Since the early 1990s, annual atmospheric equivalent black carbon concentrations in the Arctic have decreased at the surface by as much as 55 percent—one of the few "good news" stories coming out of the region.
The most likely explanation for the lack of significant warming at the Earth’s surface in the past decade or so is that natural climate cycles caused shifts in ocean circulation patterns that moved some excess heat into the deep ocean.
At various locations on New Jersey's Barnegat Bay Island, Norb Psuty talks with Climate.gov about how humans' desire for permanence on barrier islands is at odds with natural processes. But preserving or restoring key dune and beach features can help communities weather some storms.
Ron Stouffer and Gabriel Vecchi of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., share their experiences working on one of the most comprehensive scientific documents in history.
Maps of the thousands of storms that have passed through the Eastern Hemisphere tropical oceans in the past century or so reveal a more crowded landscape than similar maps of the Western Hemisphere. Unlike the Western Hemisphere, where storms are mostly confined to areas north of the equator, the Eastern Hemisphere sees storms in both north and south tropical waters.
Maps of changes in the saltiness of the surface waters of the ocean over time can reveal natural climate cycles, human-caused changes in evaporation and rainfall, and variation in the strength and location of currents. This map of changes in surface salinity between 2004 and 2012 provides clues to how climate variabiity and change have influenced the global water cycle in the past decade.
Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dorian, Erin... who’s next? Probably plenty more, according to NOAA’s updated Atlantic hurricane season outlook. With five named storms already in the books this summer, the 2013 hurricane season is shaping up to be above normal.
Observing temperature patterns in the lower stratosphere—second major layer of the atmosphere—gives scientists clues about our planet’s changing climate.