Offered by the Science Learning Network, the Air Travelers Web site is "an introduction to the basic principles of buoyancy, properties of gases, temperature, and the technology involved in hot air ballooning." Four activities are described along with any materials needed, directions, and questions that help students understand the concepts. A bonus activity is also provided that explains how to...

Les Cowley, a physicist and expert in atmospheric optics, developed this website to share his knowledge about the visual spectacles produced by light connecting with water drops, dust, and ice crystals. Students can discover how and where the amazing displays are formed. The site is divided into five main categories: Rays and Shadows, Water Droplets, Rainbows, Ice Halos, and High Atmosphere....

From the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory's Center for X-Ray Optics, these "atomic scattering factors are based upon photoabsorption measurements of elements in their elemental state." These easy-to-use tables allow users to search out atomic scattering factor data by element and look up the x-ray properties of elements, the index of refraction for a compound material, the x-ray attenuation length of...

The Climate and Radiation Branch of the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center includes discussions on aerosols, clouds and the hydrological cycle, rainfall, and remote sensing. As you dig deeper into individual pages, you can find more detailed information on such things as fractals, GOES and MODIS instruments, and so on. There's a page to search for publications, and many abstracts are...

High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research (HAIPER) is an advanced airborne research platform which is currently being built and modified for application in environmental research. The aircraft is maintained and operated for the National Science Foundation by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. HIAPER is described as "a new research...

Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) have created this powerful Climate Data Library. The library "contains a wide variety of earth science data, primarily oceanographic and atmospheric datasets" and offers many ways of accessing and manipulating information. Specific topographical data or historical...

NASA's Global Tropospheric Experiment (GTE) was formed as "a commitment by the United States Government to understand the human impact on the global atmosphere." Visitors can learn about GTE's use of data collected via aircraft and satellites to create atmospheric chemistry models that predict climate change. Through this extensive website, users can find summaries, mission maps, data,...

The "Earth Observing System (EOS) Aura is a NASA mission to study the Earth's ozone, air quality, and climate" by researching the composition, chemistry, and dynamics of the Earth's atmosphere. Visitors can learn how Aura is investigating three questions: Is the Earth's ozone layer recovering? Is air quality getting worse? How is Earth's climate changing? Researchers can find extensive details...

"The mission of the Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Branch is to conduct research to understand the physics and dynamics of atmospheric processes through the use of satellite, aircraft and surface-based remote sensing observations and computer-based simulations." Through this website, visitors can learn about the branch's many space flight projects including the Polarization and Directionality of...

NOAA's Air Resource Laboratory (ARL) provides interactive transport and dispersion modeling at this website. Users can find instructions, trial versions, and a download for the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model, which can be used to compute simple air parcel trajectories as well as complex dispersion and deposition simulations. The site also offers transport...