Synoptic weather observations from ships throughout the World Ocean have been analyzed to produce a climatology of total cloud cover and the amounts of nine cloud types. About 54 million observations contributed to the climatology, which now covers 55 years from 1954 to 2008. In this work, interannual variations of seasonal cloud amounts are analyzed in 10° grid boxes. Long-term variations O(5–10 yr), coherent across multiple latitude bands, remain present in the updated cloud data. A comparison to coincident data on islands indicates that the coherent variations are probably spurious.

Both climate warming and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition are predicted to affect soil N cycling in terrestrial biomes over the next century. However, the interactive effects of warming and N deposition on soil N mineralization in temperate grasslands are poorly understood. A field manipulation experiment was conducted to examine the effects of warming and N addition on soil N cycling in a temperate grassland of northeastern China from 2007 to 2009.

A recent surge in the intensity of tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea has brought unprecedented damage and loss of life. Anthropogenic air pollution might be increasing the destructiveness of these storms.