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| Scientists Find Good News About Methane Bubbling Up From the Ocean Floor Near Santa Barbara |
| Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is emitted in great quantities as bubbles from seeps on the ocean floor near Santa Barbara. About half of these bubbles dissolve into the ocean, but the fate of this dissolved methane remains uncertain. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered that only one percent of this dissolved methane escapes into the air – good news for the Earth's atmosphere. |
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| LOOK FORWARD TO A DARKER WORLD |
| It's official: the world is getting darker. Scientists now agree that as cloud cover and particles in the atmosphere increase, the amount of radiation reaching us from the Sun is falling. And although they are nervous about raising the idea, they think the effect may help protect us from global warming. |
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| CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS BLOW SKY HIGH |
| An increase in global greenhouse gas emissions over the past two years, due almost entirely to the burning of fossil fuels, has been reported by Australian researchers. |
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| AMAZON RAINFOREST DRUNK ON CARBON DIOXIDE |
| Strange things are happening in lush Amazonian rainforests and rising levels of carbon dioxide could be the cause, scientists announced today. |
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| ARE CITIES CHANGING LOCAL AND GLOBAL CLIMATES? |
| New evidence from satellites, models, and ground observations reveal urban areas, with all their asphalt, buildings, and aerosols, are impacting local and possibly global climate processes. This is according to some of the world's top scientists convening in a special session at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. |
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| GLOBAL WARMING A 'WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION' |
| Global climate change induced by humans is a 'weapon of mass destruction' at least as dangerous as nuclear, chemical or biological arms, a leading climate scientist has said. |
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| ATMOSPHERIC MERCURY HAS DECLINED - BUT WHY? |
| The amount of gaseous mercury in the atmosphere has dropped sharply from its peak in the 1980s and has remained relatively constant since the mid 1990s. This welcome decline may result from control measures undertaken in western Europe and North America, but scientists who have just concluded a study of atmospheric mercury say they cannot reconcile the amounts actually found with current understanding of natural and manmade sources of the element. |
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| STORM-RELATED DEATHS OCCUR MORE IN MEN, INVOLVE SPORTS OR VEHICLES, SAYS PITTSBURGH STUDY |
| Men are more than twice as likely to die during thunderstorms than are women, and most cases involve a vehicle or sports. These findings from a University of Pittsburgh study were presented Monday, April 28, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Safety in Numbers meeting in Atlanta. |
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| SCIENTISTS FIND CAUSE OF DEAD CRABS, FISH OFF COAST. |
| An unusual combination of oceanic and atmospheric events may be to blame for a mysterious and sudden die-off of numerous crabs, fish and invertebrate animals off the central Oregon coast during the past two weeks. |
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| THUNDERSTORMS ARE AFFECTED BY POLLUTION |
| A NASA-funded researcher has discovered that tiny airborne particles of pollution may modify developing thunderclouds by increasing the quantity and reducing the size of ice crystals within them. These modifications may affect the cloud’s impact on the "radiation budget," the amount of radiation that enters and leaves the Earth. |
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| BALL LIGHTNING EXPLAINED |
| A New Zealand scientist may have finally explained the mechanism behind the extraordinary phenomenon of ball lightning.
Associate Professor John Abrahamson, a chemical engineer at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, explains his theory in the April issue of Physics World Digest. |
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| WHERE LIGHTNING STRIKES. NEW MAPS FROM ORBITING SENSORS REVEAL WHERE ON EARTH THE POWERFUL BOLTS WILL MOST LIKELY STRIKE. |
| Lightning. It avoids the ocean, but likes Florida. It's likely to strike in the Himalayas and even more so in central Africa. And lightning almost never strikes the North or South Poles. |
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