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The Mission to Planet Earth curriculum offers students the opportunity to join NASA's latest mission by enrolling in the fictitious Terranaut Training Academy. Students design a mission patch and receive certificates after each unit completed.

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Available June 2011 from UT Press...

The Impact of Global Warming on Texas, Second Edition

Related Climate Resources

Global Temperature Anomalies 1881-2009

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio Data provided by Robert B. Schmunk (NASA/GSFC GISS)

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Welcome to the Texas Climate Initiative (TCI) a unique public resource dedicated to the advance of climate change science and education in Texas. Our goal is to have this website become an important resource for your "virtual" research and information needs on past, present, and future climate variability and change. We will review current scientific findings, policy strategies, and educational materials in a timely, credible, and comprehensible form. Special attention will be given to the risks and opportunities for Texas in the changing climate of the 21st century. A companion website, The Texas Climate News, will provide reporting and analysis of current news, opinion, and events.

The Texas Climate Initiative is a project of the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) and is directed by Robert Harriss. Sponsors include a generous grant from the Houston Endowment and funding from the HARC Endowment for Regional Sustainability Science.

Please send comments to: editor@texasclimatenews.net

Climate data spark battle in Congress
by Neal Lane & Robert Harriss

Houston Chronicle, July 16, 2010 - Most Texans would agree with Jim Norwine, a geographer and climatologist at Texas A&M-Kingsville, that our state has "problematic" climates and that both private and public decision-makers need the best available climate data and analysis on where we may be heading next month and in years ahead. Determined to keep the U.S. on the cutting edge of climate data and analysis for decision-making, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has asked Congress to approve a climate services program.... continued at chron.com

> new edition full text now online <

Global climate change will matter most in local places. The Changing Climate of South Texas 1900-2100: Problems and Prospects, Impacts and Implications, published by CREST-RESSACA at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, is now available in a new revised edition online. [read more]

Climate Learning Center

Design Guide for Undergraduate Earth System Science Education
A resource for teaching Earth system science

This Design Guide for Undergraduate Earth System Science Education is a web-based resource for teaching Earth system science that represents the lessons learned from 15 years of NASA-supported Earth system science education programs at 57 universities and colleges throughout the United States. The primary audience for the guide are faculty who are teaching or are interested in teaching Earth system science at the undergraduate level, but secondary audiences include college and university administrators interested in developing an undergraduate ESS curriculum, as well as high school practitioners and administrators. The Design Guide was developed and produced via a collaboration of faculty involved in the ESSE21 program.

www.essedesignguide.org

Environment Texas has released its latest national report titled Too Much Pollution: State and National Trends in Global Warming Emissions from 1990 to 2007. The report shows that even though Texas still leads the nation on global warming emissions, the state decreased by 4% between 2004 and 2007. This is also the first time state-by-state CO₂ data for 2006 and 2007 have been released.

Pages 23-24 talk specifically about Texas.

The Texas Climate Initiative is a project of the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) and is directed by Robert Harriss.
Sponsors include generous grants from Houston Endowment, Inc., The Brown Foundation, Inc., Magnolia Charitable Trust and funding from the Endowment for Regional Sustainability Science.

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