Climate change Archives

No words, no numbers—just a powerful visual capturing our planet’s warming. The latest update adds a new dark red stripe for 2024—a color first introduced last year when 2023 shattered all previous records. -- World Meteorological Organization

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Heating Our Home World: NASA Confirms 2024 Was The Warmest Year on Record

by Keith CowingJanuary 10, 2025January 10, 2025

Earth’s average surface temperature in 2024 was the warmest on record, according to an analysis led by NASA scientists.

Volcanic Eruption - Grok via Astrobiology.com

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extinction events, Fossils & Paleontology, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Impact events, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Meteorites & Asteroids, Press Release

Massive Volcanic Eruptions Did Not Cause The Extinction Of Dinosaurs

by Keith CowingDecember 19, 2024December 19, 2024

Massive volcanic eruptions on the Indian peninsula have long been proposed as an alternative cause for the demise of the dinosaurs. This phase of active volcanism took place in a […]

Composite age model constructed from the NKT section and comparison to other estimates for the age and duration of OAE1a. Two youngest dated tuffs SAB-046 and SAB-054 correlated from the nearby SAB section. Shaded distributions in color denote the summed probability distribution of 206Pb/238U dates for each tuff, as likelihood inputs into Bayesian modeling. Posterior distributions are superimposed in black on original likelihoods. The black solid line indicates the median, and the 95% HDI indicated by light gray shading represents the model uncertainty for all interpolated points between tuffs. The right panel illustrates estimates for the age of onset and termination of OAE1a at other sites compared to our results from Hokkaido. Note that, as described in the text, OAE1a is not consistently defined. Hk, Hokkaido; Cs, Cismon; Pb, Piobbico; Pg, Poggio le Guaine; Sb, Svalbard; Sd, Shandong. Only symbols with an error bar represent dates with an uncertainty value; otherwise, no uncertainty is provided. -- Science Advances

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Fossils & Paleontology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Prehistoric Rock In Japan Reveals Clues To A Major Ocean Anoxic Event

by Keith CowingDecember 18, 2024December 19, 2024

By studying prehistoric rocks and fossils emerging from the side of Mount Ashibetsu in Japan, researchers have precisely refined the timing and duration of Ocean Anoxic Event 1a (OAE 1a), […]

Considering the globe as a whole, high clouds and cloud-free scenes result in warming of the Earth's atmosphere, as less energy escapes into space than arrives from the sun. For low clouds, it's the opposite, so their decline leads to warming. CREDIT Alfred-Wegener-Institut / Yves Nowak

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Press Release

Rapid Surge In Global Warming Mainly Due To Reduced Planetary Albedo

by Keith CowingDecember 6, 2024December 6, 2024

Rising sea levels, melting glaciers, heatwaves at sea – 2023 set a number of alarming new records. The global mean temperature also rose to nearly 1.5 degrees above the preindustrial […]

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Missions & Hardware, Plant Biology, Press Release, Space Stations, Tricorders & Sensors, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Orbital Recon: EMIT Collects Data On Terrestrial Plant Communities

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2024November 30, 2024

Editor’s note: when we begin to survey new worlds up close with reconnaissance spacecraft – from orbit – we will need an array of sensors capable of gleaning as much […]

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Orbital Recon: EMIT Scans The Amazon River in Northern Brazil

by Keith CowingDecember 1, 2024November 30, 2024

Editor’s note: when we begin to survey new worlds up close with reconnaissance spacecraft – from orbit – we will need an array of sensors capable of gleaning as much […]

Image shows a type of plankton called Foraminifer – microscopic organisms, the size of a grain of sand – which float with fellow microorganisms close to the surface of the ocean. Credit Bernat Heszler, University of Bristol

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Extinction events, Press Release, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Ocean World Update: Sea Life On Earth Will Struggle To Survive Future Global Warming

by Keith CowingNovember 14, 2024November 14, 2024

A new study highlights how some marine life could face extinction over the next century, if human-induced global warming worsens.

Global mean annual sea surface temperature anomalies (°C) against the Changhsingian background state (412 ppm simulation). (A) SST anomalies between 857 ppm and 412 ppm simulations; (B) SST anomalies between 1712 ppm and 412 ppm simulations; (C) SST anomalies between 2568 ppm and 412 ppm simulations; (D) SST anomalies between 4000 ppm and 412 ppm simulations. -- Science

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extinction events, Habitable Zones, Press Release

New Research Reveals How El Nino Caused The Greatest Ever Mass Extinction

by Keith CowingSeptember 30, 2024September 29, 2024

Mega ocean warming El Niño events were key in driving the largest extinction of life on planet Earth some 252 million years ago, according to new research.

This image, taken from a data visualization, shows Arctic sea ice minimum extent on September 11, 2024. The yellow boundary shows the minimum extent averaged over the 30-year period from 1981 to 2010. Download high-resolution video and images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio: hhttps://svsdev.gsfc.nasa.gov/5382 NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Trent L. Schindler

Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Cryobiology, Europa, Ganymede, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, ROVs/Submersibles/Diving, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Ice Planet Update: Arctic Sea Ice Near Historic Low – Antarctic Ice Continues Decline

by Keith CowingSeptember 25, 2024September 25, 2024

Editor’s note: we live on a world that is mostly an ocean world, part Icy world, part desert world etc. Other worlds in our solar system exhibit both similar and […]

Thwaites Glacier and much of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be lost by the 23rd century. -- British Antarctic Survey

Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Cryobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Iceworld Update: Grim Outlook For Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier

by Keith CowingSeptember 21, 2024September 21, 2024

A vast area of the Antarctic Ice Sheet continues to retreat as a UK-US group of scientists reveal new findings about how and when it might suddenly move towards collapse.