Word: climatologists
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...less well-known phenomenon called the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), named after the pair of scientists--Roland Madden and Paul Julian--who discovered it in 1971. The MJO is a globe-girdling disturbance that sweeps across equatorial waters at intervals of 30 to 60 days. Under its influence, says climatologist Wayne Higgins of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the atmosphere at mid-latitudes can undergo dramatic rearrangement. The result: a classic configuration called the Pineapple Express, in which the jet stream steers powerful cyclonic systems over warm waters near Hawaii, where they tank up with moisture before slamming...
...increase renewable energy use, climate change has also struggled to stir voters. "I think once they've done water and the Tasmanian forests, they're almost exhausted," says one senior scientist. After leading the world in climate-change awareness in the late 1980s, Australians now lag behind, says climatologist Graeme Pearman. In most parts of the country, worries the former head of atmospheric research at the CSIRO, "it's just not on the public's mind...
...Drought is more than a precipitation deficit," observes University of Washington climatologist Philip Mote. The real problem, he says, "is that you don't have as much water as you'd like at a given point in time." And that goes for plants as well as people. For accompanying an earlier snowmelt, scientists note, is an earlier start to the growing season, which means that the demand for water by forests, marshes and grasslands--not to mention agricultural crops, lawns and putting greens--is bound to rise. In this context, a "normal" amount of precipitation may not be sufficient...
...what is behind the Macugnaga incident, most scientists agree that the state of glaciers is an indication of the overall health of the planet. "It's hard to say how much is due to natural forces and how much human activity is to blame," says Luca Mercalli, an Italian climatologist monitoring Macugnaga. "But melting glaciers are a symptom, a warning that we need to pay attention...
...there anything we can do? First, says Mark Svoboda, a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center, in Lincoln, Nebraska, "we need to conserve water all the time, not just when we have droughts...