By Penny Paugh There are many factors that affect the global temperature of the planet, including the rise and fall of greenhouse gases, solar activity, light-scattering atmospheric pollutants, heat transfer among the land, sea, and air, and the presence or absence of forests to process carbon dioxide. Researchers at the University of Oxford tweaked three […]
Data Rescue
Could Climate Change Have Contributed to the Fall of Rome?
March 26, 2012
By Penny Paugh One form of environmental data, tree rings, has provided evidence of a climate shift that, perhaps not coincidentally, occurred from 250 to 550 A.D., a period that coincides with the fall of the Roman Empire. From ancient wood found in medieval castles and Roman ruins, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, […]
African Drought and Data Rescue
March 23, 2012
Drought in Africa has been a destructive force to life and property since the beginning of recorded time. Most recently, East Africa suffered a severe drought in 2010 that persisted nearly the entire year. However, one good thing that came out of this catastrophic drought was that it revealed several important hints for predicting future […]
Ways You Can Help Climate Change Research through Social Networking
January 1, 2012
In these days of budget cuts and economic hardship, it is imperative that we recognize that if we do not understand climate change, we will never have prosperous days. We would very much appreciate your help by: Following the International Environmental Data Rescue Organization (IEDRO) on our social media pages (we have loads, so one […]
The Cost of Natural Disasters
December 24, 2011
By Gavin Roy The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released their annual December report on the past year’s natural disasters in the United States. The sum of the damage in 2011 cost American taxpayers $52 billion. Disasters listed ranged from the Groundhog’s Day blizzard in the Northeast ($1.8 billion; 38 deaths) to Hurricane Irene […]
South American Data Rated as Second Highest Priority Climate Data
December 18, 2011
by Gavin Roy A group led by PAGES (Past Global Changes) has ranked human weather observations in South America as the second-highest priority climate data that must be collected, collated, and integrated to understand South America’s climate. Their highest-ranked priority is tree-ring records, with ice-core samples, glacial variations, and marine sediment records coming after. Meteorological […]
Climate Change Research: The Study of Ice Cores
November 20, 2011
Ice cores, drilled from the polar ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland most commonly, but also from places as diverse as Africa, Bolivia, China, Peru, Russia and even the United States are the most accurate means to proving a window into the paleoclimate record in Earth’s history, including past climatic and environmental conditions. Drilling miles […]
Reanalyses Wiki/Blog Announced
May 28, 2011
The Reanalysis Intercomparison and Observations website announces the launch of its wiki/blog hybrid, http://reanalyses.org. From the hurricane that smashed into New York in 1938 to the impact of the Krakatoa eruption of 1883, the late 19th and 20th centuries are rich with examples of extreme weather. Now an international team of climatologists have created a […]