Explore Our Planet

Every month the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has a look at the month before and publishes a report from a historical perspective.

July 2007 brought record and near-record warmth to the western United States, while much of the eastern and southern U.S. experienced cooler-than-average temperatures, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

Below-average rainfall, combined with scorching temperatures, helped put 46 percent of the contiguous U.S. in some stage of drought by the end of July.

The global average temperature was the seventh warmest on record for July, and the presence of cooler-than-average waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific reflected the possible development of a La Niña episode.

The Climate Monitoring website acts as a good one-stop website for all kind of data (snow, tornadoes, climate extremes for Las Vegas, global surface temperature anomalies and more.

The Campus Climate Challenge is an initiative of 37 leading youth organizations working to build a generation-wide movement to stop global warming.

Combining grassroots organizing, coalition-building, and online media and communication strategies, The Challenge aims to engage one million students at 1,000 universities and high schools in the United States and Canada to make their schools models of the clean energy future.

Youth working on The Challenge will inspire millions to become lifelong global warming advocates – leading North America into a safer, cleaner, and healthier future for everyone.

January 29th through February 2nd young people will speak to their campus and political leaders about how the decisions they make today will directly affect the world we inherit tomorrow.

More: Week of Action, Find a Group (map), Reasons to Act

Starting in 1990 the round based game let you play the president of the European Nations. You have to reduce emission of carbon dioxid and stay in office, so do not offend voters with unpopular decisions or policies.

Would the planet survive if you were in power? Innovate, trade and persuade other nations to help you save the environment.

In preparation are reviews of two popular climate board games produced by MunichRe and Spieltrieb GbR: Winds of Change and ‘Keep Cool’

From now (2007-01-08) the moon is metric and the radius measures 1,737.4 kilometers, the mass is 7.35E19 metric tons and the density is about 3.34 grams per cubic centimeter roughly 60 percent of Earth’s density.

NASA will return to Moon by 2020 and plans a manned lunar outpost with kilometeters instead of miles.

The decision is a victory not only for the metric system itself, which by this decision increases its land area in the solar system by 27%, but also for the spirit of international cooperation in exploring the Moon.

The decision arose from a series of meetings that brought together representatives from NASA and 13 other space agencies to discuss ways to cooperate and coordinate their lunar exploration programs. Standardizing on the metric system was an obvious step in the right direction.

Isn’t that more futuristic: NASA will even bring the Internet Protocol (IP) to the moon? Listen!

Picture credit: University of Iowa Robotic Telescope Facilities

Data collected by the Bureau of Meteorology indicate that Australia’s annual mean temperature for 2006 was 0.47°C above the standard 1961-1990 average, making it the eleventh warmest year since comparable temperature observations became available in 1910. (more…)

As an impressive part the forest gallery presents photos of the biggest 18 forests on Earth from leading photograpers.

Moreover the documentation explains the importance of forests and trees for humans and biodiversity.

Take some time, enjoy the ambient background music and explore worlds most important plants and their habitat.

via: Ehrensenf.de

Nice interactive shockwave application at greenpeace.org explains storms, heat, extinction and melting glaciers as consequences of Global Warming.

Your kids will like the animation of flooding, mosquitos and of Upsala glacier in Patagonia.

Nine expeditions during the International Polar Year 2007-2009 are awaiting your application. If you are between 14 and 19 and enrolled in high school this is a great opportunity to visit the ends of our earth. Students from any country in the world are invited to share this incredible experience. However, if you do not find a sponsor, the web site is worth a visit. (more…)

When global temperature rises 1°C next decades the 400,000 years old record from Holocene is outranged. During the Middle Pliocene about three million years ago Earth was only 2–3°C warmer than today and sea level was 25–35m higher. Are we going to beat all temperature records? (more…)

Astronomers are looking for habitable planets in our neighbourhood. The understanding of our Planet’s history helps to determine the state of a remote planet by analysis of its light spectrum.

Is it just born or full of life? Are there intelligent lifeforms or is it an ice planet. (more…)