Projecting the Impacts
of Climate Change
The southwest U.S. faces a hotter, drier climate in 50 years

CRD climate researcher Michael Wehner developed projections of future climate change for a report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program. The precipitation map shown is one of the projections developed by Wehner. It shows, among other things, a substantial reduction in springtime rains in California, and summertime rains in the Pacific Northwest.

“Even in areas where precipitation is projected to increase, higher temperatures will cause greater evaporation leading to a future where drought conditions are the normal state. In the southwest United States, water resource issues will become a major issue,” says Wehner. Learn more

NERSC Helps Discover Cosmic Transients
Caltech and NERSC join forces to find supernovae, gamma ray bursts

An innovative new sky survey, called the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF), will utilize the unique tools and services offered by NERSC to expose relatively rare and fleeting cosmic events, like supernovae and gamma ray bursts. In fact, during the commissioning phase alone, the survey has already uncovered more than 40 supernovae, stellar explosions, and astronomers expect to discover thousands more each year.

This survey combines the power of a wide-field telescope, a high-resolution camera, and high-performance network and computing, as well as the ability to conduct rapid follow-up observations with telescopes around the globe for the first time. Learn more