Earth Science - Global Warming

Earth Science - Global Warming SCIENCE ARTICLE SUMMARY: GLOBAL WARMING The Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Purdue University recently announced some troubling findings published by its Climate and Extreme Weather Initiative. Specifically, the organization studied future weather conditions conducive to the formation of severe conditions such as powerful thunderstorms featuring flooding, high winds, and tornadoes. The research combined the analyses of experts in the fields of climate modeling with those of experts who study the formation of severe storm conditions.

Climate modeling is a mechanism for studying the combined effects of hundreds of individual components such as ocean currents, atmospheric conditions, regional ography, and greenhouse gases, all of which contribute to changes in global weather formation. Climate modeling enables researchers to use sophisticated computer programs to synthesize data about previous weather conditions to predict future changes based on analyzing the interrelationships between those factors.

By combining the data from past instances of severe weather conditions with the ability of experts on storm formation, the researchers were able to draw certain troubling conclusions about the relative likelihood of potentially damaging severe weather events in the future as well as the relationship between current rates of global warming and their particular effects on specific regions such as those parts of the U.S. most affected by powerful thunderstorms, flooding, and tornadoes.

According to the study, global warming will increase the incidence of factors known to be associated with the development of severe weather events. More importantly, those changes will have much greater effect in specific regions of the country where their proximity to the Atlantic coastline and the Gulf of Mexico makes them more susceptible to changes in humidity along the weather channels known to be dependent on those bodies of water.

Climate modeling does not yet enable the detailed analysis of individual storms, but it does analyze the trends of the factors known to cause severe thunderstorms, including warm, moist atmospheric conditions near the ground, cold, dry air higher in the atmosphere, and winds traveling upwards from the ground to higher regions of the atmosphere. Generally, climate modeling uses information from grids representing specific regions of the country.

As the technology and sophistication of the computer programs continues to improve, scientists expect to be able to study smaller and smaller areas with even greater specificity and accuracy. Subsequent studies are already being planned to do so by increasing the resolution of the imaging as well as by analyzing individual storms. Unfortunately, that means certain areas like New York and Atlanta will be affected by global warming much more than the rest of the country as a whole. Even worse, the research demonstrated that increases in severe.