Gag order issued to government official halting free and open discussion linking global warming to threatening the polar bear.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is today travelling to the European Council in Brussels. Climate protection, energy policy and the Lisbon Strategy are on the agenda of the spring meeting, which traditionally deals with economic issues.

Jay Apt, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business and co-author of a forthcoming paper outlining incentives for controlling carbon emissions, warns of the consequences of delay in enacting effective electric sector policy.

Researchers from University of Bergen have found that trees, which are a main resource for desert people and their flocks, are in significant decline in the hyper-arid Eastern Desert of Egypt.

For the first time, scientists have used a spaceborne instrument to track the origin and movements of water vapor throughout Earth's atmosphere, providing a new perspective on the dominant role Earth's water cycle plays in weather and climate.

Pinpointing pollutant sources is an important part of the ongoing battle to improve air quality and to understand its impact on climate. Scientists using NASA data recently tracked the path and distribution of aerosols -- tiny particles suspended in the air -- to link their region of origin and source type with their tendencies to warm or cool the atmosphere.

When a small pebble drops into a serene pool of water, it causes a ripple in the water in every direction, even disturbing distant still waters. NASA researchers have found a similar process at work in the atmosphere: tiny particles in the air called aerosols can cause a rippling effect on the climate thousands of miles away from their source region.

Elevated particle emissions resulting from increased economic activity in Asia may have increased Australia's tropical rainfall, according to new research on the way pollution influences our climate.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are studying the environmental impact that unique patterns of deforestation in Rondonia, Brazil, have on the land and climate.