"Sure has been a warm winter," or "It's kind of been a cool spring, don't you think?" is the kind of weather-related smalltalk humans have grown to love. But with these anecdotal statements comes science and the ENSO Web site is just the place to go to better understand the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. As the site states in The Simple Picture section, ENSO "is a system of interactions...

The International Pacific Research Center's (IPRC) website addresses "climate variation and predictability in the Asia-Pacific region, including regional aspects of global environmental change." The site offers the goals and objectives of the research activities in IPRC's four main themes: Indo-Pacific Ocean Climate, Regional Ocean Influences, Asian-Australian Monsoon System, and Impacts of Global...

The phrase "climate change" might be combative to some and confusing to others. The University of Colorado's Office for University Outreach has worked with its scholars to create the Learn More About Climate (LMAC) site in order to translate climate change information into "resources and tools for teachers, policymakers, and citizens." Here, visitors can make their way through eight different...

The MISR Image Gallery contains photographs and imagery from the Multi-Angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer experiment being conducted by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology. The spectacular images of the Earth are accompanied by descriptions and quizzes about the photographs. The photos are organized in sections: the latest imagery, the main collection of...

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...

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,...

Another free offering from the National Academic Press (NAP), which was created "to publish the reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, all operating under a charter granted by the Congress of the United States." NAP publishes several hundred books a year on a wide range of topics and...

"The Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (CMDL) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration conducts sustained observations and research related to source and sink strengths, trends and global distributions of atmospheric constituents that are capable of forcing change in the climate of Earth through modification of the atmospheric radiative environment, those that may cause...

It is a tall order to try to study even the recent past, so visitors should find the research accomplishments of the staff members at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Paleoclimatology Program quite impressive. Their work revolves around examining different aspects of the natural world, such as ice cores and lake sediments, in order to understand climate variability over...

NOAA's Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC): Climate Data and Products Web site is part of the nationwide network that provides "convenient and timely access to accurate and reliable climate information." The Web sites are described as being "available to assist in interpreting present conditions, quantifying climate variability, and assessing the likelihood of extreme weather events that...