 Did you know that scientists at NCAR study atmospheric rivers and how these regions in our atmosphere that can carry enormous amounts of water vapor are changing? We talked with NCAR scientist Christine Shields to learn more. We're here with Christine Shields from the Climate and Global Dynamics Lab and Christine, can you tell us a little bit about what you do here at NCAR? Sure. Well, I'm a project scientist and I study the Earth's water cycle and especially how it changes with the changing climate. And as part of that water cycle, I know you also study atmospheric rivers. Could you tell us a little bit about what is an atmospheric river? Atmospheric rivers are a weather feature, actually. They're long and narrow, so at least 1,000 miles long, and they actually carry a ton of water. Similar to a regular river like the Amazon or the Mississippi, atmospheric rivers carry a lot of water from point A to point B, but in the sky as water vapor. When they actually make it to land, for example, the west coast of the US, they interact with topography and then produce a ton of precipitation. So most of California's precipitation actually happens with atmospheric rivers in the wintertime, so it's a very important part of their water source. I can show you more, so let's go to my office. Yeah, sounds great. OK. So welcome to my office, Dan. This is where I do all of my work. I actually work on the computer most of the time. So I'm behind my keyboard a lot and I do a lot of data analysis with my atmospheric rivers using global climate models, which are actually like glorified computer programs that solve equations to simulate motions around the around the earth. Most places that are prone to atmospheric rivers are actually west coasts of continent. So for example, Western North America, California, Washington, Oregon. And to prepare for them, of course, is just to listen to the forecast a lot. But there actually is a category scale that rates the severity of atmospheric rivers like a category one atmospheric river is probably going to be beneficial. But a category four or five atmospheric river would be prepare for flooding and it's going to be long drawn out. So you just mentioned we usually hear about atmospheric rivers on the west coast of continents, but I also know you do some work in polar regions as well. Could you tell us a little bit about that research? Atmospheric rivers actually make it to Antarctica and as well as into the Arctic in places like Greenland. If you have an atmospheric river that is warm enough and it produces rain, that actually can be pretty detrimental to the ice sheet on Greenland. In fact, last year for the first time, there was rain at the top of the glacier in Greenland and it was produced from an atmospheric river. But there was one question you really wanted to answer about atmospheric rivers. What do you think that would be? This is a hard. This is hard to answer because I've lost the questions I want to answer. But the main thing is I want to really understand them under climate change. I would like to know where the atmospheric rivers are going to become more intense and where are they going to sort of dry up? And then information will go for water research planning because as we move into a globally warmed world, water is going to become more important.