What is the Difference Between Weather and Climate?
Videos, Wed, Feb 15th, 2012
Although they are related, meteorology and climatology have important differences, particularly in how scientists develop and use weather and climate models. What makes climatologists think they can project climate scenarios decades into the future when meteorologists cannot accurately predict weather more than two weeks in advance? This presentation by Wayne Higgins of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center clarifies the relationships and differences between weather and climate, as well as the differences between natural climate variability and human-induced climate change.
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Speaker: Dr. Wayne Higgins Director, Climate Prediction Center/NCEP/NWS/NOAA Download: Presentation (ppt) | Video (high resolution) Wayne Higgins is the director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, which delivers predictions, monitoring and assessments of future climate conditions-on time scales from weeks to years-for the protection of life and property and the enhancement of the economy. He is responsible for the development and delivery of a suite of official climate forecast products, including U.S. monthly and seasonal temperature and precipitation outlooks, Atlantic and eastern Pacific hurricane seasonal outlooks and El Ni?o forecasts. Higgins received a BS degree in physics from the University of Illinois and MS and PhD degrees in meteorology from The Pennsylvania State University. He has co-authored more than 75 peer-reviewed journal articles on numerous topics in climate variability, climate predictability and prediction and weather-climate links. He is the recipient of numerous NOAA Service Awards, including the NOAA Administrator’s Award, a NOAA Silver Medal, and two NOAA Bronze Medals. For more information please click here. Editor’s note: these eight videos comprise a recent “Climate Science 101″ short course sponsored jointly by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), at George Mason University, and NOAA. The presenters in this series were selected for their subject matter expertise. Their views and opinions are their own and don’t necessarily represent those of OLLI and NOAA.
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| Historical Perspectives on Climate Change
Speaker: James Rodger Fleming Get a historical perspective on how our understanding of Earth’s climate system evolved through a succession of pioneering scientists in the 1800s and 1900s who asked, and answered, fundamental questions about the causes and effects of global climate change. | The State of the Climate
Speaker: Deke Arndt Drawing on the annual State of the Climate reports, published by the AMS Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, this session presents of the preponderance of scientific evidence that global climate change is occurring. | Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States Speaker: Anthony C. Janetos Director, Joint Global Change Research Institute This evidence-based presentation makes it clear that climate change isn’t some future abstraction, nor is it a far-off phenomenon happening to people in other parts of the world. |
| Download: presentation (ppt) | video (high res.) | Download: presentation (ppt) | video (high res.) | Download: presentation (ppt) | video (high res.) |
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| Is the Breathing of the World’s Ocean Choking Marine Life?
Speaker: Dr. Christopher L. Sabine Review ongoing impacts of acidification on marine ecology and projections of likely future impacts on marine life if this trend continues. | Limiting the Magnitude of & Adapting to Future Climate Change
Speakers: Robert W. Fri Claudia Mengelt Learn about the findings from a recent series of reports by the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science highlighting options for adapting to and mitigating global climate change. | Ethics and Issues Surrounding Geo-Engineering to Mitigate Climate Change
Speaker: Dr. Michael MacCracken This session explores of the pros and cons, as well as legal and ethical considerations, involved in options for “geo-engineering.” |
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| Climate Change Communication: Focusing on Public Engagement
Speaker: Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D. A summary about social scientists’ research into Americans’ attitudes and opinions about global climate change. | ||
