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Days after a wildfire, a type of smoke can linger in the atmosphere that contains tiny, brown, light-absorbing particles known as tar balls. These particles are believed to have a significant impact on Earth’s radiative balance,

radiative balance

Radiation Balance is the energy balance between incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing energy from the Earth.

Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Source

and as a result, a role in both the warming and cooling of the atmosphere. The formation of these tar balls is not yet well-known, which makes studying their impact on the environment quite difficult, said Claudio Mazzoleni, a physics professor at Michigan Technological University.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) instructors were looking for some fresh ideas to make their operational technology assurance (OTA) course, sponsored by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), more realistic for attendees. Fortunately, through a partnership with Washington State University (WSU), engineering students delivered an imaginative and cost-effective solution.

Researchers know that urbanization

urbanization

Concentrations of human populations into discrete areas. This concentration leads to the transformation of land for residential, commercial, industrial and transportation purposes.

Source: EPA Environmental Protection Agency Source

has noticeable effects on processes at and near the Earth’s surface. This affects the weather and climate in ways that have consequences for rapidly growing urban populations. The scientific literature focusing on urbanization and its effects is vast and has contributions from many fields. An international collaboration of scientists reviewed the scientific literature on the various effects of urbanization on extreme weather and regional climate.

Understanding the effects of global warming on regional precipitation is an important challenge. The midwestern United States currently receives abundant rainfall. However, climate models are uncertain about projections of future changes in Midwest rainy season rainfall. This study revealed the critical role of a poleward jet shift in driving seasonally dependent changes in precipitation in the U.S. Midwest.

Sea ice is an important component of the Earth’s climate system. To understand sea ice, scientists need numerical models of how sea ice moves and how it transfers heat and energy. One of the popular sea ice models, CICE,

CICE

A computationally efficient model for simulating the growth, melting, and movement of polar sea ice.

Source: EESM Source

uses a quadrilateral structured mesh. This is a way to represent ice using four-sided shapes. Researchers recently adapted the sea ice dynamics formulation of CICE from a regular structured quadrilateral mesh to more complex, freeform unstructured meshes.

During the summer months, sea- and bay-breeze circulations from the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay are an important driver of the weather in southeastern Texas. Studying climate from the perspective of circulations is called synoptic climatology. These circulations, in conjunction with those from larger-scale weather systems, affect the flow of moisture and aerosol

aerosols

Small particles or droplets, such as wildfire smoke, volcanic gases, or salty sea spray, that float in the air. They are emitted by both natural events and human activities.

Source: NASA Global Climate Change Source

particles into the Houston region.

Soils in northern freshwater wetlands,

wetland

An area of land that is periodically saturated with water, which influences the types of plants and animals that can live there. Wetlands include swamps, marshes, bogs, and other similar areas.

Source: A student's guide to Global Climate Change Source

called peatlands,

peatland

Located within a terrestrial wetland environment where plant material cannot entirely decompose due to the presence of water.

Source: International Peatland Society Source

are cold, water-saturated, and acidic. These conditions slow microbes’

microbe

Microbes are tiny living things that are found all around us and are too small to be seen by the naked eye. They live in water, soil, and in the air.

Source: NIH Source

decomposition of organic matter into greenhouse gases. This process stores carbon in the soil. Researchers use the Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments (SPRUCE) experiment to warm air and soil in a northern Minnesota bog to simulate the effects of climate change

climate change

A change in the average conditions — such as temperature and rainfall — in a region over a long period of time.

Source: NASA Climate Kids Source

on the carbon cycle.

carbon cycle

The movement and exchange of carbon through living organisms, the ocean, the atmosphere, rocks and minerals, and other parts of the Earth.

Source: a student's guide to Global Climate Change Source

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility seeks to provide high-quality radar observations to scientists worldwide. Because ARM radars are distributed worldwide, their maintenance, operations, and management require a substantial staffing commitment. However, existing staffing resources are limited. As a result, ARM develops priorities each fiscal year to make sure its radar engineering and data teams are working on activities that will have the biggest benefit and impact to the scientific community.

If “Seinfeld” is a show about nothing, the annual fall conference of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a show about everything. Packed with about 25,000 attendees, the 2023 AGU Fall Meeting (AGU23) in San Francisco, California, enabled thousands of encounters at town halls, plenaries, oral presentations, poster sessions, and ad hoc parties.

The 104th American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting will take place from January 28 to February 1, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland and online. The meeting’s theme this year is “Living in a Changing Environment.” During the meeting, be sure to follow the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook for a real-time guide to relevant activities.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, under the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, released a funding opportunity announcement, DE-FOA-0003266, for $15 million to support the advancement of data reduction

data reduction

Data reduction involves techniques such as simplifying large sets of complex climate data into more manageable and meaningful information. 

Source: Source

for science. This research will explore potentially high-impact approaches to develop and use data reduction techniques and algorithms to facilitate more efficient analysis and use of massive data sets produced by observations, experiments, and simulation.

Researchers from Leipzig University in Germany traveled all the way to central Colorado to participate in an important measurement campaign aimed at better understanding snowfall formation. From the data, they plan to study the processes of riming, in which small droplets of water freeze on ice crystals and increase the mass of snow, and secondary ice production (SIP), which is triggered when ice crystal fragments break off during riming and form new snow particles.