Scientific discoveries are fundamental to our future, whether they’re new medicines or technologies that can help us save the environment. Often, though, it’s the public’s understanding of these basic concepts that makes or breaks their impact. And no discipline is more critical to society than climate science.
Most people equate “climate” with weather—and indeed, weather and climate are closely linked. But climate scientists focus on the overall patterns of daily weather over longer periods, such as 30 years or more. They also study climate in a variety of habitats—oceans, rivers, forests, deserts, and grasslands—and the creatures that call them home.
Climate research stretches back nearly 200 years, when mathematician Joseph Fourier speculated that an Earth-sized planet at our distance from the Sun should be much colder. In the 1860s, Irish physicist John Tyndall recognized that carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere acts like an insulating blanket, and Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius showed that water vapor and other gases absorb escaping infrared energy.
In the decades since, climate scientists have developed a clear consensus that human activities are causing global warming. They’ve documented how melting ice sheets and shrinking sea ice are altering oceans, lakes, and coastal regions. They’ve analyzed the effects of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations on atmospheric temperature and rainfall. And they’ve used computer models to predict how these changes will affect our lives, from changing hurricane patterns and growing heat waves to shifting planetary water supply and biodiversity.
PNNL researchers are at the forefront of these endeavors, studying everything from how microbes adapt to climate change to how rising temperatures could change wind patterns. They’re working to improve current forecasts and develop a better understanding of what’s driving harmful trends so that we can make informed decisions about the future.
About the Author
