Earth’s rainy days are changing and plant life is responding. This visualization shows average precipitation for the entire globe based on more than 20 years
Lars Peter Riishojgaard will join the University of Maryland on January 1, 2025, as director of the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) following an international search.
This article was written by Justine Bowe from The Earth Commons Institute at Georgetown University and modified with permission. New study investigates the 17-year discrepancy
UMD researchers find rapidly declining sea ice in North Pacific Bering Sea, bringing intense storms to Alaskan coastline The sunrise over the Bering Sea. Source:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) awarded the University of Maryland a five-year, $388 million cooperative funding agreement for collaborative research in Earth system science.
A key to improve climate prediction is to improve understanding of the impact of aerosol on clouds, or commonly known as the aerosol-cloud-interaction according to a new study led by Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) researchers published today in Science Advances.
One of the most critical questions in climate research today is how global clouds will change in a warmer environment. Physical mechanisms in the atmosphere have the potential to moderate or accelerate the warming from greenhouse gases. These mechanisms are called feedbacks. Even with today’s improved forecasts, feedback from clouds is uncertain – meaning scientists don’t know how much Earth’s average temperature will warm as the CO2 atmospheric concentrations continue to increase. A new University of Maryland and NASA study attempts to reduce this uncertainty by constructing a long-term trend in cloudiness using NASA and NOAA satellite observations going back to 1980.
As spring finally arrives in typical Maryland style – downpours – people take comfort in these wet days by dreaming of the blooms that the rain nurtures. However, a new study by an Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center researcher published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment shows that whether rainfall comes as drizzle events or downpours matters for plant growth.
The global ocean has been heating up for decades, with records from the 1960s reporting a substantial rise in upper ocean heat content. Rising ocean temperatures also affect ocean currents, though there has yet to be a consensus on the strength or extent of those changes, or whether these changes will continue in the future. However, a new paper led by Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) scientist Alexey Mishonov documents, for the first time, a significant slowing of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a crucial ocean current system that plays a vital role in regulating Earth’s climate.
The global transition towards a low-carbon future could substantially accelerate hydropower deployment in ecologically sensitive rivers, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Maryland’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) in collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL)’s Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI) and Tufts University. Published in Nature Sustainability, the paper analyzes the future hydropower expansion in the world’s 20 most ecologically sensitive rivers under different socio-economic and energy sector development scenarios.
Ellen D. Williams, a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Physics and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland and director of the university’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC), retired on December 30, 2023, after 42 years at the university. Following her official retirement, Williams is now a research professor of physics and executive director of ESSIC’s Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies (CISESS).
This week, Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) announced the selection of two recipients of the Seed Grant Program (ESGP), a new initiative to provide ESSIC scientists with internal funding mechanisms to carry out innovative research in pilot studies that have the strong potential to lead to future proposals for external funding.
