climate

A/C Pro recharge kit: A DIY fix for aging car air conditioners

There's a lot of snake oil and questionable products lining the shelves of the average auto parts store. From octane booster to VTEC fluid (ha!), it's hard to separate the genuinely useful products from the chaff. So when A/C Pro sent me a few canisters of its do-it-yourself air conditioning recharge system, I was a bit skeptical.

The idea is that most aging car air conditioning systems that don't blow as cold as they should suffer only from low levels of refrigerant. The way A/C Pro works is that you plug a can into your … Read more

Create custom soundscapes with Atmosphere Lite

Soundscapes can be used for a wide variety of purposes: to relax, to block out annoying noises, to set the mood at parties, and much more. Atmosphere Lite is an easy-to-use program that lets you create custom soundscapes or simply choose from a wide variety of presets. We think this program is a great choice for anyone who enjoys nature sounds but often ends up stuck in front of a computer instead of outside.

Atmosphere Lite has a simple, intuitive interface. The preset soundscapes include deep forest, rainy day, ocean night, thunderstorm, night stream, forest stream, dawn chorus, rainforest, ocean'… Read more

Top weather apps for iOS

Whether you live in rainy Seattle or are expecting thunderstorms in Albany, N.Y., it's always a good idea to carry solid weather apps on your iPhone for quick forecasts.

The Weather Channel released version 5.0 of its app late last week with an upgraded interface and a few more features that will be useful to amateur meteorologists everywhere, but it doesn't have everything. One of the more useful parts of any local weather forecast is when you get to see the live Doppler radar for your location. The Weather Channel will show you a radar overlay, but you can't see it move. That's where the second app in this one-two punch comes in, NOAA Hi-Def Radar.

With this pair of apps, you might find that one or the other is the best weather app for you, but hopefully this comparison will help you find what best fits your needs.… Read more

The Weather Channel gets it right on iOS

The Weather Channel is a free weather-monitoring application that provides many more features than Apple's built-in Weather app. Released first in 2008, the app recently received a complete overhaul to the interface, adding features that make it even easier to check weather conditions wherever you are.

You can find paid weather applications that are more specialized, but The Weather Channel (sponsored by the cable channel of the same name) offers the features most people want in a weather app. You can view forecasts (hourly, 36-hour, and 10-day outlooks), quick access to Weather Channel local and regional video forecasts, severe … Read more

View from space shows Earth in a state of flux

The Earth's appearance has transformed over the course of millions of years. Obviously, for much of that time scientists weren't around to track the Earth's shifting face. But with the advent of the space age in the second half of the 20th century, it became possible to view the planet from afar and get a sweeping perspective. Indeed, an updated NASA gallery published in conjunction with Earth Day 2012 features more than 160 comparison views demonstrating in sharp relief the very real changes that have taken place during the Earth's recent history.

What thawed the last ice age?

Roughly 20,000 years ago the great ice sheets that buried much of Asia, Europe, and North America stopped their creeping advance. Within a few hundred years sea levels in some places had risen by as much as 10 meters -- more than if the ice sheet that still covers Greenland were to melt today. This freshwater flood filled the North Atlantic and also shut down the ocean currents that conveyed warmer water from equatorial regions northward. The equatorial heat warmed the precincts of Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere instead, shrinking the fringing sea ice and changing the circumpolar winds. … Read more

NASA video visualizes a 'Perpetual Ocean'

NASA has released a computer visualization project called "Perpetual Ocean" that presents a data-created time lapse of the Earth's ocean and sea surface currents over a two-year period.

The animation (see below) shows the globe slowly spinning as white swirls curl and move in the water around landmasses. It looks as if Vincent van Gogh had painted into the oceans -- from the Gulf of Mexico to the Indian Ocean to the Black Sea.

Using NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's computational model called Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean Phase II ( ECCO2), scientists simulated … Read more

Oceans are acidifying faster than ever

The burning of fossil fuels and the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere don't affect just the air--it also impacts the Earth's oceans, according to U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Oceans absorb the carbon dioxide, which in turn changes the water's pH acidity levels. What this means is that coral reefs are growing at a slower rate and the survival of marine species is decreasing, according to NOAA.

Now, the speed at which ocean pH level is changing is faster than any time in the last 300 million years, according to a new … Read more

Google launches underwater endeavor with Seaview

Imagine if Google Earth could take users under the ocean. People on laptops sitting hundreds of miles away from any body of water could dive down and spot colorful reef fish, coral forests, sea snakes, and rare turtles. A program just like this was officially announced today.

In a partnership with Google, the global insurance company Catlin Group Limited and nonprofit Underwater Earth launched the Catlin Seaview Survey. The goal is to let people explore the ocean from afar and also carry out the first detailed study about the composition and health of coral reefs. The mapping expedition is expected … Read more