climate science42
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El Niño Conditions Imminent
According to Tony Barnston at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, El Niño conditions are now evolving in the tropical Pacific. El Niño is the name given to sustained sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies greater than 0.5°C across the central tropical Pacific Ocean; it is the warm phase of the El Niño Southern…
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Deutsche Bank Launches Carbon Counter
Deutsche Bank launched the first real-time carbon counter Thursday morning, taking advantage of the unusually rainy weather to underscore the importance of communicating climate change awareness. Located across 33rd street from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden, the Carbon Counter displays the running total of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Deutsche Bank Asset Management…
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East African Drought Linked to Climate Change?
When African finance and environmental ministers met last month to discuss climate-related challenges to the Millennium Development Goals, East African rains were on the agenda. Millions of Kenyans currently face food shortages as a result of successive failed rains, and periodic droughts cost the region 5-8% of GDP. A look at the climatology reveals that…
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Health people, meet climate people!
Since Monday, 12 public-health professionals and climate scientists from ten countries have been at Columbia University’s Lamont campus to learn how to use climate information to make better decisions in health-care planning and disease prevention. They’re taking part in the second Summer Institute on Climate Information for Public Health, organized by the International Research Institute…
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Launch of new climate science book to take place at Columbia tomorrow
Be sure to check out the launch of Climate Change: Picturing the Science, to be hosted by the Columbia Climate Center tomorrow. The book, which the Earth Institute’s Kevin Krajick blogged about recently, features essays addressing the different aspects of climate change alongside stunning climate-related photographs. Here are the event details: Columbia Climate Center: Book…
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Operational Coconut Yield Predictions
The Coconut Research Institute of Sri Lanka (CRI) has sustained an improved prediction scheme for national coconut production for the last four years. Coconuts are an important source of food and raw materials and also provide income to millions in the tropics. Coconuts are the most important food crop after rice in Sri Lanka and …
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Who cares about the Southern Ocean?
Scientists are often asked to explain why their work is important. I have been asked this question several times since the publication of a paper entitled “Wind driven upwelling in the Southern Ocean and the deglacial rise in atmospheric CO2” (Science, 13 March, 2009). I’m going to try to answer it here. In the paper…
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Snowstorms in a Warming World
On March 2 snowstorms hit the eastern seaboard, coinciding with a widely publicized protest against the coal industry in Washington DC . This garnered some attention, with Time noting the irony of people chanting about global warming while shivering in the cold and snow. One might wonder if a March snowstorm is inconsistent with a…
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Deep Thoughts on Deep Convection
Deep convection refers to the thermally driven turbulent mixing that moves air parcels from the lower to the upper atmosphere. In the tropics, this generally involves the vertical ascent of warm moist air and, ultimately, precipitation. But while some aspects of deep convection are well understood, others remain a mystery. Dr. Larissa Back, a NOAA…