Interstellar particles alter Earth's climate by affecting cloud growth, scientists revealed on Tuesday. The research team, whose work was published in Nature Communications, sets out a direct link between how particles from space influences cloud growth and climate change. Henrik Svensmark, lead author of the study and a …

The UK Space Agency has made a deal with Thales Alenia Space to assemble and test a carbon-measuring satellite, the British government announced yesterday. Thales Alenia Space UK, last seen in The Register building part of the European Aviation Network, will assist with the MicroCarb project, a collaboration between the UKSA …

Research scientists working at NASA have hit upon a potentially revolutionary way of measuring the heat hidden deep in Earth's oceans: track the subtle shifts in our planet's magnetic field caused by tides, swells, eddies, and even tsunamis. Put simply, the salt in ocean water makes it conductive, and as it ebbs and flows it …

It’s official: 2015 was the warmest year on record. But those global temperature records only date back to 1850 and become increasingly uncertain the further back you go. Beyond then, we’re reliant on signs left behind in tree rings, ice cores or rocks. So when was the Earth last warmer than the present? The Conversation …

The Earth has three trillion trees and this is seven times more than was thought, until very recently, to exist. It is also half the number that existed before humanity went to work on the environment. We can deduce this through algorithms used to crunch reams of photographic data captured by satellite. But the headline figure …

The Persian Gulf is already one of the hottest parts of the world, but by the end of the century increasing heat combined with intense humidity will make the region too hot for habitation, according to research published in Nature Climate Change. Heating and air conditioning currently permit humans to live everywhere from …

How are clouds formed on Earth? If you didn't answer "tiny marine organisms floating in the sea, perhaps better known as one of the main foods consumed by blue whales," then you were wrong. Boffins at the University of Washington (UoW) and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory believe that microscopic organisms drifting in …

Astronomers working in the years 1645 to 1715 observed many fewer sunspots than they were accustomed to seeing. The lower-than-expected rate of sunspots has since come to be known as the “Maunder Minimum” and a new theory suggests we're about to get another one. So says Professor Valentina Zharkova of Northumbria University, …

The rolling upgrade at NASA's Centre for Climate Simulation (NCCS) is nearing completion, with the agency just about ready to flick the switch on the second of three new SGI systems. The upgrade project, which was won by SGI (canned announcement) in November 2014, will when it's complete replace the former IBM machine – with …

Worstall @ the WeekendIt's not going to come as all that much of a surprise that those who worry excessively about climate change aren't really all that up to speed with economics as a subject in general. But it should produce a little amazement (or a chortle or two perhaps) when said usual suspects launch a new campaign that deliberately ignores a …

After 75 days running on the 43,000-core, 1.21 petaflop Discover supercomputer cluster at the Goddard Centre for Climate Simulation, producing 4 PB of data, NASA has put together a global model showing how atmospheric carbon dioxide – CO2 – gets distributed in air currents around the world. Youtube Video The model is based on …

Worstall on WednesdayIt's a distinctly lonely intellectual position to have — agreeing with the IPCC that climate change is a problem, one we're causing, and something that we might want to do something about but thinking that we've probably already done what we needed to do. The extent of the Arctic ice cap during the last ice age I'm no expert …

Google has become the latest tech giant to wonder if backing the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is such a good idea. Last month, Microsoft withdrew its support for the group, saying it was no longer participating in the organisation's Communications and Technology Task Force. Google is another high-profile …

UpdatedNASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2) not only managed to lift off today, it also achieved successful separation from its booster stack and got into orbit. Youtube Video The satellite – which will study the absorption of sunlight by carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere – is the third attempt to get a CO2-measuring …

A recent poll has discovered that – in one US state, at least – climate change is now a more divisive issue than even the long-bubbling "pro-choice/pro-life" and gun-control dust-ups. The poll, conducted in January and February of this year by the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute and released last week, found …

Debate about climate change is about to, er, heat up, after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) delivered its fifth assessment report, snappily known as WGII AR5. The summary for policymakers [PDF] and full report are online for your reading pleasure. The IPCC says both were compiled using “a substantially …

+SketchMPs begged scientists to tell them what to do at Westminster this week. "I like the idea science tells us something, and we have to agree," said John Robertson (Lab, Glasgow North West) - surely a candidate for Quote of the Year in any year. As we shall discover, the MPs of Parliament's Energy and Climate Change Committee were …

PicsCitizens of smog-choked Beijing can watch a sunset on a massive LED display in Tiananmen Square, which will remind them of what the sun and sky look like. Sunset being televised in Beijing's Tiananmen Square due to heavy pollution Tiananmen Square's virtual sunset ... a reminder of better days "I couldn't see the tall …