CLIMATE SCIENCE: Heating the Poles

Smithsonian at the Poles Contributions to International Polar Year Science

Approximately four decades ago, scientists were fi rst able to enter the undersea polar environment to make biological observations for a nominal period of time. The conduct of underwater research in extreme environments requires special consideration of diving physiology, equipment design, diver training, and operational procedures, all of which enable this under-ice approach. Since those fi r...

Multiscale Impacts of Variable Heating in Climate

While it is obvious that the mean diabatic forcing of the atmosphere is crucial for maintaining the mean climate, the importance of diabatic forcing fluctuations is less evident in this regard. Such fluctuations do not appear directly in the equations of the mean climate but affect the mean indirectly through their effects on the time-mean transient-eddy fluxes of heat, momentum, and moisture. ...

Radiative Heating in Global Climate Models

Climate model dynamics are driven by external and internal forcing. The primary forces affecting the thermal field are long wave radiative (LWR) heating, short wave radiative (SWR) heating, and convection (cumulus, etc.). These forcing effects are cycled through the thermal field to the motion field by nonlinear transfer. The model dependent variables, in particular temperature (T), moisture (Q...

Uncertainty in climate science and climate policy

This essay, written by a statistician and a climate scientist, describes our view of the gap that exists between current practice in mainstream climate science, and the practical needs of policymakers charged with exploring possible interventions in the context of climate change. By ‘mainstream’ we mean the type of climate science that dominates in universities and research centres, which we wi...

Climate Change Science Compendium