Stunning Climate Projections Using NOAA Climate Explorer (Credit: Meteorologist Jessica Olsen)

Image Courtesy: NOAA U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit Climate Explorer

DISCUSSION: Climate research and information on mitigation and adaptation has certainly been a topic for all and is of concern to many. As some residents are beginning to see the effects of changing precipitation patterns, environmental impacts, increased temperature extremes signs of such climate change have become important as people assess what these changes mean to them.
 
Climatology in general is a relatively new science which is aimed at the science of the daily weather over a longer period of time and the study of those influences of climate as a climatologist may study. However as climatology and meteorology remains in its infancy, new tools are emerging yearly to enhance the study of the atmosphere. To aid in some of the understanding about climate change the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has partnered with the Climate Program Office and the National Centers for Environmental Information to create the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, of particular interest the Climate Explorer.
 
The Climate Explorer’s original version was released on November 2014, not gaining much exposure until the new version release in July 2016 garnering significant improvements that can assist communities to assess risks and opportunities for mitigation and/or adaptation to climate based effects. In particular, the Climate Explorer “offers graphs, maps and data of observed and projected temperature, precipitation and related climate variables for every county in the contiguous United States,” according to NOAA. Within the application users are able to search by location, variable and topic. All available to explore maps on observed and modeled data, providing information on lower and higher emissions as well. This is a ultimately a great learning tool for those curious of extreme environmental impacts, while learning about their area. Current limitations are to contiguous United States with expected launch for Hawaii and Alaska in the future.

Checkout NOAA's Climate Explorer and input your location, variable or topic.

For information on this and other great meteorological and climatological tools visit the Global Weather and Climate Center daily for updates!

©2017 Meteorologist Jessica Olsen


"U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit." Climate Explorer-Visualize Climate Data in Maps and Graphs | U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2017.