A team of top scientists is telling world leaders to stop congratulating themselves on the Paris agreement to fight climate change because if more isn’t done, global temperatures will likely hit dangerous warming levels in about 35 years. Six scientists who were leaders in past international climate conferences joined with the Universal Ecological Fund in…
Study: Earth’s Roughly Warmest in About 100,000 Years
A new study paints a picture of an Earth that is warmer than it has been in about 120,000 years, and is locked into eventually hitting its hottest mark in more than 2 million years. As part of her doctoral dissertation at Stanford University, Carolyn Snyder , now a climate policy official at the U.S. Environmental Protection…
U.S. Not on Track to Meet 2025 Carbon Pollution Cutting Goal
Unless it does more, the United States probably will fall short of goals set under last year’s Paris agreement to dramatically reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases, according to a new study. The U.S. pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels. But taking into account current…
Satellite-Based Radar Confirms Man-Made Texas Earthquakes
Scientists used radar from satellites to show that five Texas earthquakes, one reaching magnitude 4.8, were caused by injections of wastewater in drilling for oil and gas. In 2012 and 2013, earthquakes – five of them considered significant – shook East Texas near Timpson. A team of scientists for the first time were able to…
Happy Landings: 3 Space Station Crew Members Back on Earth
After watching more than 2,750 sunrises from above the Earth, three crew members of the International Space Station returned to the planet for a sparkling sunrise back on Earth Wednesday. A record-setting American astronaut and his two Russian colleagues felt the sun beat down on them on a cloudless morning after a six-month trek in…
Engineers Give New Meaning to the Phrase ‘Cool Clothes’
Engineers have created clothing for a warming world — a fabric that allows your body heat to escape far better than other materials do. It hasn’t been worn or tested by humans, so outside experts caution this is far from a sure thing, but a team at Stanford University engineered a fabric using nano technology…
Jackpot: Scientists Find Earth-like Planet at Star Next Door
After scanning the vast reaches of the cosmos for Earth-like planets where life might exist, astronomers have found one right next door. A planet that’s rocky like Earth and only slightly bigger has been discovered orbitingProxima Centauri , the nearest star to our solar system, scientists reported Wednesday. It is probably in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold Goldilocks…
The Beat and Heat Goes On: NOAA Says July Hottest on Record
More federal scientists have confirmed we just sweated through Earth’s hottest month on record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calculates that last month’s average global temperature was 62.01 degrees (16.67 degrees Celsius). That beats the old record set in July 2015 by a ninth of a degree and is 1.57 degrees above the 20th-century…
NASA: Last Month Was Earth’s Hottest in Recorded History
Earth just broiled to its hottest month in recorded history, according to NASA. Even after the fading of a strong El Nino, which spikes global temperatures on top of man-made climate change, July burst global temperature records. NASA calculated that July 2016 was 1.51 degrees Fahrenheit (0.84 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1950-1980 global average. That’s clearly…
Scientists’ Annual Physical of Planet: ‘Earth’s Fever Rises’
Earth’s fever got worse last year, breaking dozens of climate records, scientists said in a massive report nicknamed the annual physical for the planet. Soon after 2015 ended, it was proclaimed the hottest on record . The new report shows the broad extent of other records and near-records on the planet’s climatic health. Those include record heat…
Scientists Looking for Invisible Dark Matter Can’t Find Any
Scientists have come up empty-handed in their latest effort to find elusive dark matter, the plentiful stuff that helps galaxies like ours form. For three years, scientists have been looking for dark matter — which though invisible, makes up more than four-fifths of the universe’s matter — nearly a mile underground in a former gold…
‘Hot, Wet and Wild’ 2016 Weather as U.S. Has Warmest June
Federal meteorologists say America’s warm, wild and costly weather broke another record with the hottest June. The month’s average temperature in the Lower 48 states was 71.8 degrees, 3.3 degrees above normal, surpassing the Dust Bowl record set in 1933. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate scientist Jake Crouch says the nation has been quite…
Science Groups to Congress: Climate Change is Real Threat
Thirty-one of the country’s top science organizations are telling Congress that global warming is a real problem and something needs to be done about it. The science groups, which represent millions of scientists, sent the letter Tuesday, saying the severity of climate change is increasing and will get worse faster in coming decades. Eighteen groups…
Earth Breaks Heat Record Again, But Not By As Much As Before
Earth sizzled to its 13th straight month of record heat in May, but it wasn’t quite as much of an over-the-top scorcher as previous months, federal scientists say. Record May heat, from Alaska to India and especially in the oceans, put the global average temperature at 60.17 degrees Fahrenheit (15.65 degrees Celsius), according to NOAA. That’s 1.57…
Cosmic Curveball: Is the Universe Expanding Even Faster?
Astronomers thought they had a handle on how the universe ticks, but the cosmos may be toying with them. A team of astronomers has calculated that the universe seems to be expanding faster than what scientists previously figured. If the new research is right, then science’s basic understanding of what’s been happening to the universe…
Year-in-Space Astronaut Hangs Up His Spacesuit, Retires
After spending nearly a year in space, astronaut Scott Kelly is hanging up his spacesuit. NASA announced Kelly’s retirement on Friday, less than two weeks after he returned to Earth. He leaves the space agency on April 1. The 52-year-old Kelly spent a U.S.-record 340 days in orbit on the International Space Station to see…
Revamped Satellite Data Shows No Pause In Global Warming
Climate change doubters may have lost one of their key talking points: a particular satellite temperature dataset that had seemed to show no warming for the past 18 years. The Remote Sensing System temperature data, promoted by many who reject mainstream climate science and especially most recently by Sen. Ted Cruz, now shows a slight…
Astronomers Spot Record Distant Galaxy From Early Cosmos
Astronomers say they have discovered a hot, star-popping galaxy that is far, far away — farther than any previously detected, from a time when the universe was a mere toddler of about 400 million years old. By employing a different technique — one that has raised some skepticism — a team of astronomers exposed a…
AP Explains: Just What Are Einstein’s Gravitational Waves?
Astronomers on Thursday announced that their new billion-dollar U.S. observatory has detected a gravitational wave, a phenomenon Albert Einstein predicted a century ago in his theory of general relativity. Here’s what that breakthrough means. WHAT IS A GRAVITATIONAL WAVE? Gravitational waves are extremely faint ripples in the fabric of space and time that come from…
Earth’s Temperature Depends On Where You Put Thermometer
When it comes to measuring global warming, it’s all about altitude. Temperature readings taken close to Earth’s surface — about 6 feet off the ground — show a slightly warmer planet than measurements taken from on high by satellites in orbit. And that discrepancy has given ammunition to climate-change doubters. Government agencies and most scientists…
NOAA, NASA: 2015 Was Earth’s Hottest By A Wide Margin
Last year wasn’t just the Earth’s hottest year on record — it left a century of high temperature marks in the dust. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and NASA announced Wednesday that 2015 was by far the hottest year in 136 years of record keeping. For the most part, scientists at the agencies and elsewhere blamed…
Space salad: 1 small bite for man, 1 giant leaf for mankind
WASHINGTON (AP) — These are the salad days of scientific research on the International Space Station. On Monday, for the first time astronauts munched on red romaine lettuce that they grew in space. After clicking their lettuce leaves like wine glasses, three astronauts tasted them with a bit of Italian balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive…
Meteor shower likely to be good, won’t be eclipsed by moon
WASHINGTON (AP) — People looking for a shooting star to wish upon may find Wednesday overnight to be a dream come true. Celestial timing will help people see more of the oldest meteor shower known to Earth, the Perseids, when they peak 3 a.m. local Thursday, according to astronomers. That’s “because the moon is almost…
NASA: Seats on Russian Rockets Will Cost Us $490 Million
NASA told Congress on Wednesday that it will have to spend half a billion dollars to pay Russia to fly astronauts to the International Space Station. Read more: NASA Says Congress Forced it to Continue Using Russian Spacecraft NASA Administrator Charles Bolden sent a letter to Congress saying the agency would need to pay $490…
Computer Program Beats Humans at Space Invaders
Washington (AP) — Computers already have bested human champions in “Jeopardy!” and chess, but artificial intelligence now has gone to master an entirely new level: “Space Invaders.” Google scientists have cooked up software that can do better than humans on dozens of Atari video games from the 1980s, like video pinball, boxing, and ‘Breakout.’ But…