Climate Related Research Centers and Climate Information Organizations

Met Office Hadley Centre aims:

• understand physical, chemical and biological processes within the climate system and develop computer models of the climate which represent them;
• use computer models to simulate the differences between global and regional climates; the changes seen over the last 100 years, and to predict changes over the next 100 years;
• monitor global and national climate variability and change;
• attribute recent changes in climate to specific factors.

We undertake studies of the global climate using similar, though more extensive, models of the atmospheres, as are used for the prediction of weather conditions.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. NSIDC supports research into our world's frozen realms: the snow, ice, glaciers, frozen ground, and climate interactions that make up Earth's cryosphere. Scientific data, whether taken in the field or relayed from satellites orbiting Earth, form the foundation for the scientific research that informs the world about our planet and our climate systems.  Related to the NSIDC is the The Arctic Ice Forecasting System which provides forcasts of the
artic ice.

Artic Sea Ice News and Analysis.  Arctic sea icereflects sunlight, keeping the polar regions cool and moderating global climate. According to scientific measurements, Arctic sea ice has declined dramatically over at least the past thirty years, with the most extreme decline seen in the summer melt season.  Read timely scientific analysis year-round below. We provide an update during the first week of each month, or more frequently as conditions warrant.  Please credit the National Snow and Ice Data Center for image or content use unless otherwise noted beneath each image.

British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is a component of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Based in Cambridge, United Kingdom, it has, for almost 60 years, undertaken the majority of Britain's scientific research on and around the Antarctic continent. It now shares that continent with scientists from over thirty countries.

BAS employs over 400 staff, and supports three stations in the Antarctic, at Rothera, Halley and Signy, and two stations on South Georgia, at King Edward Point and Bird Island. The Antarctic operations and science programmes are executed and managed from Cambridge, and rely on a wide-ranging team of professional staff.

The Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) provides a focus for Australia's national effort to understand the variability of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean and their role in Australia's future. The ACE CRC is a partnership dedicated to sustainable management of Antarctic marine ecosystem resources and the study of atmospheric and oceanic processes of the Southern Ocean and their role in global and regional climate change.

The Australian Antarctic Division leads Australia's Antarctic program. As a division of the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, our charter is to ensure Australia's Antarctic interests are advanced.

The Australian Antarctic program has four goals

1. Maintain the Antarctic Treaty System and enhance Australia's influence in it
2. Protect the Antarctic environment
3. Understand the role of Antarctica in the global climate system
4. Undertake scientific work of practical, economic and national significance

The Polar Science Center (PSC) is a unit of the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington. PSC was established in 1978 at the end of the multiyear Arctic Ice Dynamics Joint Experiment (AIDJEX), a major NSF/ONR program. In 1982 PSC was incorporated into the Applied Physics Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research facility. PSC provides comprehensive logistics and support for numerous polar field experiments.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography,  is one of the oldest, largest, and most important centers for ocean and earth science research, education, and public service in the world. Research at Scripps Institution of Oceanography encompasses physical, chemical, biological, geological, and geophysical studies of the oceans and earth.

The University of Massachusetts Climate System Research Center is a research facility of the University of Massachusetts. Our research is focused on the climate system, climatic variability and global change issues, from contemporary climate variations, their causes and consequences, to paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental changes.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)  at Boulder, Colorado,  provides the university science and teaching community with the tools, facilities, and support required to perform innovative research. Through NCAR, scientists gain access to high-performance computational and observational facilities, such as supercomputers, aircraft and radar - resources researchers need to improve human understanding of atmospheric and Earth system processes. NCAR and university scientists work together on research topics in atmospheric chemistry, climate, cloud physics and storms, weather hazards to aviation, and interactions between the sun and Earth. In all of these areas, scientists are looking closely at the role of humans in both creating climate change and responding to severe weather occurrences.

Note:  The NCAR website contains sections on weather, climate, chemistry, solar, and earth systems.

Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) is committed to collaboration, that is, to working with other environmental scientists, researchers, and educators as well as students, industry leaders, and policy and decision makers, to produce scientific results in service to society. We count discovery, including idenfication of the "Nuclear Winter" theory, discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, and detection of the disintegration of Antarctic ice shelves among our many accomplishments

The Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Kiel (IFM-GEOMAR) is a foundation by pubic law. It was founded January 1st, 2004 through the merger of the Institute for Marine Science (IfM) and the Research Center for Marine Geosciences (GEOMAR).  The goal of the institute is the investigation of all areas relevant for actual research in marine sciences, ranging from Geology of the Ocean Floor to Marine Meteorology. The institute operates world-wide in all ocean basins.  The main research topics are grouped in four areas: Ocean Circulation and Climate Dynamics, Marine Biogeochemistry, Marine Ecology, and Dynamics of the Ocean Floor.

The University of Chicago Department of Geophysical Sciences -- Climate and Global Change.  It is now widely recognized that changes in the global environment are occuring at rates which greatly exceed those which have occured in the geologic past. For example, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane are steadily rising, stratospheric ozone depletion is occuring in both polar regions (the Ozone hole) and at midlatitudes, and there is now evidence for widespread pollution of the lower atmosphere. The potantial effects of these changes on the global climate system and biosphere make this field of global change science one of the most vibrant and exciting disciplines within earth science.

The Pielke research group focuses on land-atmosphere interactions on the local, mesoscale, regional, and global scales. These interactions include biophysical, biogeochemical, and biogeographic effects. The RAMS model is a major tool used in this research. RAMS has been coupled to two different ecosystem-dynamics models (CENTURY and GEMTM) as part of these studies. Also applied is the CCM3 atmospheric global model from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. Our studies range from the tropics into the high Arctic regions. Our group has also applied RAMS to atmospheric-ocean interactions, including Arctic sea-ice feedbacks. We have investigated these nonlinear interactions within the Earth's climate system using the coupled RAMS model, as well as simplified nonlinear mathematical models.

The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) supports research on the interactions of natural and human-induced changes in the global environment and their implications for society.  Since its inception, USGCRP-supported research and observational activities, in collaboration with several other national and international science programs, have documented and characterized important aspects of the sources, abundances, and lifetimes of greenhouse gases; mounted extensive space-based systems for global monitoring of climate and ecosystem parameters; begun to address the complex issues of various aerosol species that may significantly influence climate parameters; advanced understanding of the global water and carbon cycles; and taken major strides in computer modeling of the global climate.  During the past thirteen years the United States, through the  (USGCRP), has made the world's largest scientific investment in the areas of climate change and global change research -- a total investment of almost $20 billion.   See also the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

EPA's Climate Change Site offers comprehensive information on the issue of climate change in a way that is accessible and meaningful to all parts of society – communities, individuals, business, states and localities, and governments.  See also the U.S. Climate Policy and Actions.

ESPERE stands for Environmental Science Published for Everybody Round the Earth. It is a pilot project funded by the European Commission which started in January 2003 and will finish at the end of 2004.  The aim of our project is to put up-to-date and accurate scientific information on climate in a Climate Encyclopaedia on the web in a form which is understandable by all and useful in school lessons.   

The basic idea of ESPERE is not to deliver a completed product, but to develop the website together with pupils and teachers so that it really meets the needs of the community.  Your feedback is therefore essential so that this web site can develop and become more and more useful over time. 

The two overarching objectives of the WCRP are:

1. to determine the predictability of climate; and
2. to determine the effect of human activities on climate.

These two objectives underpin and directly address the needs of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and contribute to many other international policy instruments.

The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (Thomas A. Boden, Director), which includes the World Data Center for Atmospheric Trace Gases, has served as the primary climate-change data and information analysis center of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) since 1982.  CDIAC responds to data and information requests from users worldwide investigating the greenhouse effect and global climate change. CDIAC's data holdings include records of the concentrations of carbon dioxide and other radiatively active gases in the atmosphere.

Sites listed by the UK Met Office
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