Other Features
Most articles in this section were originally written for websites belonging to organizations affiliated with NASA/GISS or NASA/GSFC. The articles describe research that to some extent involves GISS science activities.
2024
Charting the Exceptional, Unexpected Heat of 2023 and 2024
Global temperatures have soared in recent years and climate scientists are trying to understand why.
(2024-11-20)
+ Go to NASA EO Feature
El Niño Fades
The natural climate phenomenon contributed to upheavals in temperature and rainfall patterns across the globe.
(2024-07-15)
+ Go to NASA EO Feature
In the Grip of Global Heat
Heat waves rolled through parts of Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia, leaving vulnerable populations at risk.
(2024-06-28)
+ Go to NASA EO Feature
Five Factors to Explain the Record Heat in 2023
NASA announced that 2023 was the hottest year on record. What caused the year to be so hot? Here is a breakdown of the primary factors that scientists considered.
(2024-01-13)
+ Go to NASA EO Feature
2023
How NASA Deepened Our Understanding of Earth in 2023
In 2023, the NASA Center for Climate Simulation and NASA Science Managed Cloud Environment provided computing resources to enable research and accelerate scientific discoveries that deepen our understanding of Earth and better prepare for its changing climates.
(2023-12-05)
+ Go to NCCS Feature
Indonesian Fires Return in 2023
After several years of comparatively quiet fire seasons, Indonesia saw the return of intense, smoky fires in 2023. The blazes have been exacerbated by dry conditions made worse by the return of El Niño.
(2023-10-07)
+ Go to EO Feature
The Ocean Has a Fever
Decades of gradual warming due to human-caused climate change and an El Niño in the Pacific Ocean nudged global sea surface temperatures to record levels in 2023.
(2023-08-25)
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July 2023 Was the Hottest Month on Record
July 2023 was hotter than any other month in the global temperature record, according to an analysis by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
(2023-08-15)
+ Go to EO Feature
Romanou Leads Group Studying Interactions Between Oceans, Climate
To honor World Ocean Month and discover how NASA scientists are helping us better understand the world's oceans in a changing climate, NCCS interviewed GISS's Anastasia Romanou, who has developed and used some of the most advanced models of the complex Earth system.
(2023-06-30)
+ Go to NCCS Feature
Simulations Probe the Impacts of Air Pollution on Premature Deaths
Models from GISS and Aarhus University were used to study the impact of air pollution on premature mortality under several emission and population scenarios.
(2023-04-26)
+ Go to NCCS Feature
2022
Celebrating Nat'l Hispanic American Heritage Month: Dr. Clara Orbe
NCCS highlights GISS scientist Dr. Clara Orbe of Argentine heritage, from her early schooling to college career and eventually becoming a leading scientist at GISS.
(2022-10-12)
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Feeling the Heat in the Extremes
If trends continue, oppressively hot and humid summers like the record-breaking heat waves in California will continue.
(2022-09-16)
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2021
Exploring the Climates of Earth’s Future Supercontinent
Scientists leveraged a NASA supercomputer to explore possible scenarios for Earth supercontinents and climate 200 and 250 million years into the future.
(2021-11-30)
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Podcast: Earth's Expanding Oceans
NASA's "Curious Universe" podcast discussed climate-induced sea level rise with GISS director Gavin Schmidt and also Columbia scientist Craig Rye.
(2021-07-26)
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Podcast: Let’s Talk About Climate Change
NASA's "Gravity Assist" podcast discussed climate change with GISS director and NASA's acting senior climate advisor, Gavin Schmidt.
(2021-06-18)
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GISS, NCCS Contribute to CMIP6 International Climate Model Project
NASA/GISS contributed results from hundreds of historical and future climate simulations run on the NCCS Discover supercomputer to the project.
(2021-04-30)
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2020
The Drying U.S. West.
A serious drought has flared up across half of the United States — a familiar story for the past two decades.
(2020-12-14)
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A Devastating Abundance
The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was supercharged, and not just in raw numbers.
(2020-12-10)
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Making Sense of "Climate Sensitivity"
GISS scientists answer questions about a new study that narrows the range of uncertainty in future climate projections.
(2020-09-09)
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NASA Scientists Explore Venus Habitable Climate Scenarios at NCCS
GISS scientists leveraged NASA supercomputing resources for several months to model a hypothetical climate history for Venus over the past 4.2 billion years.
(2020-08-28)
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Another Intense Summer of Fires in Siberia
Following an active 2019 season, fires in 2020 have again been abundant, widespread, and have produced abnormally large carbon emissions.
(2020-08-07)
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Gearing Up for an Active 2020 Hurricane Season
Abnormally warm ocean temperatures and a potential La Niña set the stage for an above-average Atlantic hurricane season.
(2020-07-20)
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Heat and Fire Scorches Siberia
Fires are raging in eastern Siberia in the midst of an unusually long-lived heat wave.
(2020-06-24)
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Simulations Probe Sun's Effects on Climate
A series of model studies analyzed the effect of the solar cycle and varying solar conditions at all wavelengths.
(2020-06-16)
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A Fiery Month in Zulia
After dry weather parched the soil and vegetation, large fires burned in the northwestern Venezuela state.
(2020-04-29)
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NASA Simulations Explore Habitability of Nearest Exoplanet
Powered by the Discover supercomputer, climate simulations incorporated a dynamic ocean to explore the habitability of Proxima Centauri b.
(2020-02-21)
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Growth of a Summer Storm
Afternoon thunderstorms are a typical phenomenon during summer in Western Australia.
(2020-01-17)
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Study Confirms Climate Models are Getting Future Warming Right
A new evaluation of global climate models used to project Earth's future global average surface temperature finds that most have been quite accurate.
(2020-01-09)
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2019
Smoke Blankets Borneo
Fires burning in peat deposits in Indonesia release gases and particles with consequences for public health and the climate.
(2019-09-17)
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Scientists Simulate Ancient Lunar Atmosphere at NCCS
Using NASA Center for Climate Simulation computing resources, exoplanet modelers simulated a thin, relatively short-lived atmosphere.
(2019-09-13)
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A Devastating Stall by Hurricane Dorian
A remarkable slowdown by the hurricane led to a prolonged lashing from winds, waves, and rain that devastated Grand Bahama Island.
(2019-09-09)
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Tropical Cyclones are Stalling More
Storms in the North Atlantic are lingering longer near the coast, leading to significantly more rainfall.
(2019-06-06)
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Choking on Saharan Dust
A new analysis suggests that exposure to mineral dust may be a bigger cause of premature death in Africa than previously thought.
(2019-05-01)
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ModelE Simulations Assess Impacts of Irrigation on Climate
Researchers used NCCS supercomputing resources to identify and understand the interactions between simple land-cover change and more complex land-management, including irrigation.
(2019-04-22)
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Wallace Broecker and GISS
GISS scientists remember friend, mentor, research collaborator, and sometimes foil Wally Broecker of the Columbia Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
(2019-03-18)
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2018
Drought Persists in the U.S. Southwest
Persistent drought conditions have spread across the U.S. Southwest, with the Four Corners area standing out as extremely dry.
(2018-11-08)
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The New UN Climate Report in One Sentence
The essence of the recent UN/IPCC report about the planetary disruption resulting from the carbon that human activity puts into the atmosphere can be summed up in a single sentence.
(2018-10-19)
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Forecasting Fire
The Global Fire Weather Database accounts for local winds, temperatures, and humidity, while also being the first fire prediction model to include satellite–based precipitation measurements.
(2018-07-03)
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Waves of Dust Over the Red Sea
Recent satellite imagery showed waves in the dust clouds blown from the Sahara Desert over the Red Sea.
(2018-06-15)
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2017
Curvy Contrails
Viewing satellite imagery of clouds sometimes reveals curiosities in the sky.
(2017-12-20)
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Increasing Resiliency to Extreme Weather
The 2017 hurricane season could be the turning point in planning for climate resilience. NASA scientists provide risk information for preparatory action.
(2017-11-06)
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Another Hot July
July 2017 was statistically tied with July 2016 as the warmest July in the 137 years of modern record-keeping.
(2017-08-22)
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Core Questions: An Introduction to Ice Cores
How drilling deeply can help to understand climates of the past and predict climates of the future.
(2017-08-15)
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2016
El Niño a Key Player in Severe Indonesia Fires
In some locations, changes in ocean temperatures and atmospheric patterns brought about by El Niño lead to drier conditions, which increases the damage during "fire season".
(2016-09-09)
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Extreme Heat for an Extreme Year
In the summer of 2016, extreme heat waves gripped Siberia, the Middle East, and North America.
(2016-08-11)
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Cloud-Gazing: Gravity Waves off the Coast of Africa
Interaction of dry air off the Namibian desert with moist over the ocean forms clouds that rise and fall due to gravity, forming wave patterns.
(2016-07-14)
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Farms Act as Major Source of Air Pollution
New study shows that emissions from farms outweigh all other human sources of fine-particulate air pollution in much of the United States, Europe, Russia and China.
(2016-05-16)
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Heat Fuels Fire at Fort McMurray
In early May 2016, a destructive wildfire burned through Canada’s Fort McMurray in the Northern Alberta region. Windy, dry, and unseasonably hot conditions all set the stage for the fire.
(2016-05-07)
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Record Warmth in February
Almost all land surfaces on the planet experienced unusually warm temperatures during the month of February 2016, making it the warmest February in 136 years of modern temperature records.
(2016-03-17)
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1997-2015
Other features about GISS research for the years before 2016 are available in the archive directory.
