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Welcome to the ESSC Web page...
Founded within the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences in 1986, the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) maintains a mission to describe, model, and understand the Earth's climate system. ESSC is one of seven centers supported by the Earth & Environmental Systems Institute.
The climate can be viewed as a complex interacting set of components including the oceans, atmosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere. Within the ESSC, we are engaged in studies that aim to understand both these individual components, and the interactions between them.
Our approach involves:
- Employing a hierarchy of theoretical climate system models to perform long-term, high resolution climate model integration experiments aimed at understanding internal and forced changes in the climate system, including modern human or "anthropogenic" impacts on climate
- Emphasis on "process" to bridge problems on multiple timescales: Examining the interactions in the North Atlantic coupled ocean-atmosphere-cryosphere system, the dynamics of the tropical Pacific coupled system, the role of the hydrologic cycle and freshwater in climate change, the relationship between climate variability and synoptic-scale dynamics, and the relationship between ocean biogeochemistry and climate change
- A combination of modeling, empirical analysis, and exploration of fundamental processes to investigate the behavior of the climate system. This includes coupled ocean-atmosphere climate modeling, reconstruction of past climate using paleoclimate data, the comparison of models and observations, and the study of fundamental processes in the earth system
- Development of new educational tools including interactive climate modeling tools tools to service both Penn State and the broader community
Highlights...
Subscribe to the ESSC Newsletter: send a blank email to: ESSC-newsletter-L-subscribe-request@lists.psu.edu |
| ESSC Director Mann comments on Penn State RA-10 Inquiry ESSC Director Dr. Michael Mann has issued the following statement regarding the recent Penn State Inquiry: "I am very pleased that, after a thorough review, the independent Penn State committee found no evidence to support any of the allegations against me." Read the entire statement here >> Read the Penn State Live press release >> Read the RA-10 Inquiry Report (PDF) >> |
| Bjerknes Lecture at Fall American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting presented by ESSC Scientist Dr. Richard Alley recently presented the Bjerknes lecture at the Fall 2009 AGU conference in San Francisco. The lecture, given before thousands of scientists attending the semi-annual meeting, was titled "The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth’s Climate History.” Watch the lecture >> |
 Nature article estimates Atlantic hurricanes and climate over the past 1,500 years ESSC director Dr. Michael Mann and his colleagues have recently published a paper in Nature titled, "Atlantic Hurricanes and climate over the Past 1500 Years." This article details their work in reconstructing the North Atlantic tropical system record for the past 1,500 years using a combination of sedimentary records and statistical models of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Read more on the research page >> |