• Orange snow carpets parts of eastern Europe

    Parts of eastern Europe, especially mountainous regions in Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Bulgaria and Romania, transformed into Mars-like landscape on March 23 – 25, 2018 as sand and dust from desert storms in northern Africa caused snow to turn orange. According to…

  • Severe dust storm hits Crete, Greece

    A cutoff low in the central Mediterranean pushed huge amounts of Saharan dust from Libya toward the eastern Mediterranean on March 22, 2018, heavily impacting the region, especially the island of Crete. A thick layer of Saharan sand reached Crete around 16:00 local…

  • Mini ozone hole appears over western Canada

    On February 7, 2018, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service or CAMS, has successfully predicted the appearance of an ozone mini-hole over western Canada on February 12 or 13. Sudden stratospheric warmings like the one currently in progress have been shown to…

  • Supercooled rainbow appears over Muonio, Finland

    A supercooled rainbow was observed and photographed above Muonio, Finland on December 4, 2017. Supercooled rainbows were also sighted in the Arctic last year. "I have never seen a rainbow during the winter and I didn't even know that it is possible for them…

  • Three decades of measurements show ozone’s ups and downs

    Climate scientists studying three decades of ozone measurements from seven satellites see a positive trend in global recovery after international efforts to curb ozone-depleting substances. The part of Earth’s atmosphere with high concentrations of ozone gas…

  • Ozone hole in 2017 the smallest since 1988

    Measurements from satellites this year showed the hole in Earth’s ozone layer that forms over Antarctica each September was the smallest observed since 1988, scientists from NASA and NOAA announced today. According to NASA, the ozone hole reached its peak…