Topic Browser

Just as we grow used to satellite navigation in everyday life, media reports argue that a coming surge in solar activity could render satnav devices useless, perhaps even frying satellites themselves. Is it true? No.

A new method of predicting solar storms that could help to avoid widespread power and communications blackouts costing billions of pounds has been launched by researchers in the UK.

NASA and NOAA's latest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-15, has successfully completed five months of on-orbit testing and has been accepted into service. The satellite has demonstrated operational readiness of its subsystems, spacecraft instruments and communications services. GOES-15 is the third and final spacecraft in the GOES N-P Series of geostationary environmental weather satellites.

Given the impact of climatic extremes on agriculture and health in Spain, researchers have analyzed the two factors most representative of these thermal extremes between 1950 and 2006 - warm days and cold nights. The results for mainland Spain show an increase in the number of warm days greater than that for the rest of the planet and a reduction in the number of cold nights.

New research shows that multiple sclerosis activity can increase during spring and summer months.

Metop-A, Europe's first polar-orbiting satellite dedicated to operational meteorology, will complete its 20,000th orbit of the Earth on 27 August. It will deliver its data to the EUMETSAT Polar System ground station on Svalbard around lunchtime.

Fires and floods which raged across the Isle of Wight some 130 million years ago made the island the richest source of pick ’n’ mix dinosaur remains of this age anywhere in the world. A new study has revealed the Island’s once violent weather explains why thousands of tiny dinosaur teeth and bones lie buried alongside the huge bones of their gigantic relatives.

Rain drops are fat and snowflakes are fluffy, but why does it matter in terms of predicting severe storms?

Some of the nation's most historic buildings and monuments may be better protected from decay in future, following a development by engineers. Researchers have devised a method of forecasting damage caused by the weather to stone buildings -- including statues, monuments and other historic sites, as well as modern masonry buildings.

Scientists can now study climate change in far more detail with powerful new computer software released by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The Community Earth System Model will be one of the primary climate models used for the next assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Reducing the runoff from plant nutrients that can eventually wash into the Chesapeake Bay could someday be as easy as checking the weather forecast.

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature made this July the second warmest on record, behind 1998, and the warmest averaged January-July on record. The global average land surface temperature for July and January-July was warmest on record. The global ocean surface temperature for July was the fifth warmest, and for January-July 2010 was the second warmest on record, behind 1998.

Climate change is causing higher air and water temperatures along the east coast of the United States. These changes have shrunk the geographic region where blue mussels are able to survive, according to new findings.

Scientists have created new maps of Chesapeake Bay forested wetlands that are about 30 percent more accurate than existing maps. Wetlands are critical to the health of bodies of water like the Chesapeake Bay.

Scientists and technicians are deploying two buoys that will help us better understand interactions between the ocean and atmosphere during typhoons.

In less than two weeks, NASA scientists will begin their quest for the holy grail of hurricane research. The exact conditions required to kickstart a tropical depression into a hurricane largely remain a mystery. Though scientists know many of the ingredients needed, it is unclear what processes ultimately drive depressions to form into the intense, spinning storms that lash the U.S. coasts each summer.

The way that humanity reacts to climate change may do more damage to many areas of the planet than climate change itself unless we plan properly, an important new study by a group of leading scientists has concluded.

Their legend has inspired generations of mountaineers since their ill-fated attempt to climb Everest over 80 years ago, and now a team of scientists believe they have discovered another important part of the puzzle as to why George Mallory and Andrew Irvine never returned from their pioneering expedition. The research explores the unsolved mystery and uses newly uncovered historical data collected during their expedition to suggest that extreme weather may have contributed to their disappearance.

Heat waves like those that baked the Northeast in July are likely to be more frequent and more intense in the future, with their effects amplified in densely built urban environments like Manhattan, according to climate scientists.

Summer storms are a regular feature in the North Atlantic, and while most pose little threat to our shores, a choice few become devastating hurricanes. To decipher which storms could bring danger, and which will not, atmospheric scientists are heading to the tropics to observe these systems as they form and dissipate--or develop into hurricanes.

The memory of last winter's blizzards may be fading in this summer's searing heat, but scientists studying them have detected a perfect storm of converging weather patterns that had little relation to climate change. The extraordinarily cold, snowy weather that hit parts of the US East Coast and Europe was the result of a collision of two periodic weather patterns in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, a new study finds.

NASA scientists use satellite precipitation data to improve water pollution monitoring models.

As part of the European Space Agency's Space Situational Awareness activities, a new radar system will be developed to help safeguard space missions. The radar will detect hazardous objects in Earth orbit and trigger warnings that enable satellite operators to avoid collisions, making spaceflight safer for all.

The last of five instruments slated to fly on the upcoming NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) climate and weather satellite have been successfully integrated, according to NASA officials. The polar-orbiting satellite is scheduled to launch in late 2011.

Citrus growers, beware. Florida winters are getting more extreme, causing plants to flower later and potentially shrinking the growing seasons for some of the state's most vital crops.

Scientists have employed NASA's Pleiades supercomputer and atmospheric data to simulate tropical cyclone Nargis -- with the first model to replicate the formation of the tropical cyclone five days in advance.

It's hot out right now, but new research will help us know what to expect when the weather turns cold. Researchers have developed a new methodology that improves the accuracy of winter precipitation and temperature forecasts. The tool should be valuable for government and utility officials, since it provides key information for use in predicting energy consumption and water availability.

June was the fourth consecutive month that was the warmest on record for the combined global land and surface temperatures (March, April, and May were also the warmest). This was the 304th consecutive month with a combined global land and surface temperature above the 20th century average. The last month with below average temperatures was February 1985.

Heat waves may cause increased mortality but, until now, there has been no single scientific definition for the occasional bursts of hot weather that can strike during the summer months. Researchers have created a definition that they use to document, for the first time, how heat wave mortality impact differs between European cities.

Three NASA aircraft will begin flights to study tropical cyclones on Aug. 15 during the agency's first major U.S.-based hurricane field campaign since 2001. The Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes mission, or GRIP, will study the creation and rapid intensification of hurricanes. Advanced instruments from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will be aboard two of the aircraft.