The NASA Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE), flying aboard multiple satellites, is providing new insights into the climate system. Monthly averaged clear-sky and cloudy sky flux data derived from the ERBE are used to assess the impact of clouds on the Earth's radiation balance. This impact is examined in terms of three quantities: longwave,
shortwave, and net cloud forcing. Overall, clouds appear to cool the Earth-atmosphere system.

Records of hemispheric average temperatures from land regions for the past 100 years provide crucial input to the debate over global warming.

Potassium bromate (KBrO3) is an oxidizing agent that has been used as a food additive, mainly in the bread-making process. Although adverse effects are not evident in animals fed bread-based diets made from flour treated with KBrO3, the agent is carcinogenic in rats and nephrotoxic in both man and experimental animals when given orally. It has been demonstrated that KBrO3 induces renal cell tumors, mesotheliomas of the peritoneum, and follicular cell tumors of the thyroid.

In India, as in other countries, problems associated with locally overabundant wildlife species have emerged as important management issues for reason of some species losing their natural habitat but adapting themselves to the manaltered habitats. Consequently, there is a clash with the interests of local people. Crop-raiding by locally overabundant wild populations of nilgai and blackbuck in Haryana is one such problem analyzed in this paper.

Leaf fall and reproductive phenology of Avicennia marina assessed during 1982-83 using litter fall collections from twenty-five sites in Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand revealed major trends with latitude. Flowering shifted from NovemberDecember in northern tropical sites, to May-June in southern temperate sites. Periods between flowering and fruiting increased from two to three months in tropical sites to ten months in southernmost sites. Leaf fall was more variable with unimodal annual peaks in temperate sites and often multimodal patterns in the tropics.

A proper inventory of atmospheric emissions from natural sources is basic to our understanding of the atmospheric cycle of the trace metals (and metalloids), and is also needed for assessing the extent of regional and global pollution by toxic metals1. It is generally presumed that the principal natural sources of trace metals in the atmosphere are wind-borne soil particles, volcanoes, seasalt spray and wild forest fires2–6.

The study of climate and climate change is hindered by a lack of information on the effect of clouds on the radiation balance of the earth, referred to as the cloud-radiative forcing. Quantitative estimates of the global distributions of cloud-radiative forcing have been obtained from the spaceborne Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) launched in
1984.

The article offers information on the quantification of organochlorine pesticides residues in edible oils and oil seeds used in India. It states that different organochlorine pesticides were found in the edible oils and oil seeds which include metabolites, aldrin, and endusulfan. It says that sesame oils were found to have low saponification value (SV) but higher free fatty acid (FFA).

The groundwater circulation is limited in Sri Lanka because nine tenth area of the island is underlain by metamorphic hard rocks which are generally very impermeable. Therefore to satisfy the water demand some other possibilities of water resources should be explored before starting a groundwater investigation programme for a given area.

Pest and pest management by vegetable growers were evaluated by interviewing and close monitoring of randomly selected 204 farmers over a period of one and half years.  Two villages selected namely Kolabissa and Marassana located about 45 km from Peradeniya, practiced intensive mixed cropping of vegetables,  Study showd that 95.6% of the farmers were literate.  Many of the farmer