When the World Bank first teamed up with the European Space Agency to demonstrate how Earth observation can work for international development, a small climate change adaptation project on the coast of North Africa produced the first big results.

Gazing down from space, satellites have the best view of ice floes drifting, waves swelling restlessly, currents moving dangerously, the spread of oil slicks and the changing positions of ships. For this reason, researchers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) analyse radar images or use satellites to receive ship signals. Now, DLR is pooling the research work conducted at its Remote Sensing Technology Institute and the Institute for Space Systems within the Research Centre for Maritime Safety in Bremen.

After initial flooding that killed more than 50 people in the first week of August, Sudan's weather authorities have announced that heavy rain falling in Ethiopia is likely to cause additional flooding in Sudan. So far the floods affected 200,000 Sudanese, according to the Minister of Interior, and have prompted aid from Qatar, Egypt and Ethiopia.

A Gulfstream-1 plane at Pasco's Tri-Cities Airport may help researchers better understand the mystery of how particles from wildfires change the atmosphere.

Atmospheric physicist Nick Gorkavyi missed witnessing an event of the century last winter when a meteor exploded over his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia. From Greenbelt, Md., however, NASA's Gorkavyi and colleagues witnessed a never-before-seen view of the atmospheric aftermath of the explosion.

The East African Rift is an area where two tectonic plates are moving apart, making it a region of high geological activity, home to a number of volcanoes.

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rise and fall annually as plants take up the gas in spring and summer and release it in fall and winter through photosynthesis and respiration. Now the range of that cycle is growing as more CO2 is emitted from the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities, according to a study published in Science by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, with CIRES and NOAA co-authors.

An experiment to study the effects of lightning flashes on Earth's atmosphere hitched a ride to the International Space Station on 3 August 2013. The Firestation experiment launched aboard a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's transfer vehicle called Kounotori-4. Firestation will be installed robotically to the outside of the space station, a process that will take about three weeks.

As a result of climate change, certain undesirable aquatic plants are starting to invade German water bodies. Even popular recreation areas like Lake Starnberg have been affected, leading to a growing need to monitor the spread of these plants. Up to now, regular monitoring has proven to be a costly process. But in a new approach, researchers at Technische Universitat Munchen (TUM) have developed a quicker and less expensive method.

Clouds play a crucial role in regulating the Earth's weather and climate. They adjust the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth's surface and affect the surface temperature and moisture. The processes involved in cloud formation also influence large-scale atmospheric circulation and can lead to rapid storm intensification. To accurately forecast the evolving state of the atmosphere, it is important that meteorologists are able to realistically simulate cloud information in weather prediction models.

In early May 2013, sensors atop a research facility perched on Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa recorded a sobering statistic. The average daily level of carbon dioxide in the air had reached a concentration above 400 parts per million-a level that hasn't been seen since around 3 to 5 million years ago, well before humans roamed the Earth.