NASA scientists have developed a new climate model that indicates that the most violent severe storms and tornadoes may become more common as Earth’s climate warms. Previous climate model studies have shown that heavy rainstorms will be more common in a warmer climate, but few global models have attempted to simulate the strength of updrafts in these storms. The model developed at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies by researchers Tony Del Genio, Mao-Sung Yao, and Jeff Jonas is the first to successfully simulate the observed difference in strength between land and ocean storms and is the first to estimate how the strength will change in a warming climate, including “severe thunderstorms” that also occur with significant wind shear and produce damaging winds at the ground. This information can be derived from the temperatures and humidities predicted by a climate computer model, according to the new study published on August 17 in the American Geophysical Union’s Geophysical Research Letters. It predicts that in a warmer climate, stronger and more severe storms can be expected, but with fewer storms overall.

Scientists have verified the accuracy of a model that uses October snow cover in Siberia to predict upcoming winter temperatures and snowfall for the high- and mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

Climate change, a recent “hot topic” when studying the atmosphere, oceans, and Earth’s surface; however, the study of another important factor to this global phenomenon is still very much “underground.” Few scientists are looking deep enough to see the possible effects of climate change on groundwater systems. Little is known about how soil, subsurface waters, and groundwater are responding to climate change.

University of Colorado at Boulder researchers are now forecasting a 92 percent chance that the 2007 September minimum extent of sea ice across the Arctic region will set an all-time record low. The researchers, who forecast in April a 33 percent chance the September minimum of sea ice would set a new record, dramatically revised their prediction following a rapid disintegration of sea ice during July, said Research Associate Sheldon Drobot of CU-Boulder's Colorado Center for Astrodynamics.

During its almost 30-year lifespan, the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) program provided unique and valuable information that shaped public policy and international perspectives on the environment. The instrument was important because its data established the geographical extent of the "ozone hole" over the Antarctic, and monitored its year-to-year evolution.

Australian scientists have identified the missing deep ocean pathway – or ‘supergyre’ – linking the three Southern Hemisphere ocean basins in research that will help them explain more accurately how the ocean governs global climate.

Educators will have the opportunity to bring a hurricane expert into their classroom with the release of a new NASA Web page and video. The Web page and video were created from a 1.5 hour live, interactive lecture with a NASA hurricane expert and teachers that occurred in 2006, using Internet-2 technology.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center today released its update to the 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook, maintaining its expectations for an above-normal season. As we enter the peak months (August through October) of the Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA scientists are predicting an 85 percent chance of an above-normal season, with the likelihood of 13 to 16 named storms, with seven to nine becoming hurricanes, of which three to five could become major hurricanes (Category 3 strength or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale).

Life is increasingly uncertain for trees in California's Sierra Nevada. A new study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reports a rising death rate for trees in this mountain range, paralleling increasing summer drought due to warming temperatures.

On July 3, a NASA aircraft equipped with a state-of-the-art sensor provided emergency response officials with critical soil moisture data for several regions across Texas that were threatened by flooding. NASA responded to the heavy rains and flooding in Texas by redirecting a NASA research aircraft, the P-3B, to Texas after it completed an interagency project in Oklahoma.

Is biodiversity important for predicting human impacts on ecosystems? If diverse ecosystems were as a consequence more stable, the answer would be yes. However, stability is not one, simple property of an ecosystem and there is no one, simple relationship between diversity and stability, say ecologists Tony Ives and Steve Carpenter of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

To accurately assess the effects of human-induced climate change, scientists must be able to quantify the contribution of natural variation in solar irradiance to temperature changes. The existence of a long-term trend in solar output is controversial, but its periodic change within an 11-year cycle has been measured by satellites.

A recent statistical analysis strengthens evidence that human activities are causing world temperatures to rise. Most climate change scientists model Earth systems from the ground up, attempting to account for all climate driving forces. Unfortunately, small changes in the models can lead to a broad range of outcomes, inviting debate over the actual causes of climate change.

Past Earth Science and Climate Change News

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