Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere hit new record highs in 2022, with no end in sight to the rising trend, according to this new report by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). This Bulletin represents the latest analysis of observations from the WMO GAW Programme. It shows globally averaged surface …
Last year was the warmest ever recorded on Earth that didn’t feature an El Niño, a periodic climatic event that warms the Pacific Ocean, according to the annual state of the climate report by 500 climate scientists from around the world, overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) …
We know that humans are causing Earth’s climate to change. It used to be that “climate change” mostly referred to increasing temperatures near the Earth’s surface, but increasingly, climate change has come to mean so much more. It means warming oceans, melting ice, changing weather patterns, increased storms, and warming …
A very unusual dust plume generated from dust-storm activities over the Arabian Peninsula and Southwest Asia affected the north-west region of India between March 20 and 23, 2012, causing significant reductions in air quality and consequently changes in meteorological parameters. Ground based measurements of aerosol optical depth at 500 nm …
The discovery of high altitude cloud formations was made possible in 1885 after the eruption of Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia increased the amount of water vapour in the air. Sightings of the clouds became more known during the 20th century, and scientists began to wonder if the water vapour was …
Desert dust over the Indian region during pre-monsoon season is known to strengthen monsoon circulation, by modulating rainfall through the elevated heat pump (EHP) mechanism. In this context, an insight into long term trends of dust loading over this region is of signifcant importance in understanding monsoon variability. In this …
Given the importance of aerosol particles to radiative transfer via aerosol-radiation interactions, a methodology for tracking and diagnosing causes of temporal changes in regional-scale aerosol populations is illustrated. The aerosol optical properties tracked include estimates of total columnar burden (aerosol optical depth, AOD), dominant size mode (Ångström exponent, AE), and …
Western disturbances (WDs) are upper-level synoptic-scale systems embedded in the subtropical westerly jet stream (STWJ), often associated with extreme rainfall events in north India and Pakistan during boreal winter. Here, a tracking algorithm is applied to the upper-tropospheric vorticity field for 37 years of ERA-Interim reanalysis data, giving a catalogue …
The Minamata Convention on Mercury entered into force in August 2017, committing its currently 92 parties to take action to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury. But how can we tell whether the convention is achieving its objective? Although the convention requires periodic …
A new comprehensive surface temperature data set for India is used to document changes in Indian temperature over seven decades, in order to examine the patterns and possible effects of global warming. The data set is subdivided into pre-monsoon, monsoon, and post-monsoon categories in order to study the temperature patterns …
Western disturbances have a long history of climatological, synoptic and satellite observations based studies. In present study an attempt has been made to understand the different aspects of western disturbances like movement, associated convection, induce systems and associated weather. The western disturbances (WDs) during post monsoon and winter season have …
The impact of Asian dust on the determination of cloud phase is analyzed over dust sources and downwind using cloud phase products from cloud-aerosol lidar and infrared pathfinder satellite observations (CALIPSO), atmospheric infrared sounder (AIRS), moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS), and polarization and anisotropy of reflectances for atmospheric sciences coupled …
Wind flow conditions play an important role in the assimilative capacities of urban airsheds. It is desired that urban planners associate due importance to wind flow conditions while designing the cities considering its likely impact on ambient air quality. Further, considering the explosive growth of megacities across the world it …
The objective of environment statistics is to provide information about the environment, its changes over time and across locations, and the main factors that influence them. Ultimately, environment statistics aim at providing statistical information to improve knowledge of the environment, to support evidence-based policy and decision making, and to provide …
This review presents tropospheric ozone (O3), an air pollutant affecting agriculture by reducing crop yield and deteriorating quality of produce. O3 enters leaves through stomata and diffuses within the apoplast, producing many oxidizing compounds and affecting various physiological and biochemical processes, crop growth and yield. O3 affects above and below …
A progressive global increase in the burden of allergic diseases has affected the industrialized world over the last half century and has been reported in the literature. The clinical evidence reveals a general increase in both incidence and prevalence of respiratory diseases, such as allergic rhinitis (common hay fever) and …
Nitrogen availability is a pivotal control on terrestrial carbon sequestration and global climate change. Historical and contemporary views assume that nitrogen enters Earth’s land-surface ecosystems from the atmosphere. Here we demonstrate that bedrock is a nitrogen source that rivals atmospheric nitrogen inputs across major sectors of the global terrestrial environment.
Rectification of surface chlorophyll (Chl) concentration by the atmospheric intraseasonal variability is detected in a numerical biophysical ocean model when it is forced by composite Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) events. In addition to the shoaled mixed layer depth (MLD) previously reported, it is found that increased mean Chl by MJO forcing …
We report the initial results of the methane flux measured using eddy covariance method during summer months from the world’s largest mangrove ecosystem, Sundarbans of India. Mangrove ecosystems are known sources for methane (CH4) having very high global warming potential. In order to quantify the methane flux in mangroves, an …
Ultraviolet (UV) radiations from the Sun in the spectral range 100-280 nm react with the stratospheric atmosphere, and oxygen molecules (O2) and atoms (O) combine to produce ozone (O3). Since there are destruction processes also, the equilibrium amount is small, only a few percent of the atmosphere. However, it serves …
Ocean‐Waves‐Atmosphere (OWA) exchanges are not well represented in current Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) systems, which can lead to large uncertainties in tropical cyclone track and intensity forecasts. In order to explore and better understand the impact of OWA interactions on tropical cyclone modeling, a fully coupled OWA system based on …
