Tag: atmospheric science

  • Science & Tech

    Boston’s leaky pipes add to greenhouse-gas buildup

    A Harvard-led study reveals that an aging natural-gas distribution system short-changes Boston-area customers and contributes to greenhouse-gas buildup. Depending on the season, natural gas leaking from the local distribution system accounts for 60 percent to 100 percent of the region’s emissions of methane.

  • Science & Tech

    National parks face dangerous foe

    Thirty-eight of the United States’ national parks are experiencing “accidental fertilization” at or above a critical threshold for ecological damage, according to a study led by Harvard University researchers and published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

  • Science & Tech

    Wildfires projected to worsen with climate change

    A Harvard model predicts that by 2050, wildfire seasons will be three weeks longer, up to twice as smoky, and will burn a wider area in the western United States.

  • Science & Tech

    Cautious geohacking

    By tailoring geoengineering efforts by region and by need, a new model promises to maximize the effectiveness of solar radiation management while mitigating its potential side effects and risks.

  • Science & Tech

    Airborne pollutants lead a double life

    Researchers at Harvard University and the University of British Columbia (UBC) have provided visual evidence that atmospheric particles — which are ubiquitous, especially above densely populated areas — separate into distinct chemical compositions during their life cycle.

  • Science & Tech

    Carbon counter

    Atmospheric scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Nanjing University have produced the first “bottom-up” estimates of China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, for 2005 to 2009, and the first statistically rigorous estimates of the uncertainties surrounding China’s CO2 emissions.