ESSC: Earth System Science Center homepage

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...

ESSC Scientists issue 2009 North Atlantic hurricane season prediction
Michael Mann and Tom Sabbatelli predict this hurricane season will be less active than the last two years in the North Atlantic.
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ESSC scientists appear on new show about climate change
The first episode of the Research Channel's new show about climate change, To What Degree? What Science is Telling Us about Climate Change, is hosted by Dr. Richard Alley and features commentary from ESSC director Dr. Michael Mann. The episode, called "How do we know? Physics, Forcings, and Fingerprints," originally aired in January 2009, but it can be viewed in reruns or via the Research Channel's web site.
Watch To What Degree? >>
Image credit: Research Channel/NSF

Antarctic Warming
ESSC Director Michael Mann is a co-author on a study demonstrating the warming of the Antarctic continent of the past 50 years.
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USA Today article>>

New book: Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming by Michael E. Mann and Lee R. Kump
Two ESSC scientists have authored a new book which distills the findings of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report into a format that scientists and the general public can understand.
Read news and reviews>>