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Many of our Government representatives are actively working to address Climate Change. 

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Many of our Government representatives are actively working to address Climate Change. 

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Keep it in the Ground: Combatting Climate Change by Keeping Fossil Fuels in the Ground

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Oregon's Senator Jeff Merkley explains the importance of combating climate change and how we can reduce carbon pollution by keeping fossil fuels in the ground.

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Weather & Climate iQuest | Precipitation Education

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This IQuest has been developed to help you explore the wild and changing world of weather and climate.

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The Thermohaline Circulation - The Great Ocean Conveyor Belt | Precipitation Education

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The oceans are mostly composed of warm salty water near the surface over cold, less salty water in the ocean depths.

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What causes climate change (also known as global warming)? And what are the effects of climate change? Learn the human impact and consequences of climate change for the environment, and our lives.

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Whiffs of ancient air are shaking up the history of oxygen - and of life on Earth.

Those tiny puffs of oxygen have been trapped for some 815 million years in rock salt. After carefully crushing the salt, researchers measured the chemical makeup of the air that had been trapped inside it. Oxygen made up 10.9 percent of the air back then, these data showed. This early boost in air's oxygen occurred around 150 million years before animals showed up in the fossil record. Scientists had thought that oxygen levels would not be that high for another 100 million to 200 million years.

"I think our results will take people by surprise," says Nigel Blamey. He's a geochemist at Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada. "We came out of left field, and I think some people are going to embrace it." Others, he expects, "are going to be very skeptical." Still, he adds, his team can only go by what their data show.

The researchers report their discovery in the August Geology.

Scientists had previously measured ancient oxygen in Earth's air. But they went about it in a different way. They had looked for the fingerprints of chemical reactions that need oxygen to occur. That work suggested oxygen levels rose sharply but only some 600 million years ago. The scientists reported that about two years ago,

First direct measurements

Those earlier tests did not measure oxygen directly. And that could have led to uncertainties in the numbers. Blamey's team instead went to the source - actual air from 815 million years ago.

Back then, in what is now southwest Australia, rock salt formed on the surfaces of evaporating ponds. As the salt grew, microscopic pockets formed. These trapped tiny bits of air. That air remains in the salt to this day.

For their new tests, the researchers crushed pieces of the salt in a vacuum chamber. Each piece, about the size of a match head, released five to 12 micro-puffs of air. Oxygen levels in that air were, on average, more than five times the concentration (2 percent) that earlier studies had predicted. To verify their technique, the researchers also measured oxygen trapped in younger rock salts. These included ones created in modern times. And the technique measured these oxygen levels correctly.

If the new findings are correct, they could add a twist to an ongoing debate. Some scientists had argued, last year, that the evolution of animals had been stalled by a long period when there was too little oxygen in the air.

But the new study has not fully convinced everyone. Outside air may have tainted the new results, says Noah Planavsky. He's a geochemist at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. Over hundreds of millions of years, gases may have passed through the salt. It this happened, they could have boosted oxygen levels in the air pockets.

Indeed, the oxygen levels just reported are so surprising that they would seem to make outside contamination likely, says Timothy Lyons. He is a geochemist at the University of California, Riverside. A level of 10.9 percent "is really high," he says. "There is nothing about the shifts you see in life or climate that demands an oxygen jump that high."

But Nicholas Butterfield has no trouble with the new data. He is a paleontologist at the University of Cambridge in England. Even with plenty of oxygen, he notes, animals still took a long time to evolve after the first emergence of complex life. "The delayed evolutionary appearance of animals," he has been arguing for a while now, "had nothing to do with [too little] oxygen."

Power Words
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evolution (v. to evolve) A process by which species undergo changes over time, usually through genetic variation and natural selection. These changes usually result in a new type of organism better suited for its environment than the earlier type. The newer type is not necessarily more "advanced," just better adapted to the conditions in which it developed. (outside biology) A term to describe the changes that naturally occur in some system over time in response to changing conditions.

fingerprint The unique pattern of raised lines and whorls that on each of an individual's fingers. Or something that might be used, much as a fingerprint it, to identify the presence or effect of some factor.

geochemistry A science that deals with the chemical composition of and chemical changes in the solid material of Earth or of another celestial body (such as the moon or Mars). Scientists who study geochemistry are known as geochemists.

inclusion (in geology) Something trapped inside a mineral.

oxygen A gas that makes up about 21 percent of the atmosphere. All animals and many microorganisms need oxygen to fuel their metabolism.

paleontology The branch of science concerned with ancient, fossilized animals and plants. The scientists who study them are known as paleontologists.

vacuum Space with little or no matter in it. Laboratories or manufacturing plants may use vacuum equipment to pump out air, creating an area known as a vacuum chamber.

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Oxygen-rich air emerged super early, new data show

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Scientists had thought animals were slow to emerge because they would have needed oxygen-rich air to breathe. A new study finds that plentiful oxygen may have developed early. So animals may have been late on the scene for another reason.

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Breaking up isn't always hard to do - at least for some chemicals, such as carbon dioxide. A blast of ultraviolet light may be all it takes, new tests show. The finding suggests scientists may have been wrong about how Earth's atmosphere got enough oxygen to sustain species (like us) that need this gas to breathe. Sunlight may have kick-started the buildup, not photosynthesis.

In a new experiment, researchers used a laser to decouple a molecule of carbon dioxide, or CO ₂. It yielded both carbon and oxygen gas, also known as O ₂.

Air hasn't always been rich in oxygen. Billions of years ago, other gases dominated. Carbon dioxide was one of them. At some point, algae and plants developed photosynthesis. This allowed them to make food from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. One byproduct of this process is oxygen gas. And that's why many scientists had argued photosynthesis must have been behind the buildup of oxygen in Earth's early atmosphere.

But the new study suggests that ultraviolet light from the sun could have cleaved oxygen from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And this could have converted CO ₂ to carbon and O ₂ long before photosynthetic organisms evolved. The same process also may have produced oxygen on Venus and other lifeless planets rich in carbon dioxide, the researchers say.

The researchers "have made a beautiful set of challenging measurements," says Simon North. A chemist at Texas A&M University in College Station, he did not work on the study. Scientists had suspected that the atoms in carbon dioxide could be decoupled to produce oxygen gas, he notes. But it has been difficult to prove that. That's why the new data are so exciting, he told Science News.

How the process may work

In a molecule of carbon dioxide, a carbon atom sits between two oxygen atoms. When carbon dioxide breaks apart, the carbon atom usually escapes still attached to one oxygen atom. That leaves the other oxygen atom alone. But scientists had suspected a high-energy blast of light might allow other outcomes.

For their new tests, researchers assembled several lasers. These fired ultraviolet light at carbon dioxide. One laser broke up the molecules. Another measured the leftover debris. And it showed lone carbon molecules drifting around. That observation suggested the laser must also have produced oxygen gas.

The researchers are not sure exactly what happened. But they have their ideas. A blast of laser light might link the molecule's outer oxygen atoms to one another. This would turn the carbon dioxide molecule into a tight ring. Now, if one oxygen atom lets go of the carbon atom next to it, the three atoms would align in a row. And the carbon would sit at one end. Eventually the two oxygen atoms might break free from their carbon neighbor. That would form a molecule of oxygen (O ₂).

Cheuk-Yiu Ng is a chemist at the University of California, Davis, who worked on the study. He told Science News that high-energy ultraviolet light may trigger other surprising reactions. And the newfound reaction could happen on other planets. It might even seed the atmosphere of distant, lifeless planets with trace amounts of oxygen.

"This experiment opens up many possibilities," he concludes.

Power Words

atmosphere The envelope of gases surrounding Earth or another planet.

atom The basic unit of a chemical element. Atoms are made up of a dense nucleus that contains positively charged protons and neutrally charged neutrons. The nucleus is orbited by a cloud of negatively charged electrons.

bond (in chemistry) A semi-permanent attachment between atoms - or groups of atoms - in a molecule. It's formed by an attractive force between the participating atoms. Once bonded, the atoms will work as a unit. To separate the component atoms, energy must be supplied to the molecule as heat or some other type of radiation.

carbon dioxide (or) A colorless, odorless gas produced by all animals when the oxygen they inhale reacts with the carbon-rich foods that they've eaten. Carbon dioxide also is released when organic matter (including fossil fuels like oil or gas) is burned. Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat in Earth's atmosphere. Plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen during photosynthesis, the process they use to make their own food.

chemistry The field of science that deals with the composition, structure and properties of substances and how they interact with one another. Chemists use this knowledge to study unfamiliar substances, to reproduce large quantities of useful substances or to design and create new and useful substances. (about compounds) The term is used to refer to the recipe of a compound, the way it's produced or some of its properties.

debris Scattered fragments, typically of trash or of something that has been destroyed. Space debris includes the wreckage of defunct satellites and spacecraft.

laser A device that generates an intense beam of coherent light of a single color. Lasers are used in drilling and cutting, alignment and guidance, in data storage and in surgery.

molecule An electrically neutral group of atoms that represents the smallest possible amount of a chemical compound. Molecules can be made of single types of atoms or of different types. For example, the oxygen in the air is made of two oxygen atoms (O ₂), but water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (H ₂ O).

oxygen A gas that makes up about 21 percent of the atmosphere. All animals and many microorganisms need oxygen to fuel their metabolism.

photosynthesis (verb: photosynthesize) The process by which green plants and some other organisms use sunlight to produce foods from carbon dioxide and water.

radiation Energy, emitted by a source, that travels through space in waves or as moving subatomic particles. Examples include visible light, ultraviolet light, infrared energy and microwaves.

species A group of similar organisms capable of producing offspring that can survive and reproduce.

ultraviolet A portion of the light spectrum that is close to violet but invisible to the human eye.

Venus The second planet out from the sun, it has a rocky core, just as Earth does. However, Venus lost most of its water long ago. The sun's ultraviolet radiation broke apart those water molecules, allowing their hydrogen atoms to escape into space. Volcanoes on the planet's surface spewed high levels of carbon dioxide, which built up in the planet's atmosphere. Today the air pressure at the planet's surface is 100 times greater than on Earth, and the atmosphere now keeps the surface of Venus a brutal 460° Celsius (860° Fahrenheit).

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Sunlight might have put oxygen in Earth's early air

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Breaking up isn't always hard to do - at least for some chemicals, such as carbon dioxide. A blast of ultraviolet light may be all it takes, new tests show. The finding suggests scientists may have been wrong about how Earth's atmosphere got enough oxygen to sustain species (like us) that need this gas to breathe.

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broadcast To cast - or send out - something over a relatively large distance. A farmer may broadcast seeds by flinging them by hand over a large area. A loudspeaker may send sounds out over a great distance. An electronic transmitter may emit electromagnetic signals over the air to a distant radio, television or other receiving device. And a newscaster can broadcast details of events to listeners across a large area, even the world.

electromagnetic An adjective referring to light radiation, to magnetism or to both.

electromagnetic spectrum The range of radiation that spans from gamma- and X-rays through visible light and on to radio waves. Each type of radiation within the spectrum typically is classified by its wavelength.

frequency The number of times a specified periodic phenomenon occurs within a specified time interval. (In physics) The number of wavelengths that occurs over a particular interval of time.

gamma rays High-energy radiation often generated by processes in and around exploding stars. Gamma rays are the most energetic form of light.

hertz The frequency with which something (such as a wavelength) occurs, measured in the number of times the cycle repeats during each second of time.

inverse Something that is the opposite or reverse of another thing, or that moves in the opposite direction to something.

microwaves An electromagnetic wave with a wavelength shorter than that of normal radio waves but longer than those of infrared radiation (heat) and of visible light.

radiation (in physics) One of the three major ways that energy is transferred. (The other two are conduction and convection.) In radiation, electromagnetic waves carry energy from one place to another. Unlike conduction and convection, which need material to help transfer the energy, radiation can transfer energy across empty space.

radio waves Waves in a part of the electromagnetic spectrum. They are a type that people now use for long-distance communication. Longer than the waves of visible light, radio waves are used to transmit radio and television signals. They also are used in radar.

spectrum (plural: spectra) A range of related things that appear in some order. (in light and energy) The range of electromagnetic radiation types; they span from gamma rays to X rays, ultraviolet light, visible light, infrared energy, microwaves and radio waves.

speed of light A constant often used in physics, corresponding to 1.08 billion kilometers (671 million miles) per hour.

ultraviolet A portion of the light spectrum that is close to violet but invisible to the human eye.

universe The entire cosmos: All things that exist throughout space and time. It has been expanding since its formation during an event known as the Big Bang, some 13.8 billion years ago (give or take a few hundred million years).

wavelength The distance between one peak and the next in a series of waves, or the distance between one trough and the next. Visible light - which, like all electromagnetic radiation, travels in waves - includes wavelengths between about 380 nanometers (violet) and about 740 nanometers (red). Radiation with wavelengths shorter than visible light includes gamma rays, X-rays and ultraviolet light. Longer-wavelength radiation includes infrared light, microwaves and radio waves.

X-ray A type of radiation analogous to gamma rays, but having somewhat lower energy.

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Explainer: Understanding light and electromagnetic radiation

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Energy travels throughout the universe at the speed of light as radiation. What that radiation is called depends on its energy level. At the really high-energy end of the spectrum are gamma rays. They're close cousins to the X-rays that doctors and dentists use to probe for unusual structures in your body.

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Where you live can have a big effect on what you believe about global warming and other aspects of climate change. That's the finding of a new study.

In 2007 and 2008, a Gallup World Poll surveyed people in 119 countries. That survey covered a range of issues. A group of scientists has now analyzed how people had responded to two of the questions: How much do you know about global warming, and how serious a threat does it pose to you and your family? And the responses, they report, were surprising.

Most scientists think the world's climate is changing fast. Human activities, such as driving cars or burning coal to power electricity, have been driving much of that change, studies have shown. Such activities spew and other greenhouse gases into the air. These gases can slowly warm Earth's atmosphere. And they can cause that warming to persist for a long time.

>Yet many people do not share the scientists' view, the new poll shows. What's more, how people responded depended on a host of factors. These included where people lived, how many years they'd gone to school, how much money they earned, their religion, their gender - even things such as how polluted the air was where they lived. It's the first time such factors have been studied for their possible link to climate-change beliefs, the scientists say.

One surprise: Many people were not even aware of global warming. Most people in Africa, the Middle East and Asia had never heard of the concept. This included more than 65 percent of people in Egypt, Bangladesh, Nigeria and India. In contrast, people in the wealthier and more highly educated nations were quite familiar with global warming. More than 90 percent of those polled in the United States, Europe and Japan, for instance, reported they knew about climate change.

Another unexpected finding: Among people who were aware of global warming, those in the poorer nations tended to judge it as a far bigger threat. And in Latin America and Europe, the poll showed, people were more likely to see global warming as a bigger menace when they understood the role that humans have played in that warming. Elsewhere, in Africa and Asia, for instance, people were more likely to see climate change as a risk if it was tied to local temperatures or air pollution.

The findings appeared July 27 in Nature Climate Change.

"This is to our knowledge the first and only truly global study [on climate change]," according to Tien Ming Lee. He's the study's lead author. Now at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., he worked on the analysis when he was at the Earth Institute. It's located at Columbia University in New York City. Lee says the new analysis indicates that there's still much work to do in getting word out about global warming. Indeed, helping people in different parts of the globe understand it may require explaining the data and risks in very different ways. Those explanations might almost have to differ from one neighboring country to another.

This December, a United Nations (UN) conference in Paris will attempt to get the world's leaders to adopt a new treaty to slow climate change - and global warming. The new paper's findings point out how hard this will be, notes Debbie Hopkins. She works at the Centre for Sustainability at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.

The UN conference will attempt to get leaders from more than 100 countries to agree to common goals aimed at protecting the environment. Writing in the same issue of Nature Climate Change, Hopkins says Lee's study highlights the need for tailoring messages about climate change to different cultures and countries. A message that inspires people in one country to take climate change seriously might not work in another. Tailoring may be needed, she says, "to increase support for action on climate change - action that is urgently required."

Power Words

(for more about Power Words, click here)

carbon dioxide A colorless, odorless gas produced by all animals when the oxygen they inhale reacts with the carbon-rich foods that they've eaten. Carbon dioxide also is released when organic matter (including fossil fuels like oil or gas) is burned. Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat in Earth's atmosphere. Plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen during photosynthesis, the process they use to make their own food.

climate The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

climate change Long-term, significant change in the climate of Earth. It can happen naturally or in response to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests.

conservation The act of preserving or protecting something. The focus of this work can range from art objects to endangered species and other aspects of the natural environment.

culture (in social science) The sum total of typical behaviors and social practices of a related group of people (such as a tribe or nation). Their culture includes their beliefs, values, and the symbols that they accept and or use. These will be passed along from adults to children.

electricity A flow of charge, usually from the movement of negatively charged particles, called electrons.

gender The attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that a given culture associates with a person's biological sex. Behavior that is compatible with cultural expectations is referred to as being the norm. Behaviors that are incompatible with these expectations are described as non-conforming.

global warming The gradual increase in the overall temperature of Earth's atmosphere due to the greenhouse effect. This effect is caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and other gases in the air, many of them released by human activity.

greenhouse gas A gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect by absorbing heat. Carbon dioxide is one example of a greenhouse gas.

sustainability (n: sustainable) To use resources in a way that they will continue to be available in the future.

treaty A formal agreement that two or more sovereign powers (usually countries or tribal nations) have adopted, giving its provisions the force of law.

United Nations An organization that takes on global issues, from health and justice (including the human rights) to protecting the environment and promoting world peace. It was founded in 1945. Today, 193 separate nations are members.

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Beliefs about global warming vary by country

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Where you live can have a big effect on what you believe about global warming and other aspects of climate change. That's the finding of a new study. In 2007 and 2008, a Gallup World Poll surveyed people in 119 countries. That survey covered a range of issues.

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The village of Shishmaref sits along the edge of an island sitting above Alaska's north coast. Although about 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) long, in some places the island is less than an eighth of a kilometer wide. And its Inupiat residents are worried. In recent years, their island home has been losing ground due to coastal erosion. Some houses in this community of 563 people already have fallen into the water. In August, the villagers decided they'd had enough. They voted to abandon their island home rather than try to continue guarding it from further land loss.

Scott Rupp works at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. There he studies the Arctic environment. "Coastal erosion is a normal process that happens all around the world anywhere that water and land meet," he explains. "What's changed is the rate and magnitude of that erosion. It really has been accelerating," he says. "And that," he adds, "has turned into a significant problem for places like Shishmaref."

Johannes Zielcke / Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

What's happening to this village is similar to what happens when waves hit a sand castle. The foundation crumbles. What's on top then begins to tumble into the sea. The warming due to climate change has sped up this process in the Arctic. That has expanded the destruction of Shishmaref.

"What's been changing over the last couple of decades is that Alaska is warming faster than the rest of [the United States]," Rupp explains. Climate change has increased summer and winter temperatures in Alaska. This warms the land and sea, making coastal towns especially vulnerable to storms.

Why? With all of the warming, "We're seeing really dramatic changes in sea ice," says Rupp. He's referring to the ice that typically covers much of the Arctic Ocean.

Each autumn, along the north coast of Alaska, the ocean begins to freeze. This creates a solid structure that protects coastal soils from being battered by incoming waves and washing away during winter storms.

But with warming temperatures, that ice is not forming as quickly and as solidly as it used to, Rupp notes. So destructive waves have been chewing up and flooding Shishmaref's coastline. The result, more and more of the land has been washing away.

The warming also has been melting the region's permafrost. This is the soil that usually stays frozen yearround in northern Alaska. For millennia, that permafrost had provided a "very stable foundation" for the island, Rupp explains. Now it's softening. So the village is no longer on solid ground.

Not surprisingly, winter storms here are having a much bigger impact than they used to.

"I was born in 1997, and since then, Shishmaref has lost about 100 feet [of ground]," Esau Sinnok wrote in a 2015 blog post for the U.S. Department of the Interior. Sinnok lives on the island and says 13 of its homes had to be moved because of erosion. They included his grandmother's.

Other villages also weighing a move

Shishmaref's plight is not unique. Other villages in Alaska also are losing real estate as their coastlines wash away. These include Newtok, Kivalina and Shaktoolik, notes Sally Russell Cox. Working for the Alaska state government in Anchorage, she helps coastal communities respond to the impacts of climate change. These villages, Cox notes, "have all been looking at the option of relocation for a long time."

Like Shishmaref, Newtok decided that moving is its best option. Kivalina is weighing whether to become a climate migrant as well. But not Shaktoolik. Says Cox, its residents want to stay "and defend where they are."

"The longer these decisions are delayed, the harder and more expensive it gets to figure out what comes next," says Philip Loring. He studies environment, climate change and the cultures of native peoples, such as the Inupiat. He works at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada.

Deciding to move is an especially difficult decision for communities - like Shishmaref - that depend on local fishing and hunting for food. Explains Loring, their families have lived in the same place for generations. Their land also is central to their culture and traditions. These factors are important both to adults and to young people, he notes.

Cox agrees. Youth in these communities have gotten involved in decision-making on whether to move or try to stay put, she says. After all, she points out, "They are the future leaders."

"While it's too late to save the island of Shishmaref, we still have a little bit of hope that we'll be able to preserve our traditions and stay united as a culture," wrote Esau Sinnok. Next for Shishmaref is planning when to move - and how to pay for it.

Power Words
More About Power Words

Arctic A region that falls within the Arctic Circle. The edge of that circle is defined as the northernmost point at which the sun is visible on the northern winter solstice and the southernmost point at which the midnight sun can be seen on the northern summer solstice.

blog Short for web log, these Internet posts can take the form of news reports, topical discussions, opinionated rants, diaries or photo galleries.

climate The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

climate change Long-term, significant change in the climate of Earth. It can happen naturally or in response to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests.

culture (such as a tribe's or nation's). Culture includes the beliefs, values and the symbols that a people accepts and/or uses. It's passed on from generation to generation through learning. Once thought to be exclusive to humans, scientists have recognized signs of culture in several other animal species, such as dolphins and primates.

environment The sum of all of the things that exist around some organism or the process and the condition those things create for that organism or process. Environment may refer to the weather and ecosystem in which some animal lives, or, perhaps, the temperature, humidity and placement of components in some electronics system or product.

erosion The process that removes rock and soil from one spot on Earth's surface, depositing it elsewhere. Erosion can be exceptionally fast or exceedingly slow. Causes of erosion include wind, water (including rainfall and floods), the scouring action of glaciers and the repeated cycles of freezing and thawing that occur in many areas of the world.

generation A group of individuals born about the same time or that are regarded as a single group. Your parents belong to one generation of your family, for example, and your grandparents to another. Similarly, you and everyone within a few years of your age across the planet -are referred to as belonging to a particular generation of humans. The term is sometimes extended to inanimate objects, such as electronics or automobiles.

millennia (singular: millennium) Thousands of years.

native Associated with a particular location; native plants and animals have been found in a particular location since recorded history began. These species also tend to have developed within a region, occurring there naturally (not because they were planted or moved there by people). Most are particularly well adapted to their environment.

permafrost Soil that remains frozen for at least two consecutive years. Such conditions typically occur in polar climates, where average annual temperatures remain close to or below freezing.

sea An ocean (or region that is part of an ocean). Unlike lakes and streams, seawater - or ocean water - is salty.

unique Something that is unlike anything else; the only one of its kind.

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Warming turns Alaskan villagers into climate migrants

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The village of Shishmaref sits along the edge of an island sitting above Alaska's north coast. Although about 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) long, in some places the island is less than an eighth of a kilometer wide. And its Inupiat residents are worried. In recent years, their island home has been losing ground due to coastal erosion.

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BALTIMORE, Md. - Some 200 million years ago, a massive die-off of species worldwide occurred. Such an event is known as a mass extinction. And by looking at very old rocks, researchers are now finding what appears to have led to those die-offs: a quickly warming climate.

At the time, volcanoes had been spewing huge quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air. These gases trapped extra heat in the atmosphere just as they do today. This led to a rather rapid warming near Earth's surface. Many species couldn't adapt to the speedy change in climate and simply died off.

So what? Well, driving cars, running factories, heating homes and other human activities today release many tons of greenhouse gases into the air every second. Earth's current low-grade fever may be on track to one day simulate those ancient conditions. The difference: This time people - not volcanoes - are playing a role in driving the change. And it's this current warming that has made understanding the impacts of that ancient hot spell so important.

For their new study, the researchers focused on the warming of ancient seas.

Rocky clues to ancient seas

The researchers measured the sea's warming by studying multi-layered rocks from Great Britain. They are called stromatolites (Strow-MAT-eh-lytes). Secretions from microbes helped form these rocks. And each layer of the rocks offers a snapshot of the microbes that had been alive as it formed.

One layer shows signs of algae. These belonged to a group known as prasinophytes (Praa-SIN-oh-fytes). These algae thrive only when other species are in trouble. As such, "it's known as a disaster species," explains Victoria Petryshyn. She's a geologist who works at the European Institute of Marine Sciences in Plouzané, France. She also works at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).

Yadira Ibarra, Stanford University

Geologists know that a large number of species died suddenly around 200 million years ago. This helped them link the prasinophyte layer to that mass extinction.

Better still, the rock's chemistry let Petryshyn and her team figure out how warm the water was when the rock formed. One layer formed in water that was about 34° Celsius (93° Fahrenheit). A later layer from the same general time period formed at approximately 37 °C (99 °F). That's about 10 °C higher than the ocean now gets in the summer in Oahu, Hawaii!

Such temps would have made the air above the ancient sea "very toasty and very humid," Petryshyn observes.

Her team described its results on November 1, here, at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting.

How they calculated the heat

The scientists measured the sea's temperature by weighing the rock. Its most common mineral is calcium carbonate. As its formula (CaCO 3.) shows, this rock is made up of calcium, carbon and oxygen. However, "if you look at molecules of calcium carbonate, they are not all identical," observes Aradhna Tripati. She, too, is a geologist at UCLA.

The various calcium carbonate molecules "actually weigh slightly different amounts," she says. And that's because the molecules contain different isotopes - forms of the elements - that serve as their building blocks. You might think of isotopes as different flavors of an element, Tripati says. They differ in the number of neutrons that each atom has in its core (or nucleus).

The dense core of each atom contains a mix of those neutrons together with other particles known as protons. Each atom of a particular element will have the same number of protons in its core. Only the number of neutrons can vary. The more neutrons an element has, the heavier it will be. The heavier molecules of CaCO ₃ are made from heavier forms of oxygen and carbon atoms.

Lower temperatures cause more of the heavy carbon and heavy oxygen atoms to clump, or bind together, in this type of rock. So stromatolite layers that form in colder water should have more mass and heavier CaCO ₃ molecules. Or so the scientists thought. Now the team probed the ancient rocks, looking for confirmation of that.

Their first step: They drilled into the rock at different spots. This produced dust that was "about as fine as baby powder," says team member Robert Gammariello. He's a student in Tripati's lab at UCLA.

He and Petryshyn put a tiny bit of powder from each drilled hole into capsules. Then they weighed them. From there, they could calculate the share of heavy to light calcium carbonate molecules in each sample. Next the team drew upon earlier work that had been done with modern carbonate rocks. The chemical make-up of those rocks is similar to the ancient ones. Scientists knew what temperature those rocks had formed at. So, they had used it to develop an equation that would link temperature to isotope clumping. And that equation matched well with what physics says about how heat (energy) affects matter.

Now the team used their equation with the ancient rock. They knew the ratio of clumped isotopes. So they used math to calculate what the temperatures were when the rock layers formed. And their findings matched well with what climate scientists had predicted with computer models. These had used other data to make temperature calculations for the same period. Petryshyn says that the similar findings from two different approaches help show the computer models were correct.

Foretelling the future

"This is very exciting work," says Margaret Fraiser. She is a geologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Using the clumped isotopes to understand climate change is important and hadn't been done before, she says. "The more we understand the deep time record of climate change," she explains, "the more we can use it...to help humankind better predict the future."

Seawater temperature is linked to air temperature. And air temperature goes up by about 2 °C every time carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles. Based on that, Tripati and her team calculate that carbon dioxide levels were around 2,200 parts per million (ppm) when the mass extinction took place some 200 million years ago.

Carbon dioxide levels today are high, but not that high. They're only about 400 ppm. But greenhouse gas emissions have not stopped rising. If they don't drop substantially, temperatures will keep rising, too.

The evidence from 200 million years ago suggests that's cause to worry, Petryshyn and Tripati told Science News for Students. Just a 2 °C hike in warming would be enough to cause dramatic changes. And, notes Tripati, "That's the type of warming we might readily get in the next 50 to 100 years."

Power Words

algae Single-celled organisms, once considered plants (they aren't). As aquatic organisms, they grow in water. Like green plants, they depend on sunlight to make their food.

atom The basic unit of a chemical element. Atoms are made up of a dense nucleus that contains positively charged protons and neutrally charged neutrons. The nucleus is orbited by a cloud of negatively charged electrons.

atmosphere The envelope of gases surrounding Earth or another planet.

calcium A chemical element which is common in minerals of the Earth's crust. It is also found in bone mineral and teeth, and can play a role in the movement of certain substances into and out of cells.

calcium carbonate The main chemical compound in limestone, a rock made from the tiny shells of ancient marine organisms. Its formula is CaCO ₃ (meaning it contains one calcium atom, one carbon atom and three oxygen atoms).

carbon The chemical element having the atomic number 6. It is the physical basis of all life on Earth. Carbon exists freely as graphite and diamond. It is an important part of coal, limestone and petroleum, and is capable of self-bonding, chemically, to form an enormous number of chemically, biologically and commercially important molecules.

carbon dioxide (or ) A colorless, odorless gas produced by all animals when the oxygen they inhale reacts with the carbon-rich foods that they've eaten. Carbon dioxide also is released when organic matter (including fossil fuels like oil or gas) is burned. Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat in Earth's atmosphere. Plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen during photosynthesis, the process they use to make their own food.

climate The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

climate change Long-term, significant change in the climate of Earth. It can happen naturally or in response to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests.

concentration (in chemistry) A measurement of how much of one substance has been dissolved into another.

element (in chemistry) Each of more than one hundred substances for which the smallest unit of each is a single atom. Examples include hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, lithium and uranium.

equation In mathematics, the statement that two quantities are equal. In geometry, equations are often used to determine the shape of a curve or surface.

geology The study of Earth's physical structure and substance, its history and the processes that act on it. People who work in this field are known as geologists. Planetary geology is the science of studying the same things about other planets.

greenhouse gas A gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect by absorbing heat. Carbon dioxide is one example of a greenhouse gas.

isotopes Different forms of an element that vary somewhat in weight (and potentially in lifetime). All have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons in their nucleus. As a result, they also differ in mass.

mass A number that shows how much an object resists speeding up and slowing down - basically a measure of how much matter that object is made from.

microbe Short for microorganism. A living thing that is too small to see with the unaided eye, including bacteria, some fungi and many other organisms such as amoebas. Most consist of a single cell.

molecule An electrically neutral group of atoms that represents the smallest possible amount of a chemical compound. Molecules can be made of single types of atoms or of different types. For example, the oxygen in the air is made of two oxygen atoms (O ₂), but water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (H ₂ O).

neutron A subatomic particle carrying no electric charge that is one of the basic pieces of matter. Neutrons belong to the family of particles known as hadrons.

nucleus Plural is nuclei. (in chemistry and physics) The central core of an atom, containing most of its mass. It contains subatomic particles known as neutrons and protons.

parts per million (billion or trillion) Frequently abbreviated as ppm (or ppb or ppt), it is a measure of the number of units of some material that it mixed into another. The units should be the same (or equivalent) for both materials. The term is used to describing extremely small concentrations of one chemical dissolved in another. For example, a solution of 300 parts per billion of sodium in water would mean that there are 300 sodium atoms for every billion water molecules.

prasinophytes A group of algae that tend to thrive when other species are in trouble. As such, biologists sometimes refer to them as "disaster species."

proton A subatomic particle that is one of the basic building blocks of the atoms that make up matter. Protons belong to the family of particles known as hadrons.

ratio The relationship between two numbers or amounts. When written out, the numbers usually are separated by a colon, such as a 50:50. That would mean that for every 50 units of one thing (on the left) there would also be 50 units of another thing (represented by the number on the right).

stromatolite A type of layered rock that forms when cyanobacteria in water create huge communities. Their sticky surfaces trap sediments floating in the water. That accumulating sediment reacts to calcium carbonate in the water. This creates limestone, which builds up very, very slowly. A century-old stromatolite may grow a mere 5 centimeters (2 inches) in size.

thermodynamics The branch of physics that studies the effects of heat, temperature and work on matter in a system.

Citations

T. Sumner. " Paris meeting yields climate agreement." Science News for Students. December 12, 2015.

S. Oosthoek. " Concerns about Earth's fever." Science News for Students. November 24, 2015.

S. Oosthoek. " Explainer: How scientists know Earth is warming." Science News for Students. November 24, 2015.

B. Geiger. " Clues to the Great Dying.'" Science News for Students. October 27, 2015.

B. Geiger. " The heat that keeps on giving." Science News for Students. July 6, 2015.

J. Raloff. " Glaciers on ice - for now." Science News for Students. June 4, 2015.

J. Raloff. " Carbon dioxide levels rise fast and high." Science News for Students. May 17, 2015.

K. Kowalski. " Explainer: Understanding plate tectonics." Science News for Students. March 26, 2015.

T. Sumner. " Arctic warming bolsters summer heat." Science News for Students. March 25, 2015.

T. Sumner. " Scientists confirm 'greenhouse' effect of human's CO2." Science News for Students. March 1, 2015

A.P. Stevens. " Coming: The sixth mass extinction?" Science News for Students. October 17, 2014.

A.P. Stevens. " How people have been shaping the Earth" Science News for Students. October 17, 2014.

B. Mole. " Seeing red: North's CO2 hits new peak." Science News for Students. June 17, 2014.

A. Biskup. " Explainer: Global warming and the greenhouse effect." Science News for Students. May 7, 2010.

Learn more about climate change from NASA and from its Climate Kids website.

Original Meeting Source: R. Gammariello et al. " The role of climate change in mass extinctions: Using stromatolites to constrain temperatures during times of biotic crisis." Geological Society of America, annual meeting, November 1, 2015.

Kathiann Kowalski reports on all sorts of cutting-edge science. Previously, she practiced law with a large firm. Kathi enjoys hiking, sewing and reading. She also enjoys travel, especially family adventures and beach trips.

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BALTIMORE, Md. - Some 200 million years ago, a massive die-off of species worldwide occurred. Such an event is known as a mass extinction. And by looking at very old rocks, researchers are now finding what appears to have led to those die-offs: a quickly warming climate.

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Every few years, the world's weather is thrown off balance. It happens when surface waters near the equator in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean warm up just a fraction of a degree. Afterward, some regions experience heavier rainfall than normal - and flooding. Others will battle drought and wildfires. Still others might have to contend with ice storms and other extreme weather. This pattern of disruption is known as an El Niño (El-NEEN-yo). (The name is Spanish for "the boy.")

The most recent El Niño ran from 2015 to 2016. It was one of the three strongest on record. That event is now officially dead in the water.

More than a year after that El Niño's birth, the unusually warm seawater in the eastern Pacific has cooled back down. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center reported that conclusion on June 9. While it lasted, this El Niño boosted rainfall in California. It also sped up damage to coral reefs and helped make 2015 the hottest year on record.

But don't count on weather returning to normal across the globe.

El Niño has a "sibling." It's a different weather effect called La Niña (Lah-NEEN-yah). It develops when waters near the equator in the eastern Pacific cool down. And NOAA now estimates that there is a 75 percent chance that La Niña will take over in the coming months. La Niña can cause droughts in South America and heavy rainfall in Southeast Asia. It also can make hurricane seasons in the Atlantic Ocean more intense. Stay tuned.

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coral Marine animals that often produce a hard and stony exoskeleton and tend to live on the exoskeletons of dead corals, called reefs.

drought An extended period of abnormally low rainfall; a shortage of water resulting from this.

El Niño Extended periods when the surface water around the equator in the eastern and central Pacific warms. Scientists declare the arrival of an El Niño when that water warms by at least 0.4 degree Celsius (0.72 degree Fahrenheit) above average for five or more months in a row. El Niños can bring heavy rainfall and flooding to the West Coast of South America. Meanwhile, Australia and Southeast Asia may face a drought and high risk of wildfires. In North America, scientists have linked the arrival of El Niños to unusual weather events - including ice storms, droughts and mudslides.

equator An imaginary line around Earth that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

hurricane A tropical cyclone that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and has winds of 119 kilometers (74 miles) per hour or greater. When such a storm occurs in the Pacific Ocean, people refer to it as a typhoon.

La Niña Extended periods when the surface water around the equator in the eastern Pacific cools for long stretches of time. Scientists will announce the arrival of a La Niña (lah NEEN yah) when the average temperature there drops by at least 0.4° C (0.72° degree F). Impacts on global weather during a La Niña tend to be the reverse of those triggered by an El Niño: Now, Central and South America may face severe droughts while Australia floods.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA A science agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Initially established in 1807 under another name (The Survey of the Coast), this agency focuses on understanding and preserving ocean resources, including fisheries, protecting marine mammals (from seals to whales), studying the seafloor and probing the upper atmosphere.

reef A ridge of rock, coral or sand. It rises up from the seafloor and may come to just above or just under the water's surface.

weather Conditions in the atmosphere at a localized place and a particular time. It is usually described in terms of particular features, such as air pressure, humidity, moisture, any precipitation (rain, snow or ice), temperature and wind speed. Weather constitutes the actual conditions that occur at any time and place. It's different from climate, which is a description of the conditions that tend to occur in some general region during a particular month or season.

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Last year's strong El Niño is gone. Next up: La Niña

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Every few years, the world's weather is thrown off balance. It happens when surface waters near the equator in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean warm up just a fraction of a degree. Afterward, some regions experience heavier rainfall than normal - and flooding. Others will battle drought and wildfires.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. - Feeding the world's population is a big challenge, and it's about to get bigger. Right now, a little more than 7.3 billion people share the planet. Most nights, many go to bed hungry. By 2050, some scientists estimate, the world's population may reach 9 billion. Earth's changing climate will probably make feeding this far greater number a very daunting task. That was the conclusion of several scientists here, February 12, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Just three crops - wheat, rice and maize (commonly known as corn) - provide more than two-thirds of the calories that people consume. Such cereals, and a small number of other important crops, come from farming regions sometimes referred to as "breadbaskets." These fertile areas often occupy relatively small portions of the globe, says Tim Benton. He works at the University of Leeds in England. As a population ecologist, he studies how changes in the environment influence such things as the numbers of species in an ecosystem.

The relatively small size of the world's breadbaskets can make them vulnerable to bad weather, says Benton. Events such as widespread flooding or extended heat waves can be devastating. That's especially true if the bad weather occurs when a crop is young, fruiting or approaching harvest.

Worse than bad weather in one of these areas would be crop-crippling weather in two or more, says Joshua Elliott. He's an environmental scientist at the Computation Institute in Chicago, Ill. (This is a program of the University of Chicago and nearby Argonne National Laboratory.) Elliott is an expert in using computer models to simulate the effects of weather and climate change.

Big crop failures in two or more breadbaskets could lead to what researchers call a "food shock," he notes. An overall shortage of food might result. Afterward, some nations would likely restrict the sale to other countries of some foods that are now in short supply. And this could quickly worsen the effects of the food shortage, says Elliott, as many nations had to find new sources of these crops.

Extreme food shocks used to happen perhaps once every century. Put another way, that's only about once in every four generations of people. But climate change is boosting the risk that new food shocks will emerge, Elliott notes. Many studies suggest that as the climate warms, high and low temperatures will become more extreme. Also, weather may become more variable from one year to the next. That would be make it more difficult for farmers. They depend on predictable temperatures and rainfall.

Some climate studies now predict that by 2050, food shocks could occur about once every 30 years. In other words, a person born in the middle of the current century might live through two or three extreme food shocks during their lifetime. By comparison, someone born in 1950 would have seen one or none.

So what can people do to help avoid food shocks? Making agriculture more efficient is one option, says Elliott. Another possibility: Governments could relax rules that earmark certain amounts of corn for biofuel. Then, in times of food shortage, more corn could end up in someone's belly rather than a vehicle's gas tank.

But one of the most effective ways to combat food shocks might be to cut down on food waste, said Seth Cook. He's an environmental scientist at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London, England. More than one-third of the world's crop harvest is lost each year, Cook reported at the meeting. In developing countries, a lot of food spoils due to a lack of refrigeration. In other instances, insects or rodents may eat grains while they are in storage.

And in industrial nations, people often feel they need to throw away food because it doesn't look good. Others toss what has passed the "sell by" date stamped on a container. In both cases, the food might be perfectly edible, notes Cook.

"If we could cut food waste in half," Cook argues, "we could feed an extra billion people."

Power Words

agriculture The growth of plants, animals or fungi for human needs, including food, fuel, chemicals and medicine.

breadbasket A colloquial term for a region where many cereal grains - corn, rye, wheat and sorghum - are grown

cereals (in agriculture) A term for a family of related crops, also known as grains, that include maize (or corn), rice, wheat, barley and sorghum.

climate The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

climate change Long-term, significant change in the climate of Earth. It can happen naturally or in response to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests.

computer model A program that runs on a computer that creates a model, or simulation, of a real-world feature, phenomenon or event.

developing country A poorer country with relatively little industry and a lower standard of living than industrial countries, such as the United States and Canada.

ecosystem A group of interacting living organisms - including microorganisms, plants and animals - and their physical environment within a particular climate. Examples include tropical reefs, rainforests, alpine meadows and polar tundra.

environment The sum of all of the things that exist around some organism or the process and the condition those things create for that organism or process. Environment may refer to the weather and ecosystem in which some animal lives, or, perhaps, the temperature, humidity and placement of components in some electronics system or product.

environmental science The study of ecosystems to help identify environmental problems and possible solutions. Environmental science can bring together many fields including physics, chemistry, biology and oceanography to understand how ecosystems function and how humans can coexist with them in harmony.

fertile (in agronomy) Soils rich in nutrients and able to sustain plant growth.

global warming The gradual increase in the overall temperature of Earth's atmosphere due to the greenhouse effect. This effect is caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and other gases in the air, many of them released by human activity.

insect A type of arthropod that as an adult will have six segmented legs and three body parts: a head, thorax and abdomen. There are hundreds of thousands of insects, which include bees, beetles, flies and moths.

model A simulation of a real-world event (usually using a computer) that has been developed to predict one or more likely outcomes.

population (in biology) A group of individuals from the same species that lives in the same area.

simulate To deceive in some way by imitating the form or function of something. A simulated dietary fat, for instance, may deceive the mouth that it has tasted a real fat because it has the same feel on the tongue - without having any calories. A simulated sense of touch may fool the brain into thinking a finger has touched something even though a hand may no longer exists and has been replaced by a synthetic limb. (in computing) To try and imitate the conditions, functions or appearance of something. Computer programs that do this are referred to as simulations.

species A group of similar organisms capable of producing offspring that can survive and reproduce.

weather Conditions in the atmosphere at a localized place and a particular time. It is usually described in terms of particular features, such as air pressure, humidity, moisture, any precipitation (rain, snow or ice), temperature and wind speed. Weather constitutes the actual conditions that occur at any time and place. It's different from climate, which is a description of the conditions that tend to occur in some general region during a particular month or season.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. - Feeding the world's population is a big challenge, and it's about to get bigger. Right now, a little more than 7.3 billion people share the planet. Most nights, many go to bed hungry. By 2050, some scientists estimate, the world's population may reach 9 billion.

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Weather forecasting can't prevent severe weather. It can, however, spot when storms are on the way. The more accurate those forecasts can be, the better. Then people can plan to avoid the worst consequences.

For instance, when weather forecasters predicted several feet of snow in late January, my daughter Laura worried. She did not want to be alone with a sick baby in her home outside Washington, D.C. She didn't want to pass her son's cold on to friends' children, either. Instead, Laura packed a couple of bags. She buckled baby Martin in his car seat. Then she started driving the night before the snow began.

Steven Green/Flickr (CC-BY 2.0)

The White House, like the rest of Washington, D.C., got buried in snow during the 2016 storm nicknamed "Snowzilla."

The storm earned the nickname "Snowzilla." Up to a meter (3 feet) or more of snow fell along the U.S. East Coast over the next two days. A quarter million people lost electricity. At least 48 people died. But thanks to weather forecasters, many schools, businesses and government offices shut down before the worst hit. New York City even shut down Broadway performances that weekend. And Laura and Martin spent a safe, storm-free weekend in northern Ohio.

Accurate weather forecasting requires good science. In this story, meet two scientists and an engineer whose work deals with wet and wild weather. Their research can help save lives when the weather outside turns frightful.

Measurements on the ground

"Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get this job," says Greg Carbin. As a boy in Vermont, Carbin saw lots of snowstorms. And they got him interested in the science of weather. In college, he studied meteorology - the science of weather and the atmosphere. Now Carbin heads up forecast operations at the Weather Prediction Center of the National Weather Service in College Park, Md. It's run by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

The National Weather Service issues warnings about tornadoes, floods and other severe events. Thunderstorms usually play a key role in all of these. But a thunderstorm needs three things to exist, Carbin says. "The atmosphere needs to have instability, moisture and something to lift it."

Instability in the atmosphere happens when the temperature of the air near the ground differs a lot from that higher up. The greater the difference, the more instability.

Lift comes from convection. Warm air rises because it is less dense than cool air. When the warm air meets cold air higher up in the atmosphere, water vapor in the air can change from a gas to a liquid. In other words, it condenses. That produces rain or drizzle. If the temperature drops below freezing, the water can freeze into snow, hail or sleet.

Of course, not every rain shower is a thunderstorm. And not every thunderstorm causes trouble. Big problems arise when thunderstorms last long enough to build in size and strength. That takes wind shear. Wind shear happens when two currents of moving air hit each other at different angles or speeds. Wind shear lets a thunderstorm last longer. It's also key to getting a storm to rotate. If it does, watch out! A rotating storm can grow into a hurricane or tornado.

Measurements on the ground are crucial to forecasting storms. Throughout the day, stations across the country send measurements of temperature, precipitation and wind speed (and direction) to the National Weather Service. Its computers collect all of those data for Carbin and other forecasters. Those forecasters review maps that plot out the data. Then they connect the dots - both literally and figuratively. They draw lines to link places with similar measurements.

These maps show where areas of warm and cold air collide. That helps forecasters see where trouble spots - storms - might form.

Computers also can do some of that drawing. "But they don't do it as well," Carbin says. "I have to do this analysis by hand and see all the subtleties that are occurring." Some meteorologists draw weather maps as often as once an hour.

Computers also play a big role. Fortunately, Carbon notes, "There's a lot of powerful computing capability now." Much of the physics behind the weather can be described with equations. That means that scientists can build computer models that simulate weather patterns. These computer models use mathematics to calculate how any change to one or more weather features might alter a forecast. Computers can solve those equations much faster than people can. What they come up with can help scientists make better judgments about where storms will form - and how they'll behave.

Computers also collect and pull together all the measurements that go into the weather maps that meteorologists prepare. Those readings come from all around the world, and high above it as well.

Eyes in the sky

Probably the easiest way to measure precipitation on the ground is with a rain gauge. In its simplest form, it consists of a container to catch water and a measuring stick. Plop a rain gauge outside, and see how much water fills it up in some storm event. Sounds easy, right?

Despite their ease of use, relatively few rain gauges cover the Earth's surface. "In fact, all the rain gauges in the world would only fit into two basketball courts," says Dalia Kirschbaum at NASA in Greenbelt, Md. (NASA stands for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.) She knows because she and her colleagues did the math. They presented their work to the European Geophysical Union at its spring 2014 meeting in Vienna, Austria.

Weather radar can cover much more land area than a single rain gauge. That radar sends pulses of microwaves to map storms. But it has limitations. For example, heavy rains that hit California depend on how a storm strengthens out in the Pacific Ocean. Notes Kirschbaum, "The ground-based radar can't see that storm coming very far off the coast."

She was curious about rainfall. That's because much of her work deals with what happens when heavy rains hit. Too much rain falling too quickly can lead to landslides. As a geomorphologist, Kirschbaum studies those events and other changes in Earth's features. Her job also requires using rainfall data from a NASA satellite.

When Kirschbaum started college, she planned to study math. Then she took a class on environmental science - and was hooked. Now, much of her research on landslides involves work with computer models. She's interested in problems where math and science meet the real world, as in natural disasters.

Scientists such as Kirschbaum use data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission and other satellite projects. GPM's Core satellite is an eye in the sky for rain and other precipitation. Its orbit covers about 90 percent of Earth's surface. It can "see" from the Arctic Circle in the north to the Antarctic Circle in the south.
Story continues below video.
GPM sees through clouds to storms and precipitation below. The satellite's sensors measure microwave radiation. Its energy has longer wavelengths than visible light. But like visible light, microwave radiation bounces off of the things that it hits. They include raindrops. "Based on what the sensors get back, you're able to see layer by layer through the clouds and the storm," Kirschbaum explains.

Better still, GPM can detect differences in the microwave radiation from the sun that bounces off various types of precipitation. "With GPM we can actually observe everything from light rain to heavy rain and snow," she says. Data from this and other satellites now provide worldwide precipitation estimates every three hours.

Scientists at NOAA, the Naval Research Center and elsewhere use those data in their weather forecasts. For example, data that show where rain is most intense can help forecasters see how strong a storm is. Those data also offer clues to a storm's path.

NASA also produces visualizations - pictures or charts based on the data. Those help scientists understand what's happening with the weather. And they help forecasters share weather information with the public. Satellite data also help improve weather-forecasting models.

Even Kirschbaum's research on landslides uses GPM data. "By being able to have near-real-time rainfall data," she says, "I'm able to better understand the where and the when of where landslide activity is possible."

In one recent study, her team reviewed data on landslide events around the world. Sure enough, the days most likely to see a landslide had been those with the heaviest rains. In one set of data, they showed, six in every 10 landslides occurred when the day's rainfall at that spot had been in the top 5 percent of all days at that site going back 14 years.

But weather is not the only factor that affects a landslide's potentially deadly impacts. Most of these events occurred in Asia, North America and Southeast Asia. But for those in North America, deaths were less likely, the team found. Their data suggest that a lack of money and equipment to respond to disasters may help explain why some landslides lead to more deaths.

Kirschbaum and her colleagues reported on this work, late last year, in Geomorphology.

Down to Earth

Careers dealing with stormy weather can also be very down to Earth. As a boy, Robert Mason and his friends built rock dams to create swimming holes. "I was always truly fascinated by the movement of water," he recalls. Now he's a civil engineer. He heads the Office of Surface Water for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Reston, Va.

Mason's office tracks water levels and river flows across the United States. USGS has stream gauges at many locations along rivers and streams. Those gauges record water levels and let USGS staff calculate stream flow. That's the amount of water that passes a specific point in a certain amount of time. Stream flow matters because it tells whether the amount of water in a river is changing. It also tells researchers what's likely to happen downstream.

"We at USGS go out and measure those flows periodically," Mason notes. "We do it throughout the year - in normal flows, and in highs and lows. And particularly in flood events."

Mason and his colleagues compare what happens during heavy storms to a river's past measurements. "We can establish a relationship between a flow and a water level," Mason says. That and other data go to the National Weather Service for its computer models. Those models then help the agency decide when to issue flood warnings. The data also help improve the models, Mason notes. Those models then help forecasters decide when a warning should be issued in the future.

Stream data also are key to understanding how changes such as shifts in land use might affect the environment. Adding more pavement, for instance, can increase the amount of runoff from storms (when water isn't able to soak into the soil). Runoff can erode and widen streams. And fewer green plants along a stream's banks can up the risk of floods.

"Increasingly, it's important for us to have a more accurate picture" of what's going on in a river, Mason says. That's especially true when water levels approach critical heights, such as the top of a dam or the surface of a road. Analyses of the data also can help spot future risks.

USGS shares its data with the Army Corps of Engineers and other government agencies. Those data help them make decisions. For example, should people in charge of a reservoir hold water back? Or, should they release some of that water now in a controlled way - before a dam overflows?

"Reservoirs are a great asset for reducing floods and flood damage," Mason says. "But to really wring the most value out of them, it's important that we can time the response."

When an area floods, USGS teams can put out mobile stream gauges and equipment to monitor what pollution might have washed into rivers. Researchers can then track how the water moves those pollutants. And that's important. Pesticides, fertilizers and lead (and other metals) can run off of the land and into waterways. From there, those pollutants can harm people or the environment.

"We also look at other data that we can collect or infer from [the physical features of the land] and geology," Mason says. "That helps inform us about what the past historic droughts and floods were like." Those data often show "greater variability than what we typically expect and what we typically plan for," Mason says. Understanding the full range of possible conditions matters a lot during a time of climate change. As climate patterns shift, governments need to plan for more extreme weather events.

These types of data also can identify risks that people might not otherwise consider. One recent report used historic data to estimate flood risks for nuclear power plants. Mason's team provided the study to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2014. Flooding was one factor that led to disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The flooding occurred after an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in 2011.

Work by Carbin, Kirschbaum, Mason and their colleagues helps inform short-term forecasts and warnings of wild weather. It also improves the mathematics used to predict future events. And it plays into long-term planning for what to expect as Earth's climate changes. All in all, says Mason, the work is "quite rewarding."

"It is very interesting and it's highly varied," he explains. "We work with mathematical equations and computer systems. We also go out in the field and get wet and muddy and tired and hot.

"That," he says, "makes for a very interesting career."
This is one in a series on careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics made possible with generous support from Arconic Foundation.

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(for more about Power Words, click here)

air pressure The force exerted by the weight of air molecules. The basic unit of a chemical element. Atoms are made up of a dense nucleus that contains positively charged protons and neutrally charged neutrons. The nucleus is orbited by a cloud of negatively charged electrons.

Arctic Circle The northernmost point at which the sun is visible on the northern winter solstice and the southernmost point at which the midnight sun can be seen on the northern summer solstice.

atmosphere The envelope of gases surrounding Earth or another planet.

chemical A substance formed from two or more atoms that unite (become bonded together) in a fixed proportion and structure. For example, water is a chemical made of two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom. Its chemical symbol is H ₂ O. Chemical can also be an adjective that describes properties of materials that are the result of various reactions between different compounds.

civil engineer An engineer who creates buildings, tunnels, water systems and other large projects that improve everyday life.

climate The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

climate change Long-term, significant change in the climate of Earth. It can happen naturally or in response to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests.

computer model A program that runs on a computer that creates a model, or simulation, of a real-world feature, phenomenon or event.

condense To change from a gas or a vapor into a liquid. This could occur, for instance, when water molecules in the air join together to become droplets of water.

convection The rising and falling of material in a fluid or gas due to uneven temperatures. This process occurs in the outer layers of some stars.

downstream Further on in the direction in which a stream is flowing or the path at which stream water will flow in its trek towards the oceans.

drizzle Light mist-like precipitation caused by water droplets smaller than those due to rain, meaning usually much smaller than 1 millimeter (0.04 inch) in diameter.

drought An extended period of abnormally low rainfall; a shortage of water resulting from this.

magnitude (in geology) A measurement of the intensity of the ground-shaking associated with an earthquake. The scale is logarithmic. So for every 1 point increase in magnitude (such as from 3 to 4), there is a 10 fold increase in ground motion (how far the land shakes back and forth) and a roughly 33-fold increase in the amount of energy released.

elevation The height or altitude at which something exists.

engineer A person who uses science to solve problems. As a verb, to engineer means to design a device, material or process that will solve some problem or unmet need.

environment The sum of all of the things that exist around some organism or the process and the condition those things create for that organism or process. Environment may refer to the weather and ecosystem in which some animal lives, or, perhaps, the temperature, humidity and placement of components in some electronics system or product.

environmental science The study of ecosystems to help identify environmental problems and possible solutions. Environmental science can bring together many fields including physics, chemistry, biology and oceanography to understand how ecosystems function and how humans can coexist with them in harmony. People who work in this field are known as environmental scientists.

erosion (v. erode) The process that removes rock and soil from one spot on Earth's surface, depositing it elsewhere. Erosion can be exceptionally fast or exceedingly slow. Causes of erosion include wind, water (including rainfall and floods), the scouring action of glaciers and the repeated cycles of freezing and thawing that occur in many areas of the world.

fertilizer Nitrogen, phosphorus and other plant nutrients added to soil, water or foliage to boost crop growth or to replenish nutrients that removed earlier by plant roots or leaves.

gauge An device to measure the size or volume of something. For instance, tide gauges track the ever-changing height of coastal water levels throughout the day. Or any system or event that can be used to estimate the size or magnitude of something else.

geology The study of Earth's physical structure and substance, its history and the processes that act on it. People who work in this field are known as geologists. Planetary geology is the science of studying the same things about other planets.

geomorphology The study of Earth's landscapes and the processes that shape them. A scientist working in this field is known as a geomorphologist.

hurricane A tropical cyclone that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and has winds of 119 kilometers (74 miles) per hour or greater. When such a storm occurs in the Pacific Ocean, people refer to it as a typhoon.

lift An upward force on an object. It may occur when an object (such as a balloon) is filled with a gas that weighs less than air; it can also result when a low-pressure area occurs above an object (such as an airplane wing).

liquid A material that flows freely but keeps a constant volume, like water or oil.

meteorology (adj. meteorological) The study of weather as it pertains to future projects or an understanding of long-term trends (climate). People who work in this field are called meteorologists.

microwaves An electromagnetic wave with a wavelength shorter than that of normal radio waves but longer than those of infrared radiation (heat) and of visible light.

model A simulation of a real-world event (usually using a computer) that has been developed to predict one or more likely outcomes.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA Created in 1958, this U.S. agency has become a leader in space research and in stimulating public interest in space exploration. It was through NASA that the United States sent people into orbit and ultimately to the moon. It has also sent research craft to study planets and other celestial objects in our solar system.

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA A science agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Initially established in 1807 under another name (The Survey of the Coast), this agency focuses on understanding and preserving ocean resources, including fisheries, protecting marine mammals (from seals to whales), studying the seafloor and probing the upper atmosphere.

nuclear power Energy derived from processes that produce heat by splitting apart the nuclei of atoms (fission) or forcing atomic nuclei to merge (fusion). A nuclear power plant uses that heat to drive turbines that create electricity.

physics The scientific study of the nature and properties of matter and energy. Classical physics is an explanation of the nature and properties of matter and energy that relies on descriptions such as Newton's laws of motion. Quantum physics, a field of study which emerged later, is a more accurate way of explaining the motions and behavior of matter. A scientist who works in that field is known as a physicist .

power plant An industrial facility for generating electricity.

precipitation (in meteorology) A term for water falling from the sky. It can be in any form, from rain and sleet to snow or hail.

radar A system for calculating the position, distance or other important characteristic of a distant object. It works by sending out periodic radio waves that bounce off of the object and then measuring how long it takes that bounced signal to return. Radar can detect moving objects, like airplanes. It also can be used to map the shape of land - even land covered by ice.

radiation (in physics) One of the three major ways that energy is transferred. (The other two are conduction and convection.) In radiation, electromagnetic waves carry energy from one place to another. Unlike conduction and convection, which need material to help transfer the energy, radiation can transfer energy across empty space.

reservoir A large store of something. Lakes are reservoirs that hold water. People who study infections refer to the environment in which germs can survive safely (such as the bodies of birds or pigs) as living reservoirs.

risk The chance or mathematical likelihood that some bad thing might happen. For instance, exposure to radiation poses a risk of cancer. Or the hazard - or peril - itself. Among cancer risks that the people faced were radiation and drinking water tainted with arsenic.

runoff The water that runs off of land into rivers, lakes and the seas. As that water travels over land, it picks up bits of soil and chemicals that it will later deposit as pollutants in the water.

satellite A moon orbiting a planet or a vehicle or other manufactured object that orbits some celestial body in space.

sensor A device that picks up information on physical or chemical conditions - such as temperature, barometric pressure, salinity, humidity, pH, light intensity or radiation - and stores or broadcasts that information. Scientists and engineers often rely on sensors to inform them of conditions that may change over time or that exist far from where a researcher can measure them directly.

simulate (in computing) To try and imitate the conditions, functions or appearance of something. Computer programs that do this are referred to as simulations.

tornado A violently rotating column of air extending from the ground to a thunderstorm above.

tsunami One or many long, high sea waves caused by an earthquake, submarine landslide or other disturbance.

U.S. Geological Survey, or USGS This is the largest nonmilitary U.S. agency charged with mapping water, Earth and biological resources. It collects information to help monitor the health of ecosystems, natural resources and natural hazards. It also studies the impacts of climate and land-use changes. A part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, USGS is headquartered in Reston, Va.

urban Of or related to cities, especially densely populated ones or regions where lots of traffic and industrial activity occurs. The development or buildup of urban areas is a phenomenon known as urbanization.

variable (in mathematics) A letter used in a mathematical expression that may take on different values. (in experiments) A factor that can be changed, especially one allowed to change in a scientific experiment. For instance, when researchers measure how much insecticide it might take to kill a fly, they might change the dose or the age at which the insect is exposed. Both the dose and age would be variables in this experiment.

water vapor Water in its gaseous state, capable of being suspended in the air.

wavelength The distance between one peak and the next in a series of waves, or the distance between one trough and the next. Visible light - which, like all electromagnetic radiation, travels in waves - includes wavelengths between about 380 nanometers (violet) and about 740 nanometers (red). Radiation with wavelengths shorter than visible light includes gamma rays, X-rays and ultraviolet light. Longer-wavelength radiation includes infrared light, microwaves and radio waves.

weather Conditions in the atmosphere at a localized place and a particular time. It is usually described in terms of particular features, such as air pressure, humidity, moisture, any precipitation (rain, snow or ice), temperature and wind speed. Weather constitutes the actual conditions that occur at any time and place. It's different from climate, which is a description of the conditions that tend to occur in some general region during a particular month or season.

Citations

Journal: G. Carbin et al. Visualizing long-range severe thunderstorm environment guidance from CFSv2. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Published online, Nov. 11, 2015. doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00136.1.

Journal: D. Kirschbaum et al. Spatial and temporal analysis of a global landslide catalog. Geomorphology, Vol. 249, November 2015, p. 4. doi: 10.1002/we.1810.

Journal: D. Kirschbaum et al. Modeling landslide susceptibility over large regions with fuzzy overlay. Landslides. April 21, 2015, p. 1. doi: doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2015.03.016.

Journal: C. Kidd et al. So how much of Earth's surface is covered by rain gauges? European Geosciences Union, General Assembly, April 27 - May 2, 2014. doi: 10.2514/6.2015-0022.

Journal: J. O'Connor et al. Assessing inundation hazards to nuclear powerplant sites using geologically extended histories of riverine floods, tsunamis, and storm surges. U.S. Geological Survey, Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5207. 2014.

Video: NASA Science Visualization Studio. " IMERG Rainfall over the United States for December 2015." January 14, 2016.

Website: NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission.

Questions for "Cool Jobs: Wet and wild weather"

Word Find ( click here)

Kathiann Kowalski reports on all sorts of cutting-edge science. Previously, she practiced law with a large firm. Kathi enjoys hiking, sewing and reading. She also enjoys travel, especially family adventures and beach trips.

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Weather forecasting can't prevent severe weather. It can, however, spot when storms are on the way. The more accurate those forecasts can be, the better. Then people can plan to avoid the worst consequences. For instance, when weather forecasters predicted several feet of snow in late January, my daughter Laura worried.

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By making their own clouds, scientists have figured out how some of the fattest water droplets form. And, they find, it's what's on the outside that matters.

Climate scientists need to understand how water droplets assemble into colossal clouds. That's the only way they can reproduce cloud formation in the computer programs that they use to model climate change. Right now, that's something that these computer models struggle with.

"A cloud model needs to capture the underlying chemistry correctly," says Kevin Wilson. "It appears that the current one does not."

Wilson is a physical chemist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. He was part of a team that did the new research. Tiny, carbon-containing molecules can coat the outside of a developing droplet, helping it grow. In fact, they showed , these carbon-based molecules can lead to droplets that are 50 percent wider than had been expected .

The water droplets are bigger because the carbon-containing (or organic) molecules decrease the water's surface tension. That allows more water molecules to condense out of the air, latching onto the droplet. And larger water droplets are more likely to form clouds, Wilson notes.

His team's findings appear in the March 25 Science.

The role of chemistry

The water droplets that make up clouds form around aerosols. These are tiny airborne particles onto which water vapor can condense. Sometimes, molecules from these aerosols also can mix into the water droplets. This may help them grow larger than those made of pure water.

Scientists had assumed that this mixing process controlled the size only of water droplets that form around organic (carbon-based) aerosols. Examples of such organic aerosols include pollution from burning fossil fuels or the smoke spewed by wildfires.

Wilson and his colleagues wanted to test that assumption. They filled a cylindrical tube that was about 1.2 meter (4 feet) tall with humid air. Then they dropped organic aerosols into it. As water condensed and formed droplets around the aerosols, the researchers used lasers to monitor the droplets' growth.

Aerosols that are used to prompt cloud growth are called "seed" particles. Like all aerosols, they're tiny. But these seed particles led to big droplets. Indeed, they were 40 to 60 percent bigger than researchers would have expected if the organic molecules had simply mixed into the water.

So the researchers started thinking about why this might be. Rather than mixing into the interior of the droplet, Wilson and his colleagues now think that the organic molecules collect on its surface. There, they change the interaction between the droplet and the surrounding air. They lower its surface tension, which makes it easier for more water to condense onto the outside of the growing droplet.

Bigger is better, Wilson says. That's because droplets need to reach a certain size to remain intact long enough to form clouds.

The new data show that surface tension can't be ignored, says Leo Donner. He is an atmospheric scientist. He works in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"This is important," Donner says, "for understanding the role of clouds in climate and how clouds can change as the composition of the atmosphere changes." This can help people forecast what to expect as climate changes. If scientists know how certain aerosols are linked to clouds, they might be able to figure out where and how clouds will form.

It will take time and lots of research to improve the computers that attempt to forecast how climate might change, Donner says. "This isn't the only piece of the problem, but it's an important piece."

Power Words

aerosol A group of tiny particles suspended in air or gas. Aerosols can be natural, such as fog or gas from volcanic eruptions, or artificial, such as smoke from burning fossil fuels.

atmosphere The envelope of gases surrounding Earth or another planet.

atmospheric physics This field of meteorology is related to climate science. People who work in this field, called atmospheric physicists, use computers and math to model the properties of Earth's atmosphere that drive weather and climate.

chemistry The field of science that deals with the composition, structure and properties of substances and how they interact with one another. Chemists use this knowledge to study unfamiliar substances, to reproduce large quantities of useful substances or to design and create new and useful substances. (about compounds) The term is used to refer to the recipe of a compound, the way it's produced or some of its properties.

climate The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

climate change Long-term, significant change in the climate of Earth. It can happen naturally or in response to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests.

cloud A mass of airborne water droplets and ice crystals that travel as a plume, usually high in Earth's atmosphere. Their movement is driven by winds.

computer model A program that runs on a computer that creates a model, or simulation, of a real-world feature, phenomenon or event.

computer program A set of instructions that a computer uses to perform some analysis or computation. The writing of these instructions is known as computer programming.

condense To change from a gas or a vapor into a liquid. This could occur, for instance, when water molecules in the air join together to become droplets of water.

fossil fuel Any fuel - such as coal, petroleum (crude oil) or natural gas - that has developed in the Earth over millions of years from the decayed remains of bacteria, plants or animals.

humidity A measure of the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. (Air with a lot of water vapor in it is known as humid.)

model A simulation of a real-world event (usually using a computer) that has been developed to predict one or more likely outcomes.

molecule An electrically neutral group of atoms that represents the smallest possible amount of a chemical compound. Molecules can be made of single types of atoms or of different types. For example, the oxygen in the air is made of two oxygen atoms (O ₂), but water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (H ₂ O).

nano A prefix indicating a billionth. In the metric system of measurements, it's often used as an abbreviation to refer to objects that are a billionth of a meter long or in diameter.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA A science agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Initially established in 1807 under another name (The Survey of the Coast), this agency focuses on understanding and preserving ocean resources, including fisheries, protecting marine mammals (from seals to whales), studying the seafloor and probing the upper atmosphere.

organic (in chemistry) An adjective that indicates something is carbon-containing; a term that relates to the chemicals that make up living organisms. (in agriculture) Farm products grown without the use of non-natural and potentially toxic chemicals, such as pesticides.

particle A minute amount of something.

physical chemistry The area of chemistry that uses the techniques and theories of physics to study chemical systems. A scientist who works in that field is known as a physical chemist.

simulate To deceive in some way by imitating the form or function of something. A simulated dietary fat, for instance, may deceive the mouth that it has tasted a real fat because it has the same feel on the tongue - without having any calories. A simulated sense of touch may fool the brain into thinking a finger has touched something even though a hand may no longer exists and has been replaced by a synthetic limb. (in computing) To try and imitate the conditions, functions or appearance of something. Computer programs that do this are referred to as simulations.

surface tension The surface film of a liquid caused by the strong bonds between the molecules in the surface layer.

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Particles in air help fatten clouds' water droplets

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By making their own clouds, scientists have figured out how some of the fattest water droplets form. And, they find, it's what's on the outside that matters. Climate scientists need to understand how water droplets assemble into colossal clouds. That's the only way they can reproduce cloud formation in the computer programs that they use to model climate change.

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The "little boy" of climate science is making a big splash.

El Niño, Spanish for "the boy," is a set of major weather changes that happens every few years. It's caused by unusually warm seawater in the eastern Pacific, off of South America. This year's El Niño began in March. And it could become a whopper. That's a July 9 assessment by the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agency predicts that this El Niño has a better than 90 percent chance of lasting through the Northern Hemisphere winter. It also has around an 80 percent chance of continuing on through next spring.

If it proves long-lasting, the 2015 El Niño will change weather around the world. It might cause droughts in the Western Pacific. It could also bring heaps of much-needed rain to California, which is experiencing a state-wide drought. On July 16, the Climate Prediction Center said Californians could expect above-average rainfall in some parts of the state from September through April 2016.

The ongoing El Niño has already reached "moderate" status. It has more than a 50 percent chance of becoming "strong" - the highest level, says Anthony Barnston. A climate scientist, he works at Columbia University in Palisades, N.Y.

With such a powerful start, this year's event might even prove a record setter. It could compete with the "super El Niños" of 1982 to 1983 and 1997 into 1998, says Kevin Trenberth. He's a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "As far as I can tell," he said of the El Niño, "it's currently as large as it's ever been for this time of year."

El Niño events happen about every three to five years. Changing wind patterns over the Pacific Ocean push a huge pool of warm seawater eastward toward the Americas. The warmth of this water shifts the flow of heat and moisture around the planet. El Niño years can change storm activity, causing stronger typhoons (hurricanes) in the Pacific and quieter hurricane seasons in the Atlantic. This year's El Niño is the first since 2010. (Events in 2012 and 2014 fizzled out before they could officially take off.)

The strongest effects from El Niño usually hit each hemisphere in its winter. Countries in the Southern Hemisphere, such as Brazil and Australia, already have seen less rainfall thanks to the current El Niño. The drama will shift northward over the coming months. This might cause droughts in India and southeastern Asia. In the United States, the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes and Pacific Northwest all will probably be drier than normal. And more rain than usual will probably fall on the western Gulf Coast and Southern California.

David Simeral, Western Reg. Climate Ctr.

Extra rainfall might seem like a good thing to Californians. Their state's drought is one of the worst on record. But El Niño's rains still might not be enough to quench the dry spell, says Brad Pugh. He's a meteorologist at the Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Md. "It'll likely take more than one wet season to overcome a drought that dates back four years," he says.

And even with a strong El Niño, there is no guarantee California will see increased rains, notes Michelle L'Heureux. She's a climate scientist at that Climate Prediction Center. During the strong 1965 to 1966 El Niño, she points out, less rain than average fell across that state.

Whatever happens in California, El Niño's impacts might still be felt worldwide. The extra heat released into the atmosphere from the Pacific Ocean can spike global average temperatures, says Tom DiLiberto. He's a meteorologist at the Climate Prediction Center. If El Niño keeps getting stronger - as it's expected to - both 2015 and 2016 could easily end up among the hottest years on record, he says. And in future decades, climate change could make strong El Niño events more frequent, bringing extra warmth with them.

Power Words

climate The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

climate change Long-term, significant change in the climate of Earth. It can happen naturally or in response to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests.

drought An extended period of abnormally low rainfall; a shortage of water resulting from this.

El Niño Extended periods when the surface water around the equator in the eastern and central Pacific warms. Scientists declare the arrival of an El Niño when that water warms by at least 0.4 degree Celsius (0.72 degree Fahrenheit) above average for five or more months in a row. El Niños can bring heavy rainfall and flooding to the West Coast of South America. Meanwhile, Australia and Southeast Asia may face a drought and high risk of wildfires. In North America, scientists have linked the arrival of El Niños to unusual weather events - including ice storms, droughts and mudslides.

Great Lakes A system of five interconnected lakes - Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario - the Great Lakes constitute the largest freshwater source in the world (based on surface area). They hold an estimated 6 quadrillion gallons of water, or about a fifth of the world's fresh surface water. To give some perspective on that amount, the lakes' water would, if spread evenly, cover the 48 touching U.S. states to a depth of about 2.9 meters (9.5 feet) deep.

hurricane A tropical cyclone that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and has winds of 119 kilometers (74 miles) per hour or greater. When such a storm occurs in the Pacific Ocean, people refer to it as a typhoon.

meteorologist Someone who studies weather and climate events.

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA A science agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Initially established in 1807 under another name (The Survey of the Coast), this agency focuses on understanding and preserving ocean resources, including fisheries, protecting marine mammals (from seals to whales), studying the seafloor and probing the upper atmosphere.

typhoon A tropical cyclone that occurs in the Pacific or Indian oceans and has winds of 119 kilometers (74 miles) per hour or greater. In the Atlantic Ocean, such storm are referred to as hurricanes.

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The "little boy" of climate science is making a big splash. El Niño, Spanish for "the boy," is a set of major weather changes that happens every few years. It's caused by unusually warm seawater in the eastern Pacific, off of South America. This year's El Niño began in March.

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Explainer: How scientists know Earth is warming

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Scientists can calculate global temperatures, both present and past. Their findings show that the planet is rapidly heating up.

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Where did Earth’s water come from? - Zachary Metz

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Skip to primary content Our Climate Our Future is an award-winning, interactive climate education resource that brings climate change and solutions to life. Visit Our Climate Our Future The ACE Youth Action Network is made of 300,000 young people taking action in all 50 states.

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In the video below from Mediaite, former Vice President Al Gore suggests that people today need to "win the conversation" against skeptics of climate change in the same way people stood up to racist comments during the civil rights movement.

Speaking with Climate Reality Project 's Alex Bogusky, Gore argues that in some places, even the words "climate change" have become politically incorrect.

Bogusky explains that it is often difficult to stand up to climate change deniers, but Gore says, "it is no more difficult than it was for Southerners to talk about the evils of racism."

Gore agrees that explaining the science beyond climate change may be more difficult than confronting racism, but says the moral component is the same.

In the same interview, Gore takes on comments by Texas Governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry, who has been an outspoken critic of climate change scientists. Perry recently said he believes there are "a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects."

Gore explains that scientists have previously overturned accepted views, so there's a "natural respect" for a contrarian impulse in the scientific community. But he argues that comments by Perry and others are totally different. He says, "This is an organized effort to attack the reputation of the scientific community as a whole. To attack their integrity, and to slander them with the lie that they are making up the science in order to make money."

Gore says members of the scientific community did not enter their profession to make money. Nor did they expect to be regularly defending themselves from political attack.

Out of fear of the public supporting "the scientific reality," Gore contends that:

Powerful polluters ... see it as a useful strategy to try to convince the public that the scientists are liars and that they're greedy and they're making stuff up. All in the service of their overarching strategy of creating enough doubt to persuade people that there shouldn't be any sense of urgency about addressing this crisis.

Not all of the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination are as unconvinced of climate change as Perry, however. Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman tweeted several weeks ago that he "trust[s] scientists on global warming."

The Huffington Post's Lynne Peeples reported that, according to some scientists, Hurricane Irene might be part of a growing trend of extreme weather events that are linked to climate change.

Over the past two weeks, hundreds of people have been arrested in front of the White House for protesting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. According to Tar Sands Action leader Bill McKibben, it is expected to be "the largest collective act of civil disobedience in the history of the climate movement."

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Al Gore: People Should Stand Up To Climate Skeptics The Way We Stood Up To Racists

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In the video below from Mediaite, former Vice President Al Gore suggests that people today need to "win the conversation" against skeptics of climate change in the same way people stood up to racist comments during the civil rights movement.

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The MY NASA DATA Live Access Server contains a number of parameters of the Earth's Radiation Budget. The schematic at the right shows where these parameters fit into the bigger picture of the Earth system. The information below further explains these various parameters, which are marked in bold in the text below.

See a NASA Fact Sheet on this topic.
View Earth's Energy Budget (graphic courtesy Loeb et al., 2009).
Location

There are two main locations where we measure the radiation budget:

at the surface (SFC; using surface instrumentation or satellite techniques)

at the top of the atmosphere (TOA; using satellites).

In theory one could also measure the radiation flow at any level between those two, but it's not so easy to do in practice. Also, the meaning of TOA depends on what you are measuring. For Earth radiation, the best value for the TOA is 20 km, which corresponds to the absorption cross-section of the Earth-atmosphere system (i.e., sunlight that is captured by the Earth and its atmosphere).

Direction

There are two important directions when dealing with the Earth's radiation budget. Energy can either be

incoming (Down)

or outgoing (Up).

Of course energy goes sideways as well, but that has no effect on the Earth's radiation budget since it does not change the amount of energy in the Earth system.

The NET energy added to the Earth system is simply: NET = incoming - outgoing = Down - Up.

Basics

Everything emits electromagnetic radiation, according to its temperature. The graph shows examples for three objects with widely different temperatures (given in degrees Kelvin [K = C + 273.15]). Note that hotter objects emit more energy than cooler objects at every wavelength, and that the hotter objects emit most of their energy at shorter wavelengths than do cooler objects. The peak of the Sun's energy emission is in the wavelengths of visible light (denoted by the rainbow colors in the graph), although it emits other types of energy (like ultraviolet [UV] and infrared [IR]) also. In comparison, the Earth emits orders of magnitude less radiation, and that radiation peaks in the infrared.

A Bit About Units

The units for this energy emission start with the familiar unit Watts, which is used to identify the brightness of light bulbs. However, the units here are more complicated, as they identify Watts PER square meter, PER micron, PER steradian (sr). Decoding this, it means the number of Watts reaching a square meter of area (m2), which depends on the wavelength (measured in microns), and is spread over a solid angle (measured in steradians). A solid angle is an angle measured in 3D space. The Sun emits in all directions, which means its energy is spread over 4π steradians. Only a small amount of the Sun's energy emission reaches the Earth. Most of it goes off into space in other directions.

The Sun is also very far from the Earth (about 150 million km). So, by the time the Sun's emitted energy reaches the Earth, it is spread over a very large area (a sphere with a radius 216 times larger than the radius of the Sun itself), thus reducing the intensity of energy that Earth receives.

Energy at the Earth

The figure at right compares the emission from the Earth with the amount of solar energy that reaches the top of the Earth's atmosphere. ( The amount of energy from the Sun that actually reaches the Earth's surface is smaller still, and has some very definite spectral features due to absorption and scattering that occur at specific wavelengths in the atmosphere. See a picture. In particular, most of the UV radiation is absorbed in the ozone layer, protecting living things from these harmful rays.) Notice that now, the emission from the Earth is larger than the energy received from the Sun, for wavelengths longer than about 5 microns (a micron is 1.e-6 meters, or one thousandth of a meter). The exact cross-over point depends on the Earth's emission temperature. The average surface temperature is a bit warmer than the emission temperature shown in this graph, so the cross-over point for surface emission occurs at a shorter wavelength. This slightly fuzzy cross-over point is used to define two principal wavelength ranges:

shortwave (SW) radiation and

longwave (LW) radiation.

Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) (wavelengths between 0.4 and 0.7 microns) is a subset of the solar radiation that is important for photosynthetic activity in plants.

The combination of SW and LW radiation covers the whole spectrum and is sometimes called the total ( TOT) radiation.

Time Interval

The components of the radiation budget change with time. It is not really practical to keep an infinitely detailed, second by second, record. We typically have information averaged over time periods such as

hourly,

daily,

monthly,

seasonal,

annual averages or

climatology: an average over several years.

The numbers in the radiation budget diagram at the top of the page are climatological values.
Most of the parameters in the LAS are for monthly or longer time periods, with a few parameters available at a daily time scale. Given monthly information, you can create seasonal, annual or longer averages.

Sky Condition

The Earth's radiation budget is determined by the amount of energy that actually enters and leaves the Earth, under the sky conditions that actually exist. Clouds have the most influence on what the upward and downward energy actually is. In the shortwave, clouds reflect sunlight. In the longwave, clouds effectively trap infrared energy. To help study and understand how clouds affect the radiation budget, we therefore look at radiation budget parameters under two different sky conditions:

All-sky is the term for the actual observed conditions, including clear or cloudy skies wherever they occur.

Clear-sky parameters are obtained by taking all observations for a month, discarding any where clouds were present, and computing average conditions for cases of clear sky.

Clear-sky parameters therefore allow you to see more clearly the effects of the Sun's location, and of the Earth's surface (i.e., land vs ocean).

Parameters

Important parameters of the Earth's radiation budget include:

Flux: can be SW, LW, or total (TOT=SW+LW); can be Up or Down.

Albedo: Albedo is defined for SW radiation. It tells what fraction of the incoming (Down) radiation is reflected (Up). The albedo of the surface (SFC) is NOT the same as the albedo at the TOA, due to the effects of clouds, the atmosphere, and aerosols.

Net radiation: This gives the amount of energy actually added to the system. It is easy to calculate:
NET = Energy in - Energy out

But there are multiple kinds of net radiation, both at TOA and at the surface:

SW_NET = SW_Down - SW_Up.

LW_NET = LW_Down - LW_Up.

TOT_NET = SW_NET + LW_NET = SW_Down - SW_Up + LW_Down - LW_Up

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Radiation & Energy Transfer - MY NASA DATA

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Click here for a print quality PDF version of the radiation parameters diagram The MY NASA DATA Live Access Server contains a number of parameters of the Earth's Radiation Budget. The schematic at the right shows where these parameters fit into the bigger picture of the Earth system.

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Climate Change Questions and Answers by NASA

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Climate Change Questions and Answers by NASA

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When it comes to climate change, the questions people have are limitless.
Some of these questions are scientific, some are economic, some are
political, and some are moral. Some questions have answers today,
and some won't be answerable for decades.

In this column, the Earth Observatory offer answers to some of the
questions people ask us about the science of global warming and climate
change. We have also included some questions and answers about climate
science topics that people often misunderstand. All posts are written or
reviewed by Earth and climate scientists.

We choose questions based on several factors, including how frequently
we receive them, how relevant they are to NASA Earth science research,
and how unique they are. We don't intend for this column to provide a
comprehensive picture of climate science; for a complete review of
global warming and climate change, please see our
Global Warming Factsheet.

Browse all questions

1. Are the ozone hole and global warming related?

2. What can we do about global warming?

3. What if global warming isn't as severe as predicted?

4. Why is global warming a problem?

5. Has the Sun been more active in recent decades, and could it be responsible for some global warming?

6. If Earth has warmed and cooled throughout history, what makes scientists think that humans are causing global warming now?

7. How do scientists know that Mauna Loa's volcanic emissions don't affect the carbon dioxide data collected there?

8. Do satellite observations of atmospheric temperatures agree with surface-based observations and model predictions?

9. What does NASA have to do with global warming?

10. Are there natural processes that can amplify or limit global warming?

11. If we immediately stopped emitting greenhouses gases, would global warming stop?

12. If we stabilized greenhouse gas emissions at today's rates, would global warming stop?

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When it comes to climate change, the questions people have are limitless. Some of these questions are scientific, some are economic, some are political, and some are moral. Some questions have answers today, and some won't be answerable for decades.

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Oregon's climate varies widely from eastern to western regions of the state. On the western side, temperatures are generally mild due to the Pacific Ocean's moderating effect. The Pacific Ocean also provides abundant moisture, causing frequent precipitation west of the Cascade Mountains from October to May. Temperatures in the central and eastern portions of the state exhibit a greater annual and diurnal range. The Cascades block the flow of moisture and as a result it is much drier east of the Cascades. Oregon seldom experiences severe thunderstorms, compared to other states in the nation.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, temperatures have risen approximately 2°F, and temperatures in the 1990s and 2000s have been higher than any other historical period (Figure 1). The year 2014 was the 3rd warmest and 2015 was the warmest year since records began in 1895 (1934 was the 2nd warmest). During the period of 2005-2009, the state experienced the largest number of extremely hot days (days with maximum temperature above 100°F) in the historical record (Figure 2). In addition to the overall trend of higher average temperatures, the state has experienced below average numbers of very cold nights (days with minimum temperature below 0°F) over the past two decades (Figure 3). The number of days below freezing was lowest during 2000-2004, but has been near average during the last 10 years (Figure 4a). The state rarely experiences warm nights (days with minimum temperature above 70°F) due to the moderating effects of the Pacific Ocean in the west and the low humidity in the east (Figure 4b). Minimum temperatures are increasing at a faster rate than daytime maximums, however, with the summer of 2015 experiencing the warmest minimum temperatures on record.

Regional precipitation varies widely across the state and from year to year, with areas west of the Cascades also experiencing a large variation in rainfall amounts between seasons. Portions of the Coast Range receive in excess of 100 inches of precipitation annually, while some of the desert areas in the eastern part of the state receive less than 10 inches. Statewide annual precipitation has ranged from a low of about 22 inches in 1930 to a high of about 49 inches in 1996, and precipitation can fluctuate greatly between years. When averaged over 5-year periods, precipitation has ranged from 26.2 inches annually during the driest period on record (1928-1932) to 39.5 inches during the wettest period on record (1995-1999) (Figure 4c). Long-term periods of wet and dry spells can have critical impacts on water supplies.

Unlike many areas of the United States, Oregon has not experienced an upward trend in the frequency of extreme precipitation events (Figure 4d). The number of heavy rain events (more than 2 inches of precipitation) has been highly variable over the historical record (since 1900). The past two decades have included the 5-year periods with the highest frequency of extreme rain events (1995-1999) and the lowest frequency (2000-2004).

Under a higher emissions pathway, historically unprecedented warming is projected by the end of the 21st century (Figure 1). Even under a pathway of lower greenhouse gas emissions, average annual temperatures are projected to most likely exceed historical record levels by the middle of the 21st century. However, there is a large range of temperature increases under both pathways and under the lower pathway a few projections are only slightly warmer than historical records (Figure 1).

Projected rising temperatures will increase the average lowest elevation at which snow falls (the snow line, or snow level) by about 300 feet per degree of warming. This will increase the likelihood that precipitation will fall as rain instead of snow, reducing water storage in the snowpack, particularly at lower elevations which are now on the margins of reliable snowpack accumulation. Since most of Oregon's precipitation falls during the winter months,the snowpack at higher elevations is an important source of water during the drier summer months (Figure 5). Higher spring temperatures will also result in earlier melting of the snowpack, further decreasing water availability for critical sectors such as agriculture and recreation.

Although projections of overall annual precipitation are uncertain, winter precipitation is projected to increase (Figure 6) while summer precipitation is projected to decrease. When combined with increasing temperatures leading to a higher proportion of precipitation falling as rain, water available during the dry season from snowmelt is projected to decrease and pose challenges for water management. These changes are of particular concern for areas that rely on hydroelectric power, and for regions that depend on the availability of irrigation water from snowmelt-fed basins. For example, the 2015 snow drought caused hundreds of million dollars in crop losses, as well as negatively impacting local fish populations.

Wildfires are also of particular concern for the state, and have become more severe and costly in recent years. The Long Draw fire in 2012 was the state's largest wildfire since the 1860s, burning over half a million acres in southeastern Oregon. Drier summers, along with higher temperatures and earlier melting of the snowpack, are projected to lead to an increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires.

Increasing temperatures raise concerns for sea level rise in coastal areas. Since 1880, global sea level has risen by about 8 inches. It is projected to rise another one to four feet by 2100 as a result of both past and future emissions due to human activities (Figure 7). Due to the movement of tectonic plates on the ocean floors, the Oregon coast is rising, a phenomenon known as "uplift." In some parts of the Oregon coast, the uplift is exceeding the rate of sea level rise; consequently, sea level has dropped in these locations. However, the rate of sea level rise is projected to exceed the rate of uplift along the entire Oregon coast by the mid-21st century, resulting in sea level rise for all locations.

Nuisance floods are events in which water levels exceed the local threshold (set by NOAA's National Weather Service) for minor impacts. These events can damage infrastructure, cause road closures, and overwhelm storm drains. Nuisance flooding events in Oregon are likely to occur more frequently as global and local sea levels continue to rise.

Lead Authors:

Rebekah Frankson, Kenneth E. Kunkel

Contributing Authors:

Sarah Champion, Laura Stevens, David Easterling, Kathie Dello, Meghan Dalton, Darrin Sharp

Recommended Citation:

Frankson, R., K. Kunkel, S. Champion, L. Stevens, D. Easterling, K. Dello, M. Dalton, and D. Sharp, 2017: Oregon State Climate Summary. NOAA Technical Report NESDIS 149-OR, 4 pp.

Resources

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Oregon's climate varies widely from eastern to western regions of the state. On the western side, temperatures are generally mild due to the Pacific Ocean's moderating effect. The Pacific Ocean also provides abundant moisture, causing frequent precipitation west of the Cascade Mountains from October to May.