Climate science
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NASA released a short article this week about an online app that you can use to simulate the development of a hurricane. If you have kids or work with 4-H students, you might find this fun and interesting. You can find the app at https://scijinks.jpl.nasa.gov/hurricane-simulation/.
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The State Climate Office of North Carolina has produced a short article describing the “dog days” of summer. According to the blog, “it turns out the dog days are more than just a linguistic turn of phrase. They are a distinct time of year ranging from July 3rd to August 11th (40 days) and correspond…
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The US Environmental Protection Agency released a new report recently which describes the impacts of global warming on agriculture, drought, ecosystems and water supplies, among other sectors. The report describes the effects of “business as usual” climate scenarios compared to a mitigation-based approach where greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. There are a number of sections…
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Earlier this month, the blog Carbon Brief published the results of a study asking climatologists which research paper was the most influential in the study of climate. The winner of the study was a 1967 paper by Syukuro Manabe and Richard. T. Wetherald, published in the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences entitled ” Thermal Equilibrium of the atmosphere…
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The New York Times noted in a story earlier this week that sometime later this summer, a United jet will fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco using biofuel from farm waste and oils derived from animal fats. This is a first step by the airlines to convert more of their fleet to lower-carbon alternatives than…
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In the summer it is not unusual to see organized systems of thunderstorms move into the Southeast from the southern Plains. They often form at night and continue moving to the east or southeast during the next day. One came into the Southeast yesterday, and another is approaching our area today. But what are they?…
Posted in: Climate science -
How do we know about past climates and prehistoric civilizations? Since we don’t have instrumental records or written histories, we have to use clues from the environment to help us decipher what the past was really like. “Proxy data” are used to try to find a link between something that we can observe, like tree…