Smaller volcanoes could cool climate

The recent heat wave baking much of the country has prompted many people to ask: Is this due to climate change?

More of the United States is in moderate drought or worse than at any other time in the 12-year history of the U.S. Drought Monitor, officials have said.

Scientists have discovered that aerosols from relatively small volcanic eruptions can be boosted into the high atmosphere by weather systems such as monsoons, where they can affect global temperatures. The massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 temporarily dropped temperatures by half a degree Celsius world-wide.

Researchers have long believed that the longer days and calmer seas of spring set off an annual bloom of plants in the North Atlantic, but scientists have now discovered that warm eddies fuel the growth three weeks before the sun does.