GeoChange FAQ
This list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) carries no
official sanction with USGS. It is a compilation of answers we have given to questions people have
asked us.
Contents
Global warming
- So is it getting warmer or what?
- The most authoritative report on this issue is Climate Change
2007: IPCC Fourth Assessment Report from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), which is part of the United Nations Environmental
Programme. The IPCC has a large amount of information on their web
site dealing with this topic.
- Other good sources of information on global warming include:
- U.S. EPA's Global Warming website
- Woods Hole Research Center's Global Warming Page
- Does the USGS monitor global warming?
- Not specifically. Our charge is to understand characteristics
of the earth, especially the earth's surface, that affect our
Nation's land, water, and biological resources. That includes
quite a bit of environmental monitoring but other agencies, especially
NOAA and NASA, are specifically funded to monitor global temperature
and atmospheric phenomena such as ozone concentrations. Our work at
USGS in the Global Change Science Program focuses on understanding the likely
consequences of climate change, especially by studying how climate has
changed in the past.
Acid Rain
- Does the USGS study acid rain?
- The environmental effects of acid rain include the acidification of lakes and streams, damage to trees at high altitude, the acceleration of decay in buildings and poorer air quality. The USGS primarily studies these and other effects of acid rain, including accelerated erosion and weathering, and surface- and ground-water quality issues.
- The U.S. EPA's Acid Rain Program has some good information on acid rain, including information on the sources and causes of acid rain, and acid rain emissions data for many states.
General WWW issues
- What are some good places to look for geoscience information?
- Search engines such as Google can often return good information, but for scientific
information there's no good substitute for human discovery and review.
Especially of interest is the carefully-prepared work of Pierre Proud at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. The
site is called
Athena Earth Science Resources.
Oceanography
- Where can I get current sea-surface temperature data?
- The data on GeoChange are no newer than 1991. More comprehensive
data are available at the Physical
Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) at JPL in
Pasadena. For specific data covering coastal areas, consult the
NOAA CoastWatch Program or its data access system, the
NOAA CoastWatch
Product Search. Some overview information on
CoastWatch is available here.
- Where can I get more sea-surface temperature data?
- The best place for this information is the Physical
Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California. This DAAC keeps and distributes
all of the AVHRR-derived SST data collected as part of NASA's EOSDIS.
Weather and climate data
- Where can I find the temperature or precipitation for YourCity, USA?
- The best place for this sort of information is the
National Climatic Data Center,
which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of
the U.S. Department of Commerce. The NCDC is physically located in
Asheville, North Carolina. Their web address is
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/.
They have a wide variety of online data available for immediate download,
and they also have more extensive data on media like CD-ROM and tape (you
generally have to pay for the cost of the media for those).