Using a Lidar, a laser ranging instrument, at the University’s Bayfordbury Observatory near Hertford, the team monitored the height of the particles throughout the day. Laser pulses reflected from the particles show their arrival around midday, their growing height in the atmosphere, and their eventual departure in the evening.

The atmospheric profile was measured every second, allowing the changes in the particle layering to be observed throughout the day. The particles responsible for the red sky are seen as a diagonal stripe in the profile sequence. The layer of dust arrived over Hertford around 11:00 GMT at 1 km altitude, drifted past over the next 6 hours at progressively higher altitudes, and reached 2-3 km altitude by the time it moved away from Hertford around 18:00 UTC.

Forest fires in British Columbia. Floods in Quebec. Hurricanes in Texas. While it’s difficult to say definitively that such events are caused by climate change, there’s little doubt that a warming world exacerbates such extreme weather—and that our society will need to be ready for more of them.

These are the kinds of issues on Anika Bell’s mind as she prepares to pursue her master’s of applied science at the University of Victoria in the new year. Bell’s previous research was featured in an infographic at the Livable Cities Forum in Victoria in September, where planners, policymakers and other professionals across Canada discussed ways to build cities equipped for current and future climate change impacts.

Future high temperature extremes and soil moisture conditions may cause some regions to become more suitable for rainfed, or non-irrigated, agriculture, while causing other areas to lose suitable farmland, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study.  

These future conditions will cause an overall increase in the area suitable to support rainfed agriculture within dryland areas. Increases are projected in North America, western Asia, eastern Asia and South America. In contrast, suitable areas are projected to decline in European dryland areas.

Climate change is putting many tropical high altitude beetles at risk of extinction, warn an international team of scientists.

Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite revealed that Tropical Storm Lan was getting stronger as it moved through the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.

With warm, dry summers comes a deadly caveat for the western United States: wildfires. Scientists say the hot, dry climates found west of the Mississippi, along with decades of fire suppression efforts, are creating a devastating and destructive combination – leading to fires like the ones currently burning in California.

A new study linking paleoclimatology — the reconstruction of past global climates — with historical analysis by researchers at Yale and other institutions shows a link between environmental stress and its impact on the economy, political stability, and war-fighting capacity of ancient Egypt.

The team of researchers examined the hydroclimatic and societal impacts in Egypt of a sequence of tropical and high-latitude volcanic eruptions spanning the past 2,500 years, as known from modern ice-core records. The team focused on the Ptolemaic dynasty of ancient Egypt (305-30 B.C.E.) — a state formed in the aftermath of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, and famed for rulers such as Cleopatra — as well as material and cultural achievements including the great Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria.

Methane gas, a vast natural resource, is often disposed of through burning, but new research by scientists at MIT could make it easier to capture this gas for use as fuel or a chemical feedstock.

Around 245 BCE Ptolemy III, ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, made a decision that still puzzles many historians: After pursuing a successful military campaign against the kingdom’s nemesis, the Seleucid Empire, centred mainly in present-day Syria and Iraq, the king suddenly decided to return home. This about-face “changed everything about Near-East history,” says Joseph Manning, a historian at Yale University.

Carbon dioxide measured by a NASA satellite pinpoints sources of the gas from human and volcanic activities, which may help monitor greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.

Late last month, a stratovolcano in Bali named Mount Agung began to smoke. Little earthquakes trembled beneath the mountain. Officials have since evacuated thousands of people to prevent what happened when Agung erupted in 1963, killing more than 1,000 people.