Blocking the way

Feature Story

Predicting the atmospheric detours that lead to weather trouble

Rush hour in San Francisco

UCAR Digital Image Library

Short winter days leave late afternoon commuters in the dark

Geoffrey Tyndall

Profiles in Science

Spying on molecules in motion

The Warner Memorial Symposium

Site Spotlight

Celebrating the scientific career and life of Tom Warner

All NCAR trails closed Nov 9–11 for forestry work. info >

NCAR & UCAR News

NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center exterior

NCAR selects IBM for key components of new supercomputing center

November 7, 2011

The powerful new system, named Yellowstone, will be installed early next year at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center.

Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper recognizes NCAR for dropsonde research

November 9, 2011

The governor will present the annual awards for “High Impact Research” on November 15 to teams from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and three other Colorado-based research centers for scientific breakthroughs.

Currents

The Lenschow Lens: Geometry and solar radiation in action

Margaret LeMone | 8 November 2011 • As Don Lenschow walked on the sidewalk near the recently refurbished Anthes Building on 13 October, he noticed a patch of very warm air. Don, a colleague of mine in NCAR’s Mesoscale and Microscale...

Texas–Oklahoma drought: What next for the Southern Plains?

Bob Henson | 20 September 2011 • It finally rained in Pecos. On 14 September, the West Texas town received a modest but welcome 0.13 inches, plus another 0.27” in the following three days (about 16 millimeters total) . Normally that...

News from UCAR Members & Affiliates

Lichen is a versatile combination of fungi and algae

Professor 'Going Green' in New York City with Lichen Project

In this era of environmental consciousness, many buildings are being outfitted to “go green.” An associate professor of fine arts at Rutgers-Camden, is taking the term quite literally.

Rutgers University

U.S. rivers and streams saturated with carbon

Rivers and streams in the United States are releasing enough carbon into the atmosphere to fuel 3.4 million car trips to the moon, according to Yale researchers in Nature Geoscience.

Yale University

Research in Brief

Satellite image of southeastern U.S. with swirling storms.

Modeling study captures deadly tornado outbreak

October 26, 2011 | NCAR scientists have performed one of the most detailed simulations ever of a massive tornado outbreak. In late April 2011, an extremely violent spate of tornadoes, dubbed the Super Outbreak, tore a path of destruction through the southern and eastern parts of the United States, making April 27 the deadliest U.S. tornado day since 1925. Especially hard hit was Alabama, where a...

El Niño and climate change in the coming century

October 17, 2011 | Climate change is not expected to affect the extent or frequency of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) over the 21st century, but it could worsen its impacts. That’s the conclusion of a modeling study published in Journal of Climate in September.