Much of the precipitation along the U.S. West Coast is delivered by phenomena known as “atmospheric rivers”—narrow bands of moist air that may extend for thousands of miles across regions outside of the tropics, and play a critical role in regional water supply and storm activity. Atmospheric-river events play a beneficial role in building up Western water supply and snowpack but are also the source of a large majority of floods in the region. Many uncertainties about key processes that affect storm development...
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Highlights
Since 1989, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) has submitted annual reports to Congress called Our Changing Planet. The reports describe the status of USGCRP research activities, provide progress updates, and document recent accomplishments
In particular, Our Changing Planet highlights progress and accomplishments in interagency activities. These highlights represent the broad spectrum of USGCRP activities that extend from Earth system observations, modeling, and fundamental research through synthesis and assessment, decision support, education, and public engagement. Highlights describe the state of science at the time of publication of each yearly report, and may not reflect more recent advances in understanding. The date of publication of the source report is noted on each highlight page.
Paleoclimate studies extend records of climate beyond the time period for which we have instrumental measurements. Such research not only answers questions about what Earth was like in the past, but also provides context for the climate changes that we are experiencing today and informs our understanding of how climate is likely to change in the future. In 2013, an international team of researchers published the most comprehensive reconstruction of past temperature changes ever generated at the continental scale.
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Pollution from the combustion of fossil fuels and wood has contributed to climate change in complex ways, with some pollutants causing cooling and others causing warming, accompanied by effects on patterns of atmospheric circulation and precipitation. To better understand these complex relationships, the Atmospheric Chemistry Climate Model Intercomparison Project, part of the international 5th-phase Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), conducted a series of pollution-focused modeling experiments to reveal spatial patterns, sectoral influences,
With the release of the Third National Climate Assessment (see related Highlight 9) came a spike in public demand for information about climate change, its impacts on America, and USGCRP. The Program met this press of interest with a new user-friendly, public-oriented website that launched concurrently with the report’s release. The site deploys the Third National Climate Assessment in an interactive, shareable format. It also provides a dynamic suite of resources and information spanning the breadth of USGCRP and serving user groups including scientists, decision
...Vision – A Nation,globally engaged and guided by science, meeting the challenges of climate and global change.
Mission – To build a knowledge base that informs human responses to climate and global change through coordinated and integrated Federal pro- grams of research, education, communication, and decision support.
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