Climate Number: 5.7 x 1017 joules
Changes in climate are fundamentally about changes in the amount of energy in the air and water circulating around us. While most discussions of climate trends focus on the air temperature taken at the...
View ArticleClimate Fact: Mountains Drive Ocean Circulation Patterns
In Brief: Earth’s ocean circulation patterns and climate would be much different without the presence of the Rocky and Andes Mountains, and without the Antarctic Ice Sheet. A system of big warm and...
View ArticleClimate Number: 195 Kelvin (-108.67 degrees Fahrenheit)
Commercial airline flights spend most the time in the lower reaches of the stratosphere, which is the second layer of the atmosphere beginning at five to six miles up in the air. The air in the...
View ArticleClimate Trivia: Wetter or Drier?
As the Earth warms, a few things happen to the water cycle. Warmer temperatures mean more evaporation from the soil, which can cause land surfaces to dry. They also mean, however, that the air holds...
View ArticleAO, ENSO and Your Winter Weather
Two large scale circulation patterns, the Arctic Oscillation and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, have proven useful for predicting winter weather in different areas of the United States. AO: The...
View ArticleClimate Fact: NPGO Controls Central California Current Upwelling
In Brief: Variability in North Pacific atmospheric circulation systems affects the timing and strength of the upwelling that occurs along the California Coast, impacting the productivity of the waters...
View ArticleClimate Fact: East African Rains and the Tropical Pacific
In Brief: The recent weakness in the East African long rains has been linked to persistently elevated temperatures in the western tropical Pacific. Rains in East Africa primarily fall during the long...
View ArticleClimate Number: 1.3 Petawatts
Discussions of climate and climate variability often focus on temperature trends at the Earth’s surface, which is where humans spend most of their time. But the atmosphere holds onto little energy...
View ArticleClimate Trivia: Seasonal Rains
As continental interiors move between hot conditions in the summer and cold conditions in the winter, ocean temperatures stay relatively steady. Seasonal contrasts between land and ocean temperatures...
View ArticleClimate Trivia: Earth’s Energy Budget
The sun’s energy makes winds blow, ocean waters evaporate and fall as rain, plants grow and tornadoes and hurricanes whirl about. The sun drives all weather and all life on Earth despite being 93...
View ArticleClimate Fact: Changes in Arctic Sea Ice are Affecting U.S. Weather
In Brief: A warmer Arctic means slower-moving storm systems across the mid-latitudes. Spring is the time of year when the Arctic comes out of its long, dark winter and the sea ice that covers most of...
View ArticleClimate Fact: Frontal System Precipitation
In Brief: Precipitation resulting from atmospheric fronts is an important component of global rainfall, accounting for around 57 percent of total midlatitude (30 to 60 degrees latitude) precipitation....
View ArticleClimate Number: One Foot per Second
Wind speed affects surface evaporation, air quality, soil erosion, wind power generation, etc. Trends in global wind speed due to related large-scale global processes have direct implications for...
View ArticleClimate Trivia: Central American Seaway and the Global Climate
If Earth had a newspaper to chronicle its 4.5 billion year existence, one of the biggest headlines of the last 10 million years would be the joining of North and South America through the closure of...
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Climate Fact: Heat Waves and Extreme High Daily Low Temperatures
In Brief: A trend of warmer nighttime low temperatures has been documented globally. Over North America there are 50 percent more unusually warm nights than there were 50 years ago. Heat waves are...
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Climate Fact: United States 2012 Drought
In Brief: Drought is a cycle largely driven by changes in long term averages of sea surface temperatures in remote locations around the world. Dust can amplify this cycle. As of August 14, 2012, 61.77...
View ArticleClimate Fact: Tropical Cyclones and the Global Climate System
In Brief: By cooling ocean surface waters and injecting heat downward, tropical cyclones moderate the seasonal temperature cycle in the oceans, with possible implications for the climate system. Since...
View ArticleClimate Number: 19 Named Storms
The official 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season is now over. Compared to the 30-year average of 12 named storms per year, 2012 was above-normal with 19 named storms, but not an exceptional year. Ten of...
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Earth Science Week 2013: Mapping Our World
October 13-19, 2013 is Earth Science Week. This year’s theme is Mapping Our World – an exploration of how geoscientists, geographers and other professionals use maps to represent and study weather and...
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Climate Fact: Atmospheric Rivers and Precipitation in the West Coast
Did you know that rivers exist in the air? Atmospheric rivers—the Amazons of the air—are vast and unbroken streams of wind that carry water vapor from tropical oceans, moving thousands of miles through...
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