Climate Change Data Deluge Has Scientists Scrambling for Solutions

For decades, scientists working to predict changes in the climate relied mostly on calculations involving simple laws of physics and chemistry but little data from the real world. But with temperatures world-wide continuing to rise--and with data-collection techniques and technologies continuing to advance--scientists now rely on meticulous measurements of temperatures, ocean currents, soil moisture, air quality, cloud cover and hundreds of other phenomena on Earth and in its atmosphere. Reliable, readily available data is of critical importance to governments working to set policy and monitor compliance with international climate pacts, as well as to local authorities trying to help their communities adapt to unusual weather patterns or rising seas. A look at how innovation and technology are transforming the way we live, work and play. "Now we can truly do climate studies because now we have observations to precisely say how weather trends have changed and are changing," says Suresh Vannan, who manages the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's physical oceanography archive center at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California--one of a dozen earth sciences data centers maintained by the space agency.