The weather and the atmosphere have a tremendous impact on business and industry, governments, and societies, and researchers in the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science aim to better understand this dynamic set of systems. From modeling the intricacies of snowfall to understanding how tornadoes and hurricanes take shape to detailing the atmospheric chemistry of the rainforest, researchers cover the gamut of the interactions between the atmosphere and the land.
Department Head: Paul Markowski
Associate Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Melissa Gervais
Associate Head for Undergraduate Programs: Jon Nese
Associate Head of Graduate Programs: Jerry Harrington
Degrees offered: B.S., M.S., Ph.D., minors, and certificates
Website: https://met.psu.edu
Over 230 students, faculty and staff from Penn State and other institutions of higher education attended this year's Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) Symposium on Oct. 14 at University Park.
Climate observers have long tied the strength of a major ocean current to water temperatures in the so-called “cold blob” in the North Atlantic Ocean. The 965,000-square-mile area south and southeast of Greenland cooled by as much 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century as other ocean waters warmed.
Pennsylvania has more than 27,000 known abandoned and orphan natural gas wells, according to Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Jessica Shirley. These disused wells can pose health risks to nearby residents and negative environmental impacts to the surrounding areas, so the DEP has awarded a five-year, $2.4 million grant to a team led by Penn State researchers to better assess these potential impacts.
The Keystone Mesonet and Alerting System — a one-stop shop for weather information that provides Pennsylvania’s emergency management personnel and the public with real-time updates on weather conditions and threats — will continue and expand thanks to a new $3.5 million grant.
Natural gas leaks are a significant source of methane emissions in cities, but it can be hard to pinpoint exactly where and why they happen. And methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is the main chemical component of natural gas, has been historically undercounted or omitted in emissions estimates, according to a team of atmospheric and climate science researchers in the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.
Most natural gas leakage in Indianapolis likely originates from homes and other buildings, not exterior pipelines and large-scale distribution infrastructure that deliver the fossil fuel, according to Penn State researchers who assessed nearly a decade of data.
Tornado warnings can give people time to seek shelter, but meteorologists still face a fundamental challenge in delivering accurate warnings: determining which storms will actually produce a tornado.
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has selected two faculty members in Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences to receive awards recognizing their research contributions: Jose D. Fuentes, professor of meteorology and atmospheric science, and Tushar Mittal, the Wilson Faculty Fellow of geosciences.
The Penn State's Institute of Energy and the Environment (IEE) has welcomed four new faculty members whose research expands the breadth of expertise within its interdisciplinary community.
If there’s one thing a career in meteorology and atmospheric science taught Penn State alumna Cheryl Nelson, it’s that things can change in the blink of an eye. She graduated in 2002 and since then has been navigating through storms and sunny days in a career that’s shifted more than a Central Pennsylvania season.