Goddard Institute for Space Studies

A safe operating space for humanity

Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity

"Anthropogenic pressures on the Earth System have reached a scale where abrupt global environmental change can no longer be excluded. We propose a new approach to global sustain...

A Parameterization for the Absorption of Solar Radiation in the Earth's Atmosphere

A method is described for rapidly computing the amount of solar energy absorbed at the earth's surface and in the atmosphere as a function of altitude. The method is a parametri...

Abrupt Climate Change

Large, abrupt, and widespread climate changes with major impacts have occurred repeatedly in the past, when the Earth system was forced across thresholds. Although abrupt climat...

Greenhouse Effects due to Man-Made Perturbations of Trace Gases

Nitrous oxide, methane, ammonia, and a number of other trace constituents in the earth's atmosphere have infrared absorption bands in the spectral region 7 to 14 μm and contribu...

Sun and dust versus greenhouse gases: an assessment of their relative roles in global climate change

Toward a whole-landscape approach for sustainable land use in the tropics

Increasing food production and mitigating climate change are two primary but seemingly contradictory objectives for tropical landscapes. This special feature examines synergies ...

Improved Ground Hydrology Calculations for Global Climate Models (GCMs): Soil Water Movement and Evapotranspiration

A physically based ground hydrology model is developed to improve the land-surface sensible and latent heat calculations in global climate models (GCMs). The processes of transp...

Effects of anthropogenic intervention in the land hydrologic cycle on global sea level rise

Recent studies suggest that anthropogenic modification of land hydrology (e.g. through groundwater mining, dam building, irrigation, deforestation, wetlands drainage, and urbani...