“By correcting initial cloud fields with real-time satellite data, we essentially gave the forecast system a ‘live cloud map’. This is not only a technical breakthrough but also provides a practical tool for grid scheduling and China’s dual-carbon strategy.”“By correcting initial cloud fields with real-time satellite data, we essentially gave the forecast system a ‘live cloud map’. This is not only a technical breakthrough but also provides a practical tool for grid scheduling and China’s dual-carbon strategy.”

Penn geophysicists Hugo Ulloa and Douglas Jerolmack and colleagues have uncovered Earth-sculpting processes that result from the formation of snowball-like aggregates they call “sandballs” that take on two shapes: peanut-shaped structures with liquid cores and stable, donut-shapes—with airy centers—that behave like rigid solids. Their findings provide fundamental insights into erosion and will broaden scientific understandings of landscape change, soil loss, and agriculture.

Researchers typically analyze images taken by geostationary satellites to identify regions of the sky where contrails form, but new research shows adding images taken by low-Earth-orbiting satellites would help identify many more such regions. Pilots could avoid these regions to reduce aviation’s climate impact. 

Satellite and reanalysis data show aerosol changes in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres largely cancel out, shifting attention to cloud changes due to surface warming and natural climate variability.