Once trusted faces on the news, meteorologists now brave threats, insults and slander online from conspiracy theorists and climate change deniers who accuse them of faking or even fixing the weather.
Environment
May 13, 2023
25
842
Located at the intersection of South, Central, and East Asia, the massive Tibetan Plateau is often considered to be Earth's "third pole." A land of large glaciers, permafrost, and heavy snow, the plateau feeds a vast network ...
Environment
Aug 25, 2023
0
427
In a little more than five years—sometime in early 2029—the world will likely be unable to stay below the internationally agreed temperature limit for global warming if it continues to burn fossil fuels at its current ...
Environment
Nov 4, 2023
28
574
As carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, the Earth will get hotter. But exactly how much warming will result from a certain increase in CO2 is under study. The relationship between CO2 and warming, known as climate ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 17, 2024
19
424
For the first time, scientists have used the concept of evolutionary traps on human societies at large. They find that humankind risks getting stuck in 14 evolutionary dead ends, ranging from global climate tipping points ...
Social Sciences
Nov 13, 2023
2
492
A new study by Virginia Tech geobiologists traces the cause of the first known mass extinction of animals to decreased global oxygen availability, leading to the loss of a majority of animals present near the end of the Ediacaran ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 7, 2022
5
849
New research published in Science Advances paints an uncharacteristically upbeat picture for the planet. This is because more realistic ecological modeling suggests the world's plants may be able to take up more atmospheric ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 17, 2023
50
2091
A new analysis of freshwater resources across the globe shows that the updated planetary boundary for freshwater change was surpassed by the mid-twentieth century. In other words, for the past century, humans have been pushing ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 4, 2024
4
412
Superstorms, abrupt climate shifts and New York City frozen in ice. That's how the blockbuster Hollywood movie "The Day After Tomorrow" depicted an abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean's circulation and the catastrophic ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 17, 2024
2
260
Climate modeling based upon Earth's current greenhouse gas emissions trajectory predicts a worst-case scenario of 4.3°C warming of the planet by 2100 if sufficient measures are not implemented. While the Paris Climate Agreement ...
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time. Climate can be contrasted to weather, which is the present condition of these same elements over periods up to two weeks.
The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, terrain, altitude, ice or snow cover, as well as nearby water bodies and their currents. Climates can be classified according to the average and typical ranges of different variables, most commonly temperature and rainfall. The most commonly used classification scheme is the one originally developed by Wladimir Köppen. The Thornthwaite system, in use since 1948, incorporates evapotranspiration in addition to temperature and precipitation information and is used in studying animal species diversity and potential impacts of climate changes. The Bergeron and Spatial Synoptic Classification systems focus on the origin of air masses defining the climate for certain areas.
Paleoclimatology is the study and description of ancient climates. Since direct observations of climate are not available before the 19th century, paleoclimates are inferred from proxy variables that include non-biotic evidence such as sediments found in lake beds and ice cores, and biotic evidence such as tree rings and coral. Climate models are mathematical models of past, present and future climates.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
