Compton Tucker, PhD

If you would like a copy of this presentation, please contact: Amanda.Zallo@purchase.edu

 The earth’s climate is determined by irradiance from the Sun and by properties of the atmosphere, oceans, and land that determine the reflection, absorption, and emission of energy within our atmosphere and the Earth’s surface. Since the 1970s, Earth-viewing satellites have provided an unprecedented understanding of the Earth’s coupled ocean-land-atmosphere system. Satellite observations show a very constant Sun, a global sea level rise of 3 to 4 cm/decade, increasing temperatures in the lower atmosphere, decreasing Arctic Ocean sea ice, decreasing glacier extent, and continuing ice mass loss from Greenland and Antarctica.