Tag Archives: hippo

Study Finds Surprising Arctic Methane Emission Source

By Guest PostApril 22, 2012Environmentarctic methane, arctic ocean, arctic region, Arctic sea ice, arctic tundra soil, beaufort seas, carbon monoxide, chukchi, climate, concentration, earth system, eric kort, geologic reservoir, global warming, greenhouse gas, harvard university, hippo, jet propulsion laboratory, marine sediment, methane, NASA, ozone, reservoir, water vapor

The fragile and rapidly changing Arctic region is home to large reservoirs of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As Earth’s climate warms, the methane, frozen in reservoirs stored in Arctic tundra soils or marine sediments, is vulnerable to being released into the atmosphere, where it can add to global warming. Now a multi-institutional study by Eric Kort of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has uncovered a surprising and potentially important new source of Arctic methane: the ocean itself. (more…)

First Global Picture of Greenhouse Gases Emerges from Pole-to-Pole Research Flights

By Guest PostSeptember 10, 2011Environmentandy watt, anne-marie schmoltner, Antarctic, Arctic, black carbon particles, britton stephens, carbon dioxide, climate, concentrations of greenhouse gases, earth, global distribution of gases, gulfstream v aircraft, harvard university, hiaper, hiaper pole to pole observations, high performance instrumented airborne platform for environmental research, hippo, Houston, industrial age, los angeles, national science foundation, natural carbon dioxide uptake and storage, new zealand, nsf, pacific, particles in the atmosphere, portrait of greenhouse gases, ryan spackman, steven wofsy

*Three-year series of scientific missions from Arctic to Antarctic produces new views of atmospheric chemistry*

A three-year series of research flights from the Arctic to the Antarctic has successfully produced an unprecedented portrait of greenhouse gases and particles in the atmosphere.

The far-reaching field project, known as HIPPO, ends this week, and has enabled researchers to generate the first detailed mapping of the global distribution of gases and particles that affect Earth’s climate. (more…)