Founded in 1991, the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change is an interdisciplinary organization that conducts research, independent policy analysis, and public communication on issues of global environmental change. The very cornerstone of the Program is the MIT Integrated Global System Model (ISGM) which is a "comprehensive research tool for analyzing potential...

A new report containing nearly a century's-worth of air temperature data is available online from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC). The mean monthly and annual values of surface air temperature were compiled from existing World Weather Records, Monthly Climatic Data for the World, and Meteorological Data for Individual Years over the Northern Hemisphere (excluding the former...

This website offers NASA's Earth Observatory newest feature -- an educational module about global warming. Beginning with a recap of the tremendous heat wave that struck Europe in the summer of 2003, the website proceeds with an educational discussion about the interaction between water vapor and other greenhouse gases and the atmosphere. Users can learn about climatic modeling and some...

The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is under the direction of Dr. James Hansen, conducts basic research in space and earth sciences. A recent publication by Dr. Hansen and Mki. Sato, entitled Trends of Measured Climate Forcing Agents, found (in part) that a "remarkable deceleration in the growth rate of GHG climate forcing occurred in the past 20 years." The report explains...

NASA's Global Tropospheric Experiment (GTE) was formed as "a commitment by the United States Government to understand the human impact on the global atmosphere." Visitors can learn about GTE's use of data collected via aircraft and satellites to create atmospheric chemistry models that predict climate change. Through this extensive website, users can find summaries, mission maps, data,...

At this website, "NOVA and FRONTLINE examine the truth about global warming." Users can read opinions of climatologists, biologists, businessmen, and atmospheric scientists about the realities and impacts of global warming. Students and educators can view a series of maps illustrating the effects the melting of the Antarctic glaciers could have on sea level. The site addresses the importance of...

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change "brings together business leaders, policy makers, scientists, and other experts to bring a new approach to a complex and often-controversial issue." Visitors to this Pew Center Web site will find six downloadable working papers from former Kyoto Protocol negotiators and other climate experts as part of a new initiative titled Beyond Kyoto: Advancing the...

This recently released report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change "reviews the broad range of ecological changes that have occurred in response to human induced changes in the global and U.S. climate." The 67-page report, authored by Camille Parmesan of the University of Texas-Austin and Hector Galbraith of the University of Colorado-Boulder, is available in portable document format. The...

There is significant debate among scientists on the nature of global warming, with some pointing to increased temperatures as being merely indicative of long-range climatic change that has gone on for thousands and thousands of years across the planet. Others point to the disruptive effects that human activity has on the atmosphere, and continue to call for a global effort to mitigate the effects...

The National Research Council's Panel on Reconciling Temperature Observations published this report in 2000. The National Academy Press Website offers free online viewing of this important publication, which evaluated the much-publicized discrepancy between surface and atmospheric temperatures in the global change records. The Panel found that "the warming trend in global-mean surface temperature...