The Distributed Active Archive Centre DAAC is an excellent starting point for a serious exploration of a many topics in atmospheric science, ocean science and the huge range of science supported by NASA. Free registration gives access to downloading extensive data sets. Without registration you can access NASA's Earth Observatory that includes atciles and visuals for a wide variety of environmental concerns.
The University of Columbia Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory pages include up-to-date information on a wide range of environmental concerns. P> Dendrochronology is dating through the influence of climate on tree ring growth. Stars in the dendrochronolgy world are the bristlecone pines, some living specimens being a few thousand years old. To find out more, visit this interesting and well illustrated site.
The Carbon Cycle Science Program is an initiative to learn a lot more about the fate of carbon dioxide in the environment. Measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the mediterranean since 1992 show the annual rise of ~1.5ppmv/year.
For statistics on the US emission of greenhouse gases in the 1990s see the US Energy Information Agency.
Nasa seem to be everywhere these days. They have a good site describing lightning research and a history of its study. World-wide lightning occurence plots are available on a monthly, seasonal and annual basis since spring 1995. Daily values are also to be found from NASA's lightning imaging sensor satellite.
Visit this site if you have an interest in Tsunamis.
Two sites to look at for forecasts and images of hurricances and related material are the National Hurricane Center and the Tropical Cyclone Page of the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin.
The Landsat 7 home page gives information on the latest of NASA's earth imaging satellites that records some 500 images per day. NASA offers the impressive site A Global View from Space on which you can spin a globe, click on a country of choice and see the latest satellite images.
Another NASA mission was the Feb 2000 shuttle radar topography mission aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour that set out to obtain in 11 days the most complete, near global coverage high resolution topographic images using cloud penetrating radar mapping. Much of the world has not been mapped before at the detail given in this project.
On the pretext that land influences the weather, I can't resist adding this excellent German site that lets you create your own maps of anywhere in the world.
The science of ozone depletion is something we should all know a bit about.
Pages on the properties of water from Environment Canada cover its physical properties, the hydrological cycle and many facts about the distribution of water on Earth. An entertaining quiz on watersheds can be tried if you're a budding environmental scientist. More seriously, the World's Water Website offers facts and many web links concerning the world's freshwater resources. Another good site is the Water Resources Centre Archives which is based in Berkeley and naturally centred on California but has plenty of widely interesting references.
Closely related to water is the problem of acid rain described by the Environmental Protection Agency. The US based onlineuniversity include a page on acid rain, with links. The USGS have a useful site on acid rain, atmospheric deposition and precipitation chemistry. Again for the US, but very useful as case study material, are isopleth maps for the deposition of a wide range of chemical species over the USA.
Remote sensing technology enables a quantity called the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to be calculated for countries and continents. NASA's new high-resolution images produce graphic drought measuring pictures of conditions in some parts of the world.
Most renewable energy sources ultimately involve the Sun and the atmosphere. You can find out about all forms of renewable energy at the clean energy basics page, which is mounted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, one of 36 federally funded research labs in the US. Centred on Europe is the site A Global Overview of Renewable Energy Resources (AGORES).
A visit to Denmark will soon show you that wind power is big there. The Danish Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association have a good guided tour of wind power which includes plenty of detail on wind power generation and on background meteorology of winds in general that fits in well with our course.
Energy balance is an important topic in our course. A related topic is geothermal energy which you can begin exploring at the Geo-Heat Centre.
Following the theme of underground activity, the excellent site of the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) offers a wide range of seismological data, an overview of current seismic activity and special features on recent earthquakes. The Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program gives maps covering the whole globe showing the chance of sesimic activity over the next 50 years. A longer term view is given by NASA's excellent Digital Tectonic Activity Map. A short look at the interior of the Earth is given in a brochure produced by the US Geological Survey.
The changing face of the world over the past 1000 million years is the remit of the paleomap project which has excellent colour maps and animation. On a similar long timescale is world book's coverage of the problem of species extinction.
From the Earth to the atmosphere, volcanoes can have a huge effect on climate. The University of Wisconsin show satellite images of the 10 most active volcanoes in the world, updated every half hour. For a wider view of volcanoes, see the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program or the University of North Dakota's Volcano World.
The environmentally conscious might like to check out the DOE's Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Developments's site on green buildings.
Fires can affect weather, and vice-versa. For many relevant references, look in the Firenet Virtual Library Weather Page.
The British Atmospheric Data Centre is a useful resource for archival data, both from recent atmospheric projects and for historical data.
The state of the cryosphere site from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado is a fascinating inventory of solid water around the world, monitored particulary for its impact on climate change. On a tiny scale, a look at the exquisite electron micrographs of snow crystals will tell you that real life is always more complex than textbook diagrams.
Somewhat specialist is the International Arctic Buoy Programme
that maintains a network of automatic data buoys that have been reporting
surface air temperatures, ice movement and much more in the Artic Basin. The
site includes animations and audio files as well as data and dataplots. Lots of information from the National Snow & Ice Data Centre.
Although RADARSAT-1 and -2 have finished, the RADARSAT portal has a great many images . The US national ice center covers both poles,
and much more. The Byrd Polar
Research Center is a very good resource for Antarctic weather, geography and
geology.
Global Ice-core Research: Understanding and Applying Environmental Records of the PastGlobal Ice-Core
Research.
Finally, a site that tells you about the rocket science and space technology that is
behind all of satellite remote sensing.
Content John Reid j.s.reid@abdn.ac.uk
Last updated 24th August 2012