Soot from aeroplane exhausts can linger in the atmosphere, seeding ice clouds which trap heat.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Atmospheric science
Displaying 41 - 60 of 97 articles
Is it time to take drastic steps to modify Earth’s climate to avoid catastrophic warming? A panel of experts says the idea deserves study.
With the onset of spring come thunderstorms, and sometimes tornadoes. Learn how these systems form and why night tornadoes are especially deadly.
When planes fly from east to west, they are flying against a river of air called a jet stream. These air currents can make your flight longer or shorter, depending on which way you are going.
Sudden warming more than 10 km above the north pole can mean sudden freezing down here.
Thousands of chemical compounds in wildfire smoke are interacting with each other and sunlight as the smoke travels. For people downwind, it can become more toxic over time.
Molina, who died on Oct. 8, ‘thought climate change was the biggest problem in the world long before most people did.’ His research on man-made depletion of the ozone layer won the 1995 Nobel Prize.
Ice cores can preserve evidence of ‘black swan’ events like pandemics and droughts, but the glaciers from which they are collected are disappearing.
Laura went from a tropical storm to a major hurricane in less than 24 hours, sending coastal residents scrambling to prepare. Hurricanes Harvey and Michael exploded in strength in similar ways.
From June through October, it’s not unusual for huge Saharan dust plumes to blow across the Atlantic. They can darken skies but also bring calmer weather and electric sunsets. Here’s how they form.
Climate models have been overestimating how much sunlight hits the Southern Ocean. This is because the clouds there are different from clouds anywhere else. Bacterial DNA helped us understand why.
Wind travels all over the world. Where does it come from, and why?
Earth’s biggest rivers are streams of warm water vapor in the atmosphere that can cause huge rain and snowfall over land. Climate change is making them longer, wetter and stronger.
Love it or hate it, winter means snow and ice for much of the US. In many places, though, snow is becoming a scarce resource.
Not so long ago, people had no idea what would happen to them – and what they would see – once they ascended into the clouds.
Countries still figure out their emissions by adding up all the sources, rather than measuring what’s actually in the air.
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.
‘Night-shining’ clouds normally found above the poles have now been seen as far south as Los Angeles.
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.
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.
Top contributors
-
Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University
-
Research Group Leader, CSIRO
-
Honorary Fellow, CSIRO
-
Professor of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, University of Dayton
-
Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Hawaii
-
Ph.D. Student in Atmospheric Science, University of Michigan
-
Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Michigan
-
Associate Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee
-
Professor Emeritus of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of Michigan
-
Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
-
Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science and Colorado State Climatologist, Colorado State University
-
Assistant Professor of Geography, Middle Tennessee State University
-
Senior Research Scientist, NASA
-
Pro Vice-Chancellor Flagship Initiatives, Swinburne University of Technology
-
Professor of Physics of the Oceans, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
