The forest biome of Amazonia is one of Earth's greatest biological treasures and a major component of the Earth system. This century, it faces the dual threats of deforestation and stress from climate change. In this article, the authors summarize some of the latest findings and thinking on these threats, explore the consequences for the forest ecosystem and its human residents, and outline options for the future of Amazonia.

In 1971, meteorologists Roland Madden and Paul Julian studied weather data from near equatorial Pacific islands. To their surprise, tropospheric winds, pressure and rainfall oscillated with a period of about 40 to 50 days.

Global warming has been a debatable subject of recent years, of which Dehra Dun is not an exception. This year, 2007, has experienced the hottest 26th January in last 77 years.

The concept of an interannually varying Indian summer monsoon season is introduced here, considering that the duration of the primary driving of the Indian monsoon - the large-scale meridional gradient of the deep tropospheric heat source - may vary from one year to another. Onset (withdrawal) is defined as the day when the tropospheric heat source shifts from south to north (north to south).

Some teleconnections studies between the monsoon rainfall over four meteorological subdivisions namely, plains of west U.P., East U.P., Bihar Plains and Gangetic West Bengal, thus constituting an area of U.P., adjoining Bihar and West Bengal and different thickness anomaly and geopotential heights over several levels in the troposphere over India have been carried out to find some useful predictive parameters for the long range prediction of monsoon rainfall.

After a gap of about five years

Least polluting countries hit the hardest

Being an integral effect of sub-seasonal rain spells over the season, the seasonal mean south Asian monsoon (SAM) rainfall could be affected by change in the length of the rainy season (LRS). An objective definition of the duration of the SAM season has, however, been lacking.