Weather and Climate

Compiled by Monica Bruckner at SERC.

This section provides access to a spectrum of visualizations and supporting material that can be used effectively to teach students about weather and climate. Visualizations include simple animations, GIS-based maps, videos, as well as numerous illustrations and photos.

Click here to browse the complete set of Visualization Collections.

Natural Hazards

IPCC Projections and Hurricanes (more info) This site, from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at NOAA provides images and background information about how global climate change will affect weather, in particular, hurricanes and their frequency and intensity.

General Collection

NCAR - Visualization and Enabling Technologies Section (VETS) (more info) This site hosts several visualizations involving climate change and is an index page for visualization collections/labs, software, reports & publications, collaborations, and events.

National Center for Atmospheric Research, Scientific Computing Division: Visualization ( This site may be offline. ) This web page displays computer visualizations of various weather and atmospheric-related research projects at the Scientific Computing Division (SCD) of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). It also has sections describing the work that the SCD does. The subjects of research described here includesclimate systems (global warming, sulfate aerosol evolution and Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC-11) penetration into the deep ocean); severe storms (forest fires, cyclones, mesoscale convective vortex, typhoon Herb, and supercell lightning simulations); solar magnetic flux tubes and penetrative turbulent compressible convection, El Nino and La Nina, ozone, the polar vortex and atmospheric chemistry.

WWW Animations of the Climate Research Unit-UK Temperature Record: 1856 to 1997 (more info) Java animations of reconstructed climates for the Last 150 years

Global Climate Animations ( This site may be offline. ) Flash animations and animated .gif files that show the climatology of the seasonal cycle for the time period 1959-1997 for variables including the global energy balance, global water balance, atmospheric circulation and winds, and global temperature.

Climate Diagnostic Center Plots (more info) Through static map interface, the Climate Diagnostic Center provides access to plots of current and historical United States temperature, precipitation and PDSI drought maps. The interface allows users to plot the raw data and view map visualizations of data.