Climatology is the scientific discipline within the atmospheric sciences that investigates the statistical behavior, physical processes, and dynamics of the climate system over periods from decades to millennia. It analyzes long-term patterns and variability of atmospheric variables such as temperature, precipitation, radiation, and circulation, and their coupling with oceans, cryosphere, land surface, and biosphere. Climatology employs observational datasets, reanalyses, paleoclimate proxies, and numerical climate models to quantify mean states, extremes, teleconnections, and feedbacks, and to attribute observed changes to internal variability and external forcings, including solar, volcanic, and anthropogenic influences.
A summer beach day in Oregon often involves a cool, gray blanket of fog that not only shapes the experience of beachgoers but also affects the coastal and inland environment. Now, commercially available surfing webcams are ...
Environment
Jul 20, 2026
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Researchers have copied massive quantities of publicly available climate and environmental data from NASA onto a Swiss supercomputer to train artificial intelligence models—and for safekeeping amid U.S. funding cuts.
Earth Sciences
Jul 20, 2026
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Africa is home to around 70% of the world's burned area—the total area of land scorched by wildfires each year—making it the planet's biggest wildfire hotspot. Yet despite this, satellite observations have revealed an unexpected ...
Climate lawsuits seeking massive damages from fossil fuel companies increasingly hinge on this question: How reliably can scientists link specific extreme weather events to human-caused climate change?
Environment
Jul 16, 2026
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Heavy precipitation becomes more intense with every degree Earth warms. This affects flooding. Using hourly data from 384 rivers in the Alps, researchers from the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF modeled ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 16, 2026
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Two types of carbohydrates are important to plants—structural carbohydrates (which form cell walls) and nonstructural carbohydrates (NSCs). The latter group represents plants' stored energy reserves, which can be used to ...
Evolution
Jul 14, 2026
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Many parts of Western Europe are currently wilting under a heat wave. These blistering spells can last for a week or more, and although they are common in most summers, it is difficult to predict how long they will last.
London is underwater. The Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, St Paul's Cathedral and the Bank of England are all submerged. Far away, the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have collapsed, triggering accelerated ...
Environment
Jul 13, 2026
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As scientists around the world closely monitor the possible development of a powerful "Super El Niño," a new study suggests that another tropical ocean deserves equal attention. Researchers have found that temperature changes ...
Environment
Jul 13, 2026
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Earth's temperature has been much cooler in the past than previously thought, meaning it could be moving toward the warmest it's ever been.
Earth Sciences
Jul 9, 2026
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