Engineering

Researchers' 'cooling glass' blasts building heat into space

University of Maryland researchers aiming to combat rising global temperatures have developed a new "cooling glass" that can turn down the heat indoors without electricity by drawing on the cold depths of space.

Electronics & Semiconductors

Researchers enhance conversion efficiency of thermoelectric devices

In the effort to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, one strategy involves harvesting the waste heat that is already being produced by our energy systems. Thermoelectric generators can convert waste heat to clean electricity, ...

Energy & Green Tech

Natural gas storage research could combat global warming

To help combat global warming, a team led by Dr. Mert Atilhan from Texas A&M University and Dr. Cafer Yavuz at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), is working on a new porous polymer that can store ...

Engineering

How to make homes cooler without cranking up the air conditioning

Temperatures around the world are soaring. Both California's Death Valley and China's Xinjiang region have seen temperatures climb above the 50℃ mark. A blistering heat wave is also sweeping across the Mediterranean, causing ...

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Climate

Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time. Climate can be contrasted to weather, which is the present condition of these same elements over periods up to two weeks.

The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, terrain, altitude, ice or snow cover, as well as nearby water bodies and their currents. Climates can be classified according to the average and typical ranges of different variables, most commonly temperature and rainfall. The most commonly used classification scheme is the one originally developed by Wladimir Köppen. The Thornthwaite system, in use since 1948, incorporates evapotranspiration in addition to temperature and precipitation information and is used in studying animal species diversity and potential impacts of climate changes. The Bergeron and Spatial Synoptic Classification systems focus on the origin of air masses defining the climate for certain areas.

Paleoclimatology is the study and description of ancient climates. Since direct observations of climate are not available before the 19th century, paleoclimates are inferred from proxy variables that include non-biotic evidence such as sediments found in lake beds and ice cores, and biotic evidence such as tree rings and coral. Climate models are mathematical models of past, present and future climates.

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