Weather Service to Add Major Might to Computing Power
The NWS plans to use $25 million of the $48 million provided to it in the Sandy supplemental bill, along with funds that are called for in President Obama’s fiscal year 2014 budget proposal, to bring about "unprecedented" computing upgrades — going from an operational computing capacity of 213 peak teraflops at the end of the current fiscal year, t… Read More
The U.S.: A Nation Divided By Drought
What was once a coast-to-coast drought now divides the U.S. into two distinct pieces, pitting the water haves, in the Midwest, versus the have-nots, in the West. One of those regions is in for a long, hot, dry, and potentially smoky summer. (Hint: It's not the Midwest.)… Read More
As Oceans Warm, Fish Are Finding New ZIP Codes
The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, employs a novel index that creates a fish thermometer of sorts, teasing out evidence of population shifts from fishery catch records during the past four decades. The study is the first to detect climate change-related shifts in the range of fish species on a global scale. In doing so, it provid… Read More
Good News, Bad News from New EIA Emissions Analysis
There was good news and bad to be mined from a state-by-state analysis of carbon emissions over a decade, which was released this week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Overall, the EIA reported that between 2000 and 2010, 38 states saw an overall drop in their annual energy-related carbon emissions, but between 2009 and 2010, … Read More
Amid Rapid Arctic Warming, U.S. Releases New Strategy
With ministers from the eight Arctic states meeting this week in Kiruna, Sweden, for the 2013 ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council, the Obama administration has laid out a broad new U.S. Arctic policy that sets strategic goals for how the U.S. will cope with a rapidly changing Arctic region.… Read More
Six to See: Slideshow of This Week’s Top Climate News
Tracking wildfires, measuring hurricanes and how this wacky weather is effecting the U.S. … Read More
Carbon Dioxide Passes 400 PPM Milestone, NOAA Finds
Climate scientists recognize this 400 ppm mark as a symbolic milestone, illustrating the rapid increase of human-caused CO2 emissions over the past century. Numerous other climate data, gleaned from ice cores, ocean sediment, and other sources show that this is the highest CO2 concentration in the air in all of modern human history, possibly as far… Read More
Jet Stream Enhances Drought in West, Midwest Relief
A week of wild and unusual weather brought a combination of record cold, snow flurries, heavy rains and 90-degree heat to different parts of the U.S. As a result of this weather pattern, which was characterized by a topsy turvy jet stream that caused storm systems to inch across the country, drought shrank in some places and grew in others, but the… Read More
