Its construction now complete, the science instrument that is the heart of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) spacecraft -- NASA's first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide -- has left its nest at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and has arrived at its integration and test site in Gilbert, Ariz.
"The Arctic experienced an extended period of warm temperatures about 3.6 million years ago - before the onset of the ice ages - at a time when the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere was not much higher than the levels being recorded today, a new study finds."
Climate scientists have long argued that ancient air trapped in Antarctic ice is the smoking gun that links carbon dioxide to global warming. Over the past 800,000 years or so the planet has gone through a series of ice ages interspersed with relatively warm periods (during which glaciers retreat back toward the poles) - and inevitably, these warm interludes happen when there's more CO2 in the atmosphere
"Snowpit studies provide a vital link between the modern atmosphere and the climate history reconstructed from ice cores. This video documents one of the types of measurements made in snowpits and explains how snow sampling informs ice core studies".
CarbonTracker, a project of the U.S. government's National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory, has produced a telling time-lapse video chart of CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) concentrations starting in January of 1979 and ending in January of 2011. Measurements were taken in dozens of locations around the world (the red ball measures CO2 in Hawaii and the blue dot measures CO2 at the South Pole)
"Science: Methane Gas Release from Arctic Permafrost is Far Larger Than Expected
Ancient permafrost submerged in the Arctic Ocean is releasing methane gas into the atmosphere at rates comparable to previous estimates for all the world's oceans combined, researchers say. This underwater permafrost represents a large but previously overlooked source of methane, and experts say that similar but more widespread emissions of the gas could have dramatic effects on global warming in the future."
This site and document will help educators integrate the polar regions into their curricula. From the site: "The Earth Science Literacy Initiative (ESLI), funded by the National Science Foundation, has gathered and codified the underlying understandings of Earth sciences into a succinct document that will have broad-reaching applications in both public and private arenas. It establishes the "Big Ideas" and supporting concepts that all Americans should know about Earth sciences. The resulting Earth Science Literacy framework will also become part of the foundation, along with similar documents from the Oceans, Atmospheres and Climate communities, of a larger geoscience Earth Systems Literacy effort."
"Responding to the challenge of climate change requires understanding more about climate variability and the changes expected. Jim Kinter, director of the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA), explains how scientists there are using supercomputers to learn more about the interactions among earth's land, air and sea."
"Scientists at George Mason University's Center for Ocean-Land-Atmospheric Studies are working on more accurate climate predictions that will help us plan for the future"