The Sun provides the energy that drives Earth’s climate, but not all of the energy that reaches the top of the atmosphere finds its way to the surface. That’s because aerosols—and clouds seeded by ...

Thirteen years ago, a satellite acquired this beautiful image (above) of light and sand playing off a portion of the ocean floor in the Bahamas. The caption that accompanied the image didn’t include ...

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In some parts of the world, saline lakes are common features. Take, for instance, the image below, from our January 2017 article about fires in Argentina. But saline lakes are an environment unto ...

Most members of the traverse team have made their way safely back to the U.S. Everyone took a few days to enjoy the summer sun in New Zealand and defrost before returning home. Jessica submitted this ...

We have arrived back safe and sound after 11 days crossing the Southern Ocean. Our exit from Jang Bogo involved one last (very short) helicopter ride taking us to the Araon icebreaker so that they ...

The maps above, featured in our January 9, 2016 Image of the Day, show soil composition across the United States (bottom) and the space available for water to reside within those soil types (top).

On June 5, 2017, a convoy of vans and SUVs drove west from El Paso, Texas, and crossed into New Mexico, headed to a location about 20 miles southwest of Las Cruces. Leaving the pavement behind, we ...

A new fissure opened on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwestern Iceland near Grindavík in December 2023 and continued erupting throughout 2024. Whether sparked by lightning, intentional land-clearing, ...

Among the mysteries of the South American Monsoon, explains Fu, is how the first thunderstorms of the wet season get started. A monsoon is an atmospheric see-saw in which the large-scale circulation ...

The cost and benefits of global warming will vary greatly from area to area. For moderate climate change, the balance can be difficult to assess. But the larger the change in climate, the more ...

To understand how the Earth’s climate system balances the energy budget, we have to consider processes occurring at the three levels: the surface of the Earth, where most solar heating takes place; ...