climate Archives

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Exploring Exoplanets with Interferometry

by Keith CowingJune 11, 2026June 11, 2026

(Extract from the Executive Summary) Humanity stands at the threshold of answering one of its most profound questions: Does life exist beyond Earth?

Opposite DSSR changes between mid-latitudes and polar regions.

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

A Warmer World May Redraw Earth’s Sunlight Map

by Keith CowingJune 10, 2026June 10, 2026

Sunlight follows a rhythm set by Earth’s orbit and tilt: long summer days, dark winters, and a familiar seasonal cycle from low to high latitudes.

Mars vast clay region - View showing the transition between clay units in the Oxia Planum and Mawrth Vallis regions on Mars, taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. -- ESA Larger image

Analog Studies, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Cryobiology, Desert Worlds, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Astrobiology Rover Targets A Vast Bed Of Clay In Its Search For Life

by Keith CowingJune 4, 2026June 26, 2026

In the region where the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover will search for signs of life, clay deposits extend beyond previous estimates, a new study finds. One hypothesis even suggests a […]

A series of numerical integrations using an idealized GCM (Isca, Vallis et al. 2018) configured by G. Colyer in an Earth-like setting but with the rotation rate varying from that for Earth (𝛺𝐸) to 𝛺𝐸/100. The upper row shows zonally averaged zonal velocity (colors) and temperature (contours) and the lower panel shows a normalized excess angular momentum (colors), which is a useful measure of superrotation, and meridional overturning streamfunction (contours). The horizontal axis is latitude, from −90 to +90. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report

Jets and Superrotation in Deep and Shallow Planetary Atmospheres

by Keith CowingJune 4, 2026June 4, 2026

Zonal flows in planetary atmospheres are ubiquitous, and nearly all the planets in the Solar System have flows that are zonally rather than meridionally aligned. Jets, which are essentially concentrated […]

An artist rendering of the Curiosity rover with its scientific instruments labeled. Scientists used the Chemistry and Minerology (CheMin) instrument to perform X-ray diffraction analysis on samples of powdered rock. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains, Subsurface, Lava Tubes, Exploration Gear & Tech, Fossils & Paleontology, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mars, Press Release, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Tricorders & Sensors

NASA Uses Mineralogical Marker to Understand Ancient Martian Climate

by Keith CowingJune 1, 2026June 1, 2026

While NASA imagery has shown evidence of ancient rivers and lakes on Mars that transitioned to dry dunes, uncertainty remains over the timing of the environmental changes that may have […]

This plot shows currently known exoplanets, with different categories highlighted. Roman will help fill in the bottom-right of the plot by finding small worlds in large orbits. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Ice Giant, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

NASA’s Roman Mission Preps to Unveil New Populations of Faraway Worlds

by Keith CowingMay 29, 2026May 29, 2026

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is poised to make a major leap in the hunt for worlds outside our solar system, known as exoplanets. Scientists expect the mission to […]

Each panel shows the T(P) profiles for the clear atmosphere (red line) and cloudy atmosphere (blue line) computed for a sub-Neptune belonging to our sample of 8 sub-Neptunes. The phases of the interfaces for TOI-270 d and TOI-1231 b are shown in Figure 5, while those for the rest of the sub-Neptunes in our sample are shown here. Similar to Figure 5, the thicker lines depict the convective regions of the atmosphere. The locus of blue and red crosses show the P and T locations of the atmosphere-mantle interface computed by coupling our atmosphere model with the interior structure model for the cloudy and clear models, respectively. The P − T location and the T(P) profiles are overlaid on the phase–diagram for silicates, depicting its solid and molten phases as blue and red shaded regions. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Ice Giant, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Impact of Clouds on the Atmosphere-Mantle Interface of Sub-Neptunes

by Keith CowingMay 29, 2026May 29, 2026

Sub-Neptunes are among the most common type of close-in planets found in our galaxy, yet their bulk composition remains largely uncertain; H-rich envelopes overlaying rocky cores, volatile-rich planets, and carbon-rich […]

Density scatter plots comparing estimated versus observed OCO-2 and OCO-3 XCO₂ concentrations for the Stage-1 baseline model (left) and the Stage-2 full Goes model (right). The color gradient denotes local data point density, with warmer colors (yellow/green) indicating regions of higher data concentration. In each panel, the dashed gray line represents the 1:1 line of perfect agreement. -- physics.ao-ph

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Status Report

Quantification Of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide From The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES East)

by Keith CowingMay 27, 2026May 27, 2026

Editor’s note: One way to search for habitable – and possibly inhabited – worlds in our solar system and in other star systems is to examine planetary atmospheres for chemical […]

ExoCAM simulations of Earth from the present up to 2.0 Gyr in the future, assuming CO2 remains fixed at 400 ppm. The top row shows surface temperature, the middle row shows precipitation minus evaporation, and the bottom row shows the habitability metric developed by Woodward et al. (2025) (Eqs. (D1) and (D2)). All quantities are 20-year averages after the model has reached a steady-state. Increases in temperature due to a brightening sun cause an increase in habitability up to 1.5 Gyr due to the greening of the poles, but habitability decreases significantly by 2.0 Gyr as Earth becomes too hot for complex vegetative life. This corresponds to a weak temperature dependence of weathering, in which Earth’s CO2 levels do not change even as the climate warms (c.f., Graham et al., 2024). -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Desert Worlds, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Space Agriculture, Status Report, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Maximum Lifetime Of The Vegetative Biosphere

by Keith CowingMay 23, 2026May 23, 2026

We use a three-dimensional model to calculate steady-state climates at various intervals in Earth’s future, across a parameter space of increasing insolation and decreasing CO2 mixing ratio.

Artistic representation of WASP-94 A b. Clouds build as air flows over the dark side of the planet, reaching a large swell by daybreak. The clouds dissipate on the dayside, leaving clear skies in the early evening. Image courtesy of Hannah Robbins/Johns Hopkins University

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Astronomers Observe Exoplanet Atmospheres With New Cloud-detecting Method

by Keith CowingMay 22, 2026May 22, 2026

Every morning, clouds roll in, and by evening, they have cleared off. This sounds like a weather forecast for a coastal city here on Earth — but it’s for WASP-94A […]