Blog

At AER, we have been deeply engaged for decades in advancing many aspects of the fundamental scientific understanding of weather and climate. Our work is widely known as a definitive set of methods for evaluating the radiative properties of current and future atmospheres, and these methods are used every day in the world’s major weather forecast centers.

AER will present results from ongoing research in supporting Department of Defense modeling and simulation at the IMAGE 2017 conference in Dayton, OH, 27-28 Jun.

97th American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting Bob Morris, January 20, 2017

AER's Dr. Christopher Piecuch was recently interviewed by NPR on the topic of his sea-level rise research. The full interview can be experienced here: http://news.wgbh.org/2016/12/02/science-and-technology/explaining-sea-level-rise-northeast-presents-scientific-challenge

American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting 2016

Sea level changes are a matter of serious concern for coastal communities, effecting recurrent flooding, beach erosion, saltwater intrusion, and wetland loss. Therefore, understanding the causes of past sea level changes, in order to more confidently predict sea level changes in the future, has been a major goal in climate science.

A revolution in geosynchronous meteorological satellite (GEO MetSat) capability is just beginning. 2015 saw the transition to operations of the Japanese Himawari H8 satellite, hosting as a primary instrument the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI). Soon to follow are US satellites in the GOES-R series with a very similar instrument, the Advanced Baseline Imager – launches beginning in late 2016. And after that MetSats will be launched hosting instruments with similar capabilities from Korea (GEO-KOMPSAT) and Europe (EUMETSAT’s Meteosat Third Generation series).

AER scientist Chris Little led the development of an innovative, broadly applicable methodology for analyzing future coastal floods. The research was published today in Nature Climate Change. "The newly developed technique is a significant contribution because it provides a more comprehensive view of the future coastal flood hazard, in which changes are summarized using a fully probabilistic flood index. The combines approaches to quantify both changes in storminess and increases in the baseline sea level."

I recently returned from the 2015 NOAA Satellite Conference, a widely attended international conference sponsored by NOAA's National Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS). It was exciting to spend a full week interacting with an internationally diverse set of environmental satellite data users, scientists and algorithm/software developers, all interested in current and future NOAA programs and products.

Scientists who research thermal radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere are confident that we have a very detailed and accurate understanding of the nature of the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide (CO2), including the impact of rising CO2 levels. Recently I participated in a study that provided the first direct observation at the surface of the Earth’s increased greenhouse effect due to rising CO2 levels. This represents an important milestone in the detection of the increased greenhouse effect due to fossil fuel emissions.