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WASHINGTON (AFP) – The upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere are unexpectedly shrinking and cooling due to lower ultraviolet radiation from the sun, US scientists said Thursday. The sun's energy output dropped to unusually low levels from 2007 to 2009, a significantly long spell with virtually no sunspots or solar storms, according to scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. During that period, the thermosphere, whose altitude ranges from about 55 to 300 miles (90 to 500 kilometers), shrank and contracted from the sharp drop in ultraviolet radiation, said the study published in the American Geophysical Union's...

Satellite instruments and ocean sensors are limitedCurrent observational tools cannot account for roughly half of the heat that is believed to have built up on Earth in recent years, according to a "Perspectives" article in this week's issue of the journal Science. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., warn that satellite sensors, ocean floats, and other instruments are inadequate to track this "missing" heat, which may be building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system. "The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later," says NCAR scientist Kevin...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – World leaders should focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible over the next 40 years to avoid perilous warming conditions, researchers said Monday. In the first study of its kind, analysts used a detailed energy system model to analyze the relationship between emissions levels in 2050 and chances of achieving end-of-century targets of two or three degrees Celsius (3.5 or 5.5 Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial average. UN climate talks in Copenhagen ended last month with a non-binding agreement to limit warming to two degrees Celsius but did not set binding targets to reduce the...

Climate change could make future hurricanes stronger, but it is unknown whether it will change the total number of storms. Kevin Trenberth from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) claims that warmer oceans and increased moisture could intensify showers and thunderstorms that fuel hurricanes. "Trends in human-influenced environmental changes are now evident in hurricane regions," Trenberth said. "These changes are expected to affect hurricane intensity and rainfall, but the effect on hurricane numbers remains unclear. The key scientific question is how hurricanes are changing." Sea-surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic – the breeding ground for most U.S. hurricanes...

<p>A press release from the federally supported National Center for Atmospheric Research claims a "New Look at Satellite Data Supports Global Warming Trend." This claim is likely to be played out big by supporters of the Kyoto Protocol, who want to restrict drastically the use of energy.</p>