Published on Oct 30, 2013 A simple yet effective clip explaining hydroxyl creation in the Earth’s atmosphere, what they do as “nature’s broom” and the benefit of their existence. Related Wikipedia: Hydroxyl RadicalThe hydroxyl radical is often referred to as the “detergent” of the troposphere because it reacts with many pollutants, often acting as the first step to their…
NASA: A look at how the historic DaisyWorld model illustrates earth science concepts, such as albedo and feedback loops. This webshort was produced as an educational tie-in with the Science on a Sphere feature LOOP. The Albedo Effect Explained With The Daisyworld Model A look at how the historic DaisyWorld model illustrates earth science concepts,…
NOAA: The most common metric for tracking changes in Arctic sea ice over time is sea ice extent. Extent approximates the sea ice you would see from a bird’s-eye view, and it has been declining at a rate of more than 14 percent per decade since satellite measurements began in 1979. If you were to…
Repost from 2012: Kate Scow – Professor of Soil Science and Microbial Ecology, UC Davis setup an excellent wiki entry about flooding on soils. Flooded soils occur with complete water saturation of soil pores, and generally result in anoxic conditions of the soil environment. Flooded soil environments may include such ecosystem as: rice paddies; wetlands (swamps,…
Published on Feb 9, 2014 Heat stored in the western Pacific Ocean caused by an unprecedented strengthening of the equatorial trade winds appears to be largely responsible for the hiatus in surface warming observed over the past 13 years. New research published in the journal Nature Climate Change indicates that the dramatic acceleration in winds…
March 2013, Volume 36, Issue 2, pp 221-236 Read the full study @ http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12237-013-9594-3/fulltext.html | Abstract | PDF Carlos M. Duarte, Iris E. Hendriks, Tommy S. Moore, Ylva S. Olsen, Alexandra Steckbauer, Laura Ramajo, Jacob Carstensen, Julie A. Trotter, Malcolm McCulloch Abstract Ocean acidification due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions is a dominant driver of long-term changes in pH in the open ocean,…
This is a basic primer on the components of Earth’s climate and how and why they are important. It is aimed primarily at people who are relatively new to the subject and who wish to find out more. Reading a lot of media coverage (and associated comments) with respect to the recently-released IPCC’s AR5 Summary…
Monthly averages from January 1979 – 2014 (Jan). Data source via the Polar Science Center (University of Washington) URL. Data visualisation by Andy Lee Robinson. Arctic Death Spiral by Andy Lee Robinson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://haveland.com/share/arctic-death-spiral.png. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may…
Oceanic heat content (OHC) is the heat stored in the ocean. Oceanography and climatology are the science branches which study ocean heat content. The changes in the ocean heat play an important role in sea level rise, because of thermal expansion. It is with high confidence that Ocean warming accounts for 90% of the energy accumulation from global warming between 1971 and 2010. …
James Hansen explains Earth energy imbalance from anthropogenic forcing and the urgency to act, because of the climate inertia. Earth’s Energy Imbalance By James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha and Karina von Schuckmann — January 2012 Deployment of an international array of Argo floats, measuring ocean heat content to a depth of 2000 m,…
Video: Dr. Kevin Trenberth explains general climate sensitivity on Earth. Study: Climate sensitivity in the Anthropocene M. Previdi, B. G. Liepert, D. Peteet, J. Hansen, D. J. Beerling, A. J. Broccoli, S. Frolking, J. N. Galloway, M. Heimann, C. Le Quere, S. Levitus and V. Ramaswamy | Source Climate sensitivity in its most basic form is…
The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface and the lower atmosphere, it results in an elevation of the average surface temperature above what it would be…
