By Penny Paugh In August 2010, NASA launched the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) Earth science field experiment to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. NASA hopes forecasters will assimilate GRIP data into their prediction models to improve forecasts and provide earlier warning for communities in a burgeoning hurricane’s […]
Paleo Proxy Data: What Is It?
September 29, 2010
By Martina M. Dewey A paleoclimatologist’s work is science focused on the climate of past ages. Proxy data is data that paleoclimatologists gather from natural recorders of climate variability, e.g., tree rings, ice cores, fossil pollen, ocean sediments, coral and historical data. By analyzing records taken from these and other proxy sources, scientists can extend […]
Clamshells May Measure Paleoclimate
September 23, 2010
Clamshells may provide the most fascinating detailed record July 2010 By Virginie Noel Paleo data come from natural sources, such as tree rings, ice cores, corals, as well as, ocean and lake sediments. These data extend the archive of weather and climate back hundreds to millions of years. Most measures of palaeoclimate provide data on […]
Video Review: HOME
September 23, 2010
By Virginie Noel Most of us are not aware in a global way how quickly mankind is depleting our non-renewable energy resources and consuming creatures in the oceans faster than they can reproduce. We have little awareness of how our food is grown. Yet, all of these affect our daily quality of life. HOME, a […]
Water Vapor, CO2, and Global Warming
September 23, 2010
By Anita Dotson MYTH: Water vapor is the most important, abundant greenhouse gas. So if we’re going to control a greenhouse gas, why don’t we control it instead of carbon dioxide (CO2)? This is a common misconception in the debate over greenhouse gases and the causes of global warming. Both water vapor and carbon dioxide […]
Climate Change and Invasive Plants
September 23, 2010
The new battle on climate change is being waged in our nation’s forests. Nonnative, invasive species are changing the face of natural ecosystems across the country by reducing biodiversity or wiping out large areas of natural vegetation completely. Climate change is helping to fuel this transformation. Warmer temperatures and variations in precipitation are allowing the […]
Video Review: Climate Voices
September 23, 2010
“Save us and you will save yourselves,” is the plea from the Environment Minister for the Maldives. Though it may be one of the first countries to be completely inundated due to global warming, the Maldives will certainly not be the last. It is only a matter of time before it is our turn. One […]
What is “good science”? IEDRO volunteers discuss.
September 19, 2010
By Carmen Lee and Gary Reidister Carmen Lee, a PhD in library and information studies from the University of London: I find the question “What is good science?” to be very interesting, but not because it sounds like an intelligent question inquisitive minds would ask. It is interesting to me because it is exactly the […]
Digitized Climate Data Invaluable to Pacific Islands
September 14, 2010
By Carmen Lee Collection and digitization of historical climate data is critical to the work of an inter-governmental organization protecting and managing the environment and natural resources in the Pacific Islands region (the Pacific Island Global Climate Observing System, PI-GCOS). “One of the critical components of the seasonal climate prediction model is a rainfall climate […]
Do Scientists Agree on Global Warming?
September 13, 2010
Of all the myths about global warming this one is perhaps the most dangerous. In point of fact, the most respected world scientific bodies have stated quite clearly that global warming is happening and that it is caused by people burning fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas, and cutting down forests. In a recent […]