If the Amazon rainforest functions as our planet’s lungs, what do raging wildfires threaten? An atmospheric scientist explains why the fires, though devastating, won’t suffocate life on Earth.
Noctilucent clouds shine over Swaledale in the Yorkshire Dales, UK, June 2019.
Neil Squires/PA Wire/PA Images
Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at 414 parts per million. But thanks to a recalculation of methane’s warming power, the total amount of greenhouse gases is now equivalent to more than 500.
Waves on Lake Superior crash against the Duluth, Minn. waterfront Sept. 10, 2014.
Randen Pederson
Over the past 20 years, Great Lakes water levels have gone from sustained multiyear lows to multiyear highs. Climate change is accelerating the transition between dry phases and wet phases.
Blizzard conditions cover the Central and Northern Plains on March 13, 2019.
NASA Earth Observatory
A climatologist who studies precipitation trends explains how climate change is projected to make flooding events in the Midwest more severe and more frequent.
Water vapor rising from the surface of Lake Michigan condenses into droplets on a sub-zero day, Jan. 6, 2014.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
An atmospheric scientist explains why water can do some strange-looking things at very cold temperatures, and what’s different about snowfalls on Mars.
An image from the International Space Station captures plumes of smoke from California wildfires on August 4, 2018.
NASA
Haze from Northern California wildfires has drifted as far east as Philadelphia. Wildfire smoke contains many potentially toxic substances, so anyone exposed to it should take basic precautions.
The ocean absorbs about 90 percent of the excess heat produced as climate change warms the earth.
Image Catalog
According to a new study, the oceans have absorbed more heat from climate change than previously thought. This could mean the Earth will warm even faster in the future than scientists have predicted.
An atmospheric scientist who studies the Arctic explains why – because of global warming – the U.S. may be in for longer cold spells in the winter.
Clouds over Australia’s Davis Research Station, containing ice particles that activate ozone-depleting chemicals, triggering the annual ozone hole.
Barry Becker/BOM/AAD
The treaty to limit the destruction of the ozone layer is hailed as the most successful environmental agreement of all time. Three decades on, the ozone layer is slowly but surely returning to health.
Satellite image on Sept. 7, 2017 shows three hurricanes: Irma in the center just north of the island of Hispaniola, Katia on the left in the Gulf of Mexico and Jose in the Atlantic Ocean on the right.
NOAA via AP
Meteorology researchers across the country are prepping experiments for the mini-night the eclipse will bring on August 21 – two minutes and 36 seconds without the sun in the middle of the day.
Hurricane Matthew approaching the east coast of Florida on Oct. 6, 2016.
Two atmospheric scientists explain how they weigh evidence such as ocean temperatures, wind speeds and other climate patterns to predict how many Atlantic hurricanes are likely to form this year.
The higher the plume, the bigger the problem.
Jim Peaco/Wikimedia Commons
When a bushfire rages so high it creates its own thunderstorm, it becomes a ‘firestorm’ - and makes life much more difficult for firefighters. We still have a lot to learn about what triggers them.