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NASA, NOAA Step Up Climate Education
With opponents of U.S. climate action sowing doubt about science and climate scientists, federal agencies are putting the data online and explaining it in simple language to help the public understand.
NASA recently launched its latest site, “A Warming World,” with a series of videos, images and articles looking at the bigger picture of Earth’s warming trend. It’s part of NASA’s larger "Global Climate Change: NASA's Eyes on the Earth" site, which opens with a glance at the planet’s vital signs, clearly highlighting the reason for global concern:
Arctic sea ice: Down 11.2% per decade since measurements began in the 1970s
Sea level: Up 57 mm since 1993
Global temperature: Up 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880
Carbon dioxide: Up to 388 ppm from 325 ppm in the 1960s
The NASA sites join NOAA’s new climate.gov, which is filled with more graphs and articles explaining subjects from ocean acidification to changing monsoon patterns in Asia to how climate as a long-term measure differs from day-to-day weather.
The articles link to more in-depth material and data for readers to research the numbers. Some also explain how the raw data has been skewed for political purposes, such as singling out the hot El Nino year of 1998 as a benchmark to say global temperatures have been cooling over the past decade, when in fact the long-term numbers show a warming trend.
As Sen. Barbara Boxer put it in a recent congressional hearing: These are actual measurements that can’t be argued away by people opposed to greenhouse gas regulations.
Most of the data and scientific explanations were already available, but the new sites make them easier to access with less technical writing styles and more videos and graphs.
NOAA’s new Climate Service, which Administrator Jane Lubchenco hopes to have in place by October, will be responsible for sharing the government’s vast stores of data with the public.
"One of the reasons we created the NOAA Climate Service is to provide the kind of information that people are increasingly seeking," Lubchenco explained on NPR.
“Climate change is under way. It’s happening now. It is resulting in many changes that will affect the way people live and do business.
"The fact that we are getting more and more requests for information about droughts, about future heatwaves, about air quality, forest fires, sea-level rise inundating coasts and other phenomenon, tells us that a lot of people, while not completely sure what’s going on, are asking for information."
See also:
US Plans for Greenhouse Gas Regulations in 2011, Hopes for CCS
Utah House Passes Resolution Implying Climate Change Conspiracy
Skeptics Exaggerating Science Scandal to Derail Copenhagen Climate Talks
(Interactive version of bottom chart available at NASA's A Warming World)
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© InsideClimate News |
Government Sites Provide
Government Sites Provide Public with Data to Counter Disinformation Campaigns.
It should read "Government Sites Provide Disinformation to Counter Truth Campaigns".
Have these folks not received the data from Antarctic and Greenland ice cores that distinctly show that rises in atmospheric CO2 levels follow rises in atmospheric temperatures, not the other way around? How then can any atmospheric warming be caused by increases in atmospheric CO2? Water vapour is by far the most abundant greenhouse gas in our planet's atmosphere, not to mention one the most efficient. It has a more profound effect on climate that CO2 could ever hope to have. Are we going to start regulating H2O emissions now?
As for CO2 being classified as a pollutant by the EPA, every organism (including plants at night) produces CO2 and H2O as by products of the metabolic process. CO2 is beneficial to plant life, so much so, that since 1940, the amount of vegetation biomass has increased by 6%, worldwide. More CO2 means more plant growth, and plants also require less water when CO2 levels are higher! Why do you think greenhouse growers increase CO2 levels in their greenhouses.
Can we please scrap the anthropogenic climate change hoax and return to focusing on real environmental issues, please?
global temp up 1.5 degrees in a century!!!! cuppla questions
1) Why would you expect it to be the same?
2) Why was the 1880 temp ideal?
3) You really think you can lower the temp by 1.5 degrees? What if you actually lower it by 3 degrees? Wouldn' t that be a cooling crisis?
4) What's so bad about slightly warmer temps?
5) Have you ever read the Rainmaker? - about a con artist who claimed to be able to change the weather...
are you kidding me?
1. no one does. 2. record keeping doesn't go back any farther. 3. considering the damage done so far, an effort is worthwhile, don't ya think, or do you really not give a crap about future generations? 4. read a little about ecology and you'll figure that one out. 5. the con artists are the ones polluting our environment at no cost to themselves and massive costs to the rest of us -- and convincing folks like you that everything's just fine, just do what the man says and he'll take care of you while he lines his pockets.
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