May 2004 by the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) instrument on ESA’s Envisat satellite in reduced resolution mode.

Two thirds of the way up the Peninsula can be seen

Evidence is mounting that 251 million years ago, long before the dinosaurs dominated the Earth, a meteor the size of Mount Everest smashed into what is now northern Australia, heaving rock halfway around the globe, triggering mass volcanic eruptions, and wiping out all but about ten percent of the species on the planet. The “Great Dying,” as it’s called, was by far the most cataclysmic extinction event in Earth’s history, yet scientists have been unable to finger a culprit as they have with

People in the central and eastern United States and Canada are used to the idea that the land they live on — its variety of hills, lakes and rivers — are left over from the great mile-thick ice sheets that covered the area 18,000 years ago.

They may, however, be surprised to learn that today, long after the glaciers melted, an international research team led by Northwestern University geologists using the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites can “see” the land moving — up to half a

July 2003 saw a significant discovery in Ecuador by IRD archaeologists: 4000-year-old structures indicating the presence of one of the first great Andean civilizations in the upper Amazon Basin, where their presence had not been suspected. The site is at Santa Ana- La Florida in the south of Ecuador. Subsequent systematic excavations of other parts of the site led to the discovery of sophisticated architectural complexes. Among these are a tomb and a range of diverse vestiges: ceramic bottles, plain

Data gathered over seven years by a University of California, Berkeley, researcher have played a key role in convincing the National Park Service and the California Department of Fish and Game to remove trout from some high-altitude lakes in California’s Sierra Nevada to save the disappearing mountain yellow-legged frog.

UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Vance T. Vredenburg showed that introduced trout have devastated native frog populations over the past 50 years in formerly fish-free h

If you have spent time boating or fishing in freshwater, there is a good chance you have encountered a pearly mussel. Elliptical in shape, with iridescent inner shells, humans have appreciated the animals since prehistoric times. Coveted for their pearls and mother-of-pearl shells; their meat has been a resource for both humans and wildlife. In a BioScience paper published this week, a team of scientists report that something troubling has been happening in our nation’s freshwaters— once-abundant pe