Climate change is already causing all sorts of problems on Earth, but soon it will be making a mess in orbit around the planet too, a new study finds. MIT researchers calculated that as global warming caused by burning of coal, oil, gas continues it may reduce the available space for satellites in low Earth orbit by anywhere from one-third to 82% by the end of the century, depending on how much carbon pollution is spewed. That's because space will become more littered with debris as climate change lessens nature's way of cleaning it up. Part of the greenhouse effect that warms the air near Earth's surface also cools the upper parts of the atmosphere where space starts and satellites zip around in low orbit, That cooling also makes the upper atmosphere less dense, which reduces the drag on the millions of pieces of human-made debris and satellites. That drag pulls space junk down to Earth, burning up on the way. But a cooler and less dense upper atmosphere means less space cleaning .