Latest Climate Stories
A new species adds to evidence that subarctic regions with vanishing waters contain unique aquatic animals Freshwater ecosystems in northern regions are home to significantly more species of water fleas than traditionally thought, adding to evidence that regions with vanishing waters contain unique animal life. The new information on water fleas -- which are actually tiny crustaceans -- comes from a multi-year, international study that was published Feb. 24 in the journal Zootaxa....
Melting Arctic sea ice will mean colder winters with more snow in the Northern Hemisphere, according to a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research provides further evidence of a relationship between melting ice in the Arctic regions and extensive cold outbreaks across northern continents. The study could also help improve seasonal forecasting of snow and temperature anomalies throughout Europe, North America and China, the...
Iraqi sources from 9th and 10th centuries give new meteorological insights Ancient manuscripts written by Arabic scholars can provide valuable meteorological information to help modern scientists reconstruct the climate of the past, a new study has revealed. The research, published in Weather, analyses the writings of scholars, historians and diarists in Iraq during the Islamic Golden Age between 816-1009 AD for evidence of abnormal weather patterns. Reconstructing climates from the...
PORTLAND, Ore. and VANCOUVER, Canada, Feb. 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI), the 700-member international consortium focused on reducing the energy consumption and carbon footprint of information and communications technologies (ICT), today announced that its president, Lorie Wigle, will participate in a panel discussion on March 15 at GLOBE 2012 in Vancouver, Canada. Named one of the top ten women in sustainability by Pink Magazine in 2010 and...
To better predict the future, Jack Williams is looking to the past. "Environmental change is altering the composition and function of ecological communities," says the Bryson Professor of Climate, People, and the Environment in the University of Wisconsin–Madison geography department. Williams also directs the Center for Climatic Research in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. On Monday, Feb. 20, Williams is speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association of the...
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and representatives from several other nations joined forces on Thursday to announce the formation of a new international coalition focused on reducing "short-lived" climate pollutant levels. According to John M. Broder of the New York Times, the nations are looking to curb emissions of soot (also known as black carbon), methane, and hydrofluorocarbons (which are used as refrigerants). Broder reports that these substances "contribute to...
For the first half of this year's winter, the big news was warm temperatures and lack of snow. Ski resorts were covered in bare dirt, while January temperatures in southern California topped July highs. Then, out of the blue, Europe got clobbered: Over the past two weeks, temperatures in Eastern Europe have nose-dived to -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit). Blizzards and the bone-chilling cold have resulted in the deaths of over 550 people so far, with rooftop-high snow drifts...
A new report published by an American non-profit research center says that extreme summer temperatures are becoming increasingly commonplace in the United States, a trend that they project will continue throughout the 21st century. Climatologist Phil Duffy led a group of researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California in analyzing the results of various climate models examining the occurrence of extreme high temperatures in the summer months of June, July and...
New study says political mobilization by elites and advocacy groups is driving factor in influencing concern about climate change Public concern about climate change has varied widely over the past few decades. For example, Gallup has been polling individuals about how much they personally worry about climate change. In 2004, 26 percent of the respondents stated that they worried “a great deal.” By 2007, this proportion had risen to 41 percent. But by 2010, this fraction dropped to 28...
Even if the current weather situation may seem to speak against it, the probability of cold winters with much snow in Central Europe rises when the Arctic is covered by less sea ice in summer. Scientists of the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association have decrypted a mechanism in which a shrinking summertime sea ice cover changes the air pressure zones in the Arctic atmosphere and impacts our European winter weather....
Latest Climate Reference Libraries
Climate change is a substantial and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods of time ranging from decades to millions of years. It might be a change in the average weather conditions, or in the distribution of weather around the average conditions. Climate change is a result of factors that include oceanic processes, biotic processes, variations in solar radiation received buy Earth, volcanic eruptions, and plate tectonics, and human induced alterations...
Four major events occurred yesterday, the first being the formation of Tropical Storm Ernesto, which is now located just east of the Windward Islands with winds near 45 knots. The second was the heat in the Southern Plains as many places saw temps over 100F with heat index values near 105-110 for the region. High temperatures are again one of the main story makers across the country. 100 degree temperatures continue to plague Texas and Oklahoma. Eleven out of the last 14 days in...
September 5: The southwest was encompassed in the monsoon rains yesterday bringing areas of flash flooding to portions of Arizona. Another smaller but large flooding event occurred along the Mississippi Gulf Coast where places in Jackson County received 7inches of rainfall in 2 1/2hours which lead to large flooding problems of already saturated grounds from Isaac-1. The heat persisted in Eastern Texas and into Louisiana and northward into Arkansas as some places felt temps hit the100’s with...
Honolulu is located in the Pacific Ocean and has a mostly marine time climate. Honolulu has a pretty consistent temperature average from month to month. This is a look at the La-Nina impacts on the local area. January 2010: For the month of January it is typical to see average high temps in the 80’s while overnight lows drop into the 70’s. During the El-Nino event January temps were 60% of the month at the normal, while 40% of the month was marked with above temps and 0% of the month...
Being a meteorologist for over thirteen years you start to take note of many things in the atmosphere and how they repeat themselves. Our Climate is no different. The definition of climate is stated as: the collective weather data in regards to moisture and temperature for over 30 years for the same location. So to better understand our climate we need to look at this. First, we have average temperatures for given places based on the 30 year average. Some years the temps are warmer or...
