By Penny Paugh Trees grow on every continent except Antarctica, and the rings they contain embody a record of climate change going back thousands of years. Each ring represents a single year’s growth, so not only can a ring count tell us how old a tree is, but they can also help reconstruct climatic history […]
Forecasting Floods
The Economic Impact of Extreme Weather in the US
May 4, 2012
A team of social scientists and economists from Colorado and California recently completed a study on the United States economy’s sensitivity to weather variability: extreme heat, extreme cold, droughts, and floods. This study marked the first time that US economic susceptibility to extreme weather had been explicitly quantified. Seventy years of atmospheric data were used […]
Rwandan Drought; Ongoing Climate Concerns
April 25, 2012
by Aura Lawson La Niña has persisted longer than expected this year, and with it comes agricultural uncertainty for many countries across the globe. Rwanda is no exception. Anthony Twahirwa, head of Rwanda’s Meteorological Center, explains that their forecasting agency expected decreased rainfall as a result of La Niña, or abnormally cool waters in the […]
Part 6: Water – Earth’s Most Precious Resource
April 12, 2012
Luisa Cristini, PhD, University of Hawaii at Manoa [Note from the editor: This is the sixth in a series of blog entries that will focus on introductory topics in climate dynamics and modeling, and will be a great insight into the current understanding of the science.] One of Earth’s unique and finite resources is water. […]
New Englanders Adapt to Winter Climate Change
March 1, 2012
Many politicians in the nation’s capital are still in denial that human activity is contributing significantly to global climate change. Meanwhile, climate will continue to change regardless of the current state of the debate, and New Englanders are finding ways of adapting to later autumns, earlier springs, and milder winters. Dr. Alan Betts, one of […]
NOAA’s Hurricane Research
April 23, 2010
Kevin Tsai Can you imagine flying into a cyclone with maximum sustained surface winds of 74 mph (119 km/hr) or faster? Since 1955, researchers from the National Hurricane Research Project have done just that. Their goal has been to collect temperature, humidity, pressure, and radar data to improve our understanding of hurricanes. Their methods, although […]