According to a new study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the United States and many other heavily populated countries could face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades, as a result of warming temperatures associated with climate change (notice how I didn't say global warming!). These warming temperatures will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.
The study, which is highlighted in an article in "Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change," indicates that most at risk would be the Western Hemisphere, along with large parts of Eurasia, Africa, and Australia, while higher-latitude regions from Alaska to Scandinavia are likely to experience opposite conditions.
An expert working on the study noted that if the projections come even close to being realized, the consequences for society worldwide will be enormous as some of the worst impact we face will involve a decrease in water as a natural resource.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research's (NCAR) new Community Earth System Model (CESM) is now able to study climate change in far more detail, and it will soon be employed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess the state of so called "global warming."
One of about a dozen climate models worldwide that can be used to simulate the many components of Earth's climate system, CESM should help answer some critical questions regarding the state of the climate, including:
What impact will warming temperatures have on the massive ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica?
How will patterns in the ocean and atmosphere affect regional climate in coming decades?
How will climate change influence the severity and frequency of tropical cyclones, including hurricanes?
What are the effects of tiny airborne particles, known as aerosols, on clouds and temperatures?
So how does it work?
The CESM builds on the original Community Climate System Model and enables scientists to gain a broader picture of Earth's climate system by incorporating more influences. Using the CESM, researchers can now:
Simulate the interaction of marine ecosystems with greenhouse gases
Assess the climatic influence of ozone, dust, and other atmospheric chemicals
Gain a better understanding of the cycling of carbon through the atmosphere, oceans, and land surfaces
Review the influence of greenhouse gases on the upper atmosphere
Pursue a much wider variety of applications, including studies of air quality and biogeochemical feedback mechanisms
Hurricane formation and movement is now largely tracked by satellites, but a new project set to launch on August 15 hopes to change that!
The project is called PREDICT and stands for the Pre-Depression Investigation of Cloud Systems in the Tropics, and is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with support from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). PREDICT will run for 45 days through September 30 and it is going to study why some tropical thunderstorms grow into the often-deadly hurricanes while many others dissipate.
Flying aboard Gulfstream aircraft, PREDICT researchers will make observations from close proximity, and above, storm systems. In addition to deploying dropsondes – parachute-borne instrument packages, the researchers will use remote sensing and cloud physics instruments to gather data on temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and characteristics of ice particles and their nuclei, which may include African dust.
PREDICT will coordinate its effort with two additional concurrent, but independent, missions in the region – one organized by NASA and one run by NOAA. While all three projects have independent objectives, scientists hope that the collective data will paint a more complete picture of a hurricane's life cycle.
Want to learn more? Check out this great video that explains the PREDICT concept from an experts point of view!
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According to a new study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the United States and many other heavily populated countries could face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades, as a result of warming temperatures associated with climate change (notice how I didn't say global warming!). These warming temperatures will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.
