Articles on Earth’s climate system, cloud formation, albedo, feedback loops & tipping points. Learn about changing El Nino/La Nina weather patterns, plus climate adaptation, green infrastructure, sponge cities, and much more.
Why are floods occurring more frequently? What is a 1,000-year flood? What are the causes and most dangerous effects of flooding? Is climate change responsible? We answer these question and lots more. Learn how heavier rainfall and rising sea levels are endangering coastal towns and floodplains. We also examine flash floods, as well as flood defense and management systems.
Hurricanes are nature’s most powerful storms. They produce destructive winds, floods, heavy rainfalls and tornadoes. We examine how hurricanes form, what dangers the hurricane season presents, and ask if climate change is making storms worse. We answer these questions and more.
What exactly is a tornado? How does it form? (Tornadogenesis.) What are the main types of tornado? How is the strength of a twister rated by the Enhanced Fujita Scale? Does global warming affect tornadoes? Where and when do tornadoes occur? Which was the most powerful tornado ever? We answer all these questions and more.
What is water vapor? What is its role in the hydrologic cycle? How does it affect global warming? How does the water vapor feedback work? Do clouds warm or cool the planet? How does water vapor create hurricanes? How does it help in the formation of the the Hydroxyl Radical (OH)? We answer all these questions and more.
What exactly is a drought and how is it measured? What are the causes and effects of this type of water shortage? Why can’t scientists predict droughts? Is climate change responsible for an increase in megadroughts around the world? We explain the answers to these questions and more.
The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is a tropical weather cycle that moves eastwards around the globe with a life-span of about 30-60 days. Usually, it appears over the western Indian Ocean, before moving east across the Indo-Pacific Maritime Continent and into the warmer waters of the Western Pacific Ocean – a journey which takes about a month – bringing with it heavy rainfall and strong winds. As it moves, it affects meteorological conditions in several different parts of the globe.
A guide to the Southern Annular Mode, a regional weather system affecting southern Australia, Antarctica and the Southern Ocean marine ecosystem.
We explain how the IOD weather cycle works, its different phases and meteorological effects, how it’s measured and its connection with El Niño and La Niña, as well as with global warming.
How Does the El Niño-Southern Oscillation weather system work? How does it affect global weather? How do oceanographers distinguish El Niño from La Niña? Is the system affected by climate change? What are the economic effects? We provide all the answers.
We look at 8 major climate tipping points: the Antarctic ice sheet, the Amazon rainforest, deep-water currents, permafrost, the Greenland ice cap, ecological shifts in the taiga, coral reefs and “Hothouse Earth”.
What Causes Heatwaves? What are the health effects of extreme heat? What are urban heat islands? How does heat affect crops? How hot will heatwaves become? How to adapt to extreme temperatures? We answer these questions and more.
We investigate to what extent global warming affects extreme weather events, such as droughts, heatwaves, marine heatwaves, floods, hurricanes or other meteorological events. Are they becoming more frequent and/or more severe?
As global warming intensifies, the world is getting warmer and wetter. Flood control is therefore becoming a much higher priority, especially for low-lying cities. Hence the emergence of a new urban planning concept: the “sponge city”. How do sponge cities prevent urban flooding? What are their main features? We explain all you need to know.
Is climate the same thing as weather? Is climatology the same as meteorology? What is paleoclimatology? What exactly is climate change? Is it the same as global warming? We explain all you need to know.
The new phrase “climate change adaptation” is used by scientists to describe actions designed to cushion the effects of global warming. It’s not about preventing or limiting climate change, it’s simply about coping with its consequences. In this article we explain all you need to know, including how the United Nations is dealing with the issue.
Clouds are a highly complex feature of our climate set-up. They exert both a warming and a cooling effect on the surface of the planet. We explain the different types and their overall effect on climate change. We also look at a new way of measuring cloud properties from space and outline a new theory that predicts the disintegration of clouds.
Climate science looks at long term weather patterns that have established themselves now, or will do in the future. Its cousin, paleoclimatology, looks at ancient climates. In this article we take a quick look at how climate data is collected, how the data is modelled using computers, and how the climate denial movement rejects mainstream climate science.
We begin with ‘Earth’s Energy Budget’ and radiative equilibrium, before explaining ‘radiative forcings’ – the primary causes of climate change – as well as ‘climate drivers’ and ‘climate feedbacks’. We also ask: how high will radiative forcing be in the future? and examine the representative concentration pathways” (RCPs) produced by the IPCC.
Climate feedbacks are processes or mechanisms that either amplify or diminish the effects of climate forcings. We examine the 11 main climate feedbacks involving water vapor, ice albedo, rainforest drying, methane release, decomposition, clouds, black carbon albedo and more. We also distinguish climate tipping points.
Earth’s climate system is a complex series of processes involving the different physical parts of the planet and the biogeochemical networks that support them. We explain the role of deep-water circulation, polar ice, lithification, and the biosphere. We also explain the external forcings that affect the climate system as well as the impact of global warming.
The term “albedo” refers to how much sunlight is reflected back into space by a body or surface (snow, seawater, forests etc). We examine the albedo of the most common surfaces and explain how they affect Earth’s temperature and global warming.
We look at the various types of computer-based climate models that allow us to understand complex climatic processes and to make forecasts about future climate over long time periods. We assess the accuracy of projections made by certain models.
• The difference between climate and weather is time. Weather is the rain which falls over a weekend. Climate is weather averaged over a much longer period of time (at least 30 years). Normally, climate takes centuries to change. However, the climate change we are experiencing today is happening much faster, which is why it is so unnatural. • 19 out of the 20 warmest years all have occurred since 2001. • About 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered by clouds at any given time. It's cloudier over sea than land. • Heatwaves are becoming more frequent. In the 1960s, most major cities in the United States experienced heatwaves twice a year. Now, it is 6 times a year. • Sometimes climate variability is triggered not by global warming but by regional weather cycles, like the El Niño–Southern oscillation (ENSO), the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO), the Northern Annular Mode (NAM) and the North Atlantic oscillation. However, even here, the extent of the variation can be influenced by climate change. • Warm air holds more moisture. In fact, air holds about 7 percent more moisture for every 1°C rise in temperature. So, if Planet Earth heats up by 4°C, there will be around 28 percent more water vapor in the atmosphere. In other words, expect lots more rain. • According to the United Nations Environment Programme the cost of the changes needed to adapt to a warming world is around US$ 140 billion per year. That's roughly 2 percent of global GDP. • Climate feedbacks are mechanisms that amplify or reduce global warming. A good illustration of a positive feedback are forest fires. High temperature dries out the forest, creating tinderbox conditions. Lightning then ignites the dry forest biomass which burns down a wide expanse of forest, sending a plume of CO2 into the atmosphere. This CO2 causes more heat to be trapped in the atmosphere causing more global warming, which dries out the forest even more, and so on.