Research Highlights
US CLIVAR aims to feature the latest research results from the community of scientists participating in our interagency-sponsored projects, working groups, panels, science teams, and workshops. Check out the collection of research highlights below and sort by topic on the right.
Extreme precipitation and associated flooding has a high societal and economic cost. In the Northeast US extreme precipitation has increased by more than 70% in the last 50 years and is projected to continue to increase.
Much study has been devoted to the possible causes of a decrease in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the global warming “hiatus.” However, a new study by Karl et al. has called into question the underlying data used to detect the “hiatus”.
As of spring 2015, a wide strip of relatively warm water was present along the entire West Coast of North America. The causes and effects of this warm ocean water event is sometimes referred to as the “blob” and are the results of a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters.
The Southern Ocean absorbs a large fraction of anthropogenic-sourced carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, driving decreases in the pH and the carbonate ion concentration. A recent study reports a decrease in phytoplankton calcification in the Southern Ocean over the satellite record (1998 to 2014).