Climatology

Thousands of walruses gathered at a beach in Point Lay, Alaska.

35,000 Walruses Are Crowding Onto One Alaskan Beach

Some animals have already been killed on the beach, most likely by stampedes

Pack ice and fjord walls with sedimentary strata.

Have Humans Really Created a New Geologic Age?

We are living in the Anthropocene. But no one can agree when it started or how human activity will be preserved

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Travel Through Deep Time With This Interactive Earth

Explore key moments in Earth’s transformative history as continents drift and climate fluctuates over 4.6 billion years

In cities, where the urban heat island effect can raise the local temperature several degrees higher than nearby rural areas, summer is a time to cool off wherever you can.

Why the City Is (Usually) Hotter than the Countryside

The smoothness of the landscape and the local climate—not the materials of the concrete jungle—govern the urban heat island effect, a new study finds

The interior of Greenland (seen here with researchers’ tents pitched) is usually covered in frozen ice and snow. In July 2012, though, 97 percent of the surface melted for the first time in more than 100 years. Scientists now know why that happened.

Nearly All of Greenland’s Surface Melted Overnight in 2012—Here’s Why

High temperatures and black carbon from forest fires and fossil fuels combined to push the huge ice sheet over the edge

In her seminal rose diagram, Florence Nightingale demonstrated that far more soldiers died from preventable epidemic diseases (blue) than from wounds inflicted on the battlefield (red) or other causes (black) during the Crimean War (1853-56). “She did this with a very specific purpose of driving through all sorts of military reforms in military hospitals subsequent to the Crimean War," says Kieniewicz.

Infographics Through the Ages Highlight the Visual Beauty of Science

An exhibit at the British Library focuses on the aesthetic appeal of 400 years of scientific data

Phoenix glows even after 10 p.m. one April night in this image made with a camera sensitive to infrared light, which is generated by heat and invisible to the naked eye. Researchers call the city an “urban heat island.”

The Reality of a Hotter World is Already Here

As global warming makes sizzling temperatures more common, will human beings be able to keep their cool? New research suggests not

Small island nations such as Tuvalu in the South Pacific face a wide range of threats from climate change, including rising seas that will inundate the land.

Five Frightening Observations From the Latest International Climate Change Report

Adaptation cannot save us from all the negative impacts of pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere

Genghis Khan attacked and captured the Jin capital of Zhongdu (now Beijing, China) in 1215, in one of many campaigns that expanded the Mongol Empire.

Warm, Wet Times Spurred Medieval Mongol Rise

Genghis Khan—and his army of men on horseback—benefitted from boom in grasslands

The Weddell Sea is covered in ice during the Antarctic winter. But in the winters of the mid-1970s, satellite imagery detected a large-ice free area the size of New Zealand.

Climate Change Felt in Deep Waters of Antarctica

A surge in freshwater at the surface may have shut down mixing of water layers in the Weddell Sea

A deep chill covered much of the eastern half of the United States this winter. Winds known as the polar vortex did not blow in as tight a formation as they have in the past. When they loosened, they let Arctic air spill south, seen by the blue in this picture. Atmospheric scientist Jennifer Francis says that this pattern can be blamed on Arctic warming.

Why We Can Blame A Warm Arctic For This Winter’s Icy Chill

Arctic amplification is affecting the jet stream and letting weather systems persist longer, atmospheric scientist says

Myth Debunked: Wind Farms Don't Alter the Climate

A model indicates that doubling Europe's number of wind turbines would have a negligible effect on temperature and precipitation

Australia has a long record of devastating tropical cyclones, such as Yasi, which made landfall in Queensland in February 2011. But a new study finds such storms to be on the decline.

Australian Cyclone Activity Hits Record Low Levels

Climate change may explain the recent drop, scientists say

Resurrection Bay, Alaska (1939), by Rockwell Kent

Art Chronicles Glaciers As They Disappear

The Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, Washington, is exhibiting 75 works of art pulled from the past two centuries—all themed around ice

Fishing net at Alaska’s Gore Point

Artists Join Scientists on an Expedition to Collect Marine Debris

Now, they are creating beautiful works from the trash they gathered on the 450-nautical-mile journey in the Gulf of Alaska

Searles Lake, California

The Science Behind Earth’s Many Colors

A new book of breathtaking aerial photography by Bernhard Edmaier explains how the planet's vividly colored landscapes and seascapes came to be

Photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher uses a powerful scanning electron microscope to capture all of a bee’s microscopic structures in stunning detail. Above: a bee’s antennae sockets, magnified 43 times.

What Does A Bee Look Like When It’s Magnified 3000 Times?

Photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher uses a powerful microscope to capture all of a bee's microscopic structures and textures in stunning detail

You might be curious, is this something macroscopic or microscopic? It’s actually the wing of a green darner dragonfly, as seen through a scanning electron microscope.

Macro or Micro? Test Your Sense of Scale

A geographer and a biologist at Salem State University team up to curate a new exhibition, featuring confounding views from both satellites and microscopes

Artist Nickolay Lamm’s depiction of a polar-grizzly hybrid

What Would a Cross Between a Polar Bear and a Grizzly Really Look Like?

As climate changes and Arctic sea ice melts, species shift habitats and may interbreed. Lamm digitally manipulates photographs to imagine these hybrids

“Sonic Bloom,” a solar sculpture at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle

Sonic Bloom! A New Solar-Powered Sculpture

Dan Corson's latest installation in Seattle—flower sculptures that light up at night—show that solar energy is viable even in the cloudy Pacific Northwest

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