Carbon spike

A three-year pause in the rise of worldwide carbon-dioxide emissions ended in 2017, mainly due to greater coal use in China brought on by that country’s booming economy. Man-made production of the greenhouse gas had been rising about 3 percent each year so far this century before leveling off between 2014 and 2016. But the Global Carbon Project, a group of 76 scientists in 15 countries, predicted carbon emissions would rise about 2 percent in 2017, reaching a new record high of about 37 billion metric tons. Climate scientists have warned that a peak in CO2 emissions must occur before 2020 to avoid catastrophic global warming. Warmer world

The official United Nations weather agency predicts that 2017 will be among the top three hottest years on average worldwide. It also is expected to be the warmest year on record that was not influenced by the El Niño ocean warming.

Cosmic crashes

New research finds that subatomic particles striking Earth from deep space sometimes wreak havoc on smartphones, computers and other electronic devices. Researcher Bharat Bhuva of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, says that when cosmic rays strike the Earth’s atmosphere, they create bursts of other subatomic particles that can interact with circuits, sometimes altering bits of stored data.

Penguin starvation

A sharp accumulation of ice around an Antarctic island caused all but two of 18,000 Adélie penguin chicks there to starve. The extensive sea ice had forced the adults to venture 60 miles farther than usual to find food for their young.