In trying to keep up with current climate science, I often run across articles that I think are interesting or challenging. Here are a few of the articles that have caught my eye in recent weeks.

Cosmos magazine describes an counterintuitive impact of a warming climate at the end of the last Ice Age–a temporary cooling due to changes in meltwater from ice sheets. https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/1200-year-mini-ice-age-was-caused-by-global-warming

Nature Communications describes how a longer growing season can actually lead to an increase in the number of frost days that occur within the growing season (as opposed to the total number per year, which decreases). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02690-y#disqus_thread

Climatic Change offers an article about climate vulnerability and adaptive management of cattle operations in the tropics. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-017-2110-1

NOAA’s Climate Program Office takes a look at the increased skill of rainfall predictions as much as three weeks ahead. https://cpo.noaa.gov/News/News-Article/ArtMID/6226/ArticleID/1591/Global-rainfall-pattern-could-offer-prediction-skill-three-weeks-out

Outside magazine looks at how dust as well as increasing temperatures is affecting the melting of the snowpack in the Western US. link

EarthSky reported on a new scientific study from the Journal of Geology that indicates a large portion of the earth experience wildfires around 12,000 years ago due to a collision with a disintegrating comet. https://earthsky.org/earth/humans-fire-covered-earth-comet-impact-ice-age

From white to green: plant life is booming in Antarctica as the climate warms. (Photo: Matt Amesbury, University of Exeter/Flickr)