Climate research aims to understand how global, regional and local climates are maintained and changed by atmospheric, oceanic and other processes. It involves the application of observational data from diverse Earth system components along with theoretical knowledge and mathematical modeling. This broad scientific enterprise encompasses a variety of disciplines including meteorology, hydrology, geology, biology and oceanography.
The science of climate is a rich topic for lifelong learning, from comparing daily weather patterns with long-term records to exploring abstract representations of climate in computer models to understanding how human activity influences and is affected by the changing climate. It also provides a unique opportunity to explore the interplay between scientific disciplines, as many of the same data sources are used in disciplines such as atmosphere science and oceanography.
Climate science has made remarkable progress in recent decades, enabling the world to track and quantify the changes that are occurring. These changes are being driven by the emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities, which have induced global surface temperatures to increase. The exact impact of these changes remains uncertain.
Observational data are essential to advancing the science of climate. To construct global temperature datasets, thousands of individual station observations are merged, subjected to quality control and homogenization procedures, and transformed to a common grid. The resulting data products are invaluable to the scientific community and to international policy-making about climate change. These data are the basis for international agreements aimed at reducing emissions and preparing communities for potential impacts.
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