climate Archives

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Status Report

The Dependence of Earth Milankovitch Cycles on Martian Mass

by Keith CowingDecember 3, 2025December 5, 2025

The Milankovitch cycles of Earth result from gravitational interactions with other bodies in the Solar System.

Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Conferences and Meetings, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Habitable Zones, Plant Biology, Press Release

NASA Exoplanets System Science Extraterrestrial Photosynthesis Workshop

by Keith CowingNovember 24, 2025November 24, 2025

May 15-17, 2026Heidel House, Green Lake, Wisconsin, USAPreceding AbSciCon 2026 Applications for the NExSS Extraterrestrial Photosynthesis Workshop are now open. Deadline to apply is January 11, 2026.

Panel (a)-(c) is the snapshots of the REBOUND simulation. Colors represent the angular momentum value of each comet. Those with blue colors have a possibility of entering the inner solar system. The pentagram symbol denotes the Sun, the gray trajectory represents the flyby path of HD7977, and the purple trace illustrates the orbit of the selected comet. The insets inside each plot show the magnified orbit evolutionary of a selected representative comet. Panel (d) is the distribution of angular momentum change of Inner Oort cloud comets. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Extinction events, Interstellar, Status Report

On The Coincidence Between The Close Passage Of HD7977 And The Pliocene-Pleistocene Transition

by Keith CowingNovember 24, 2025November 24, 2025

The Oort Cloud’s dynamical evolution is significantly influenced by both the galactic tide and stellar flybys.

Climatology of diurnal pressure variation (dP/dt) in units of Pa h⁻¹. High-frequency signals (with periods shorter than 3,700 s) were removed from the original time series prior to differentiation. Sunrise and sunset are indicated by white curves around 06:00 and 18:00 LT (local true solar time). The global dust content, calculated from the climatologies of Montabone et al. (2015; 2020), is displayed in the lower panel, where individual dust events are also identified. Seasons are delimited by vertical lines, and solstices are shaded in pale yellow in the lower panel (dust). Figure adapted from Hernández et al. (2024). -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains, Subsurface, Lava Tubes, Desert Worlds, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Status Report

Seasonal and Diurnal Variability of Atmospheric Pressure in Jezero Crater, Mars, from MEDA Measurements on the Perseverance Rover

by Keith CowingNovember 14, 2025November 14, 2025

We present an analysis of atmospheric pressure variability inside Jezero Crater on Mars based on measurements from the MEDA meteorological station aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover.

Wind fields in our imposed TOA 𝐴𝑏 = 0.6 case.

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

General Circulation Models Of Hycean Worlds

by Keith CowingNovember 12, 2025November 12, 2025

Sub-Neptunes represent the current frontier of exoplanet atmospheric characterisation. A proposed subset, Hycean planets, would have liquid water oceans and be potentially habitable, but there are many unanswered questions about […]

WASP-39b 3D model cross sections. Shown are the local gas temperature, Tgas [K] (left) and cloud dust-to-gas mass ratio, ρdust/ρgas (right). The values are derived from the 3D GCM results and shown as cross section across the evening (left hemisphere) and morning terminator (right hemisphere). -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Exoplanet Climate Characterization With Transit Asymmetries — A Comprehensive Population Study From The Optical To The Infrared

by Keith CowingNovember 10, 2025November 10, 2025

Space missions (CHEOPS, JWST, PLATO) facilitate detailed characterization of exoplanets. This work provides a framework to characterize cloud and climate properties of close-in gas giants via transit depth asymmetries from […]

Allan Hills, 2022-2023. Photo by Julia Marks Peterson, COLDEX.

Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Cryobiology, Icy Worlds, Press Release

Six-million-year-old Ice Discovered In Antarctica Offers Unprecedented Window Into A Warmer Earth

by Keith CowingOctober 30, 2025

A team of U.S. scientists has discovered the oldest directly dated ice and air on the planet in the Allan Hills region of East Antarctica.

Regime diagram showing four distinct climate regimes, according to our semi-analytical model. The solid blue line represents the instellation above which an atmosphere enters an inhibited state, dashed lines represent the instellation below which an atmosphere becomes fully convective (green versus brown assumes the atmosphere above the inhibition layer follows a moist versus dry adiabat). Arrows indicate the direction of transition. In the lower left of parameter space, atmospheres are convective (blue), in the upper right they are inhibited (red); note, atmospheres in the inhibited regime additionally show multistability (see Section 4). Between the convective and the inhibited regimes, thicker atmospheres are bistable (light and dark yellow) and thinner atmospheres oscillate (light and dark green). All parameters used in the semi-analytical model are listed in Table 1. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Bistability, Oscillations, And Multistability On Hycean Planets

by Keith CowingOctober 29, 2025October 29, 2025

Hycean planets are hypothetical exoplanets characterized by H2O oceans and H2-rich atmospheres.

Mass distribution inside the plume (left) and leaving the plume (right) for the different particle sizes along the plume vertical extent for the low (top) and high (bottom) plume cases. Both cases are at the Equator with wind shear and for an atmospheric heat capacity varying with temperature and a pyroclast heat capacity of 920 J kg−1 K−1. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Status Report, Venus

Eruption Column Modelling Of Explosive Volcanism On Venus

by Keith CowingOctober 22, 2025October 22, 2025

Volcanism on Venus has never been directly observed, but several measurements indicate present-day activity. Volcanism could potentially play a role in climatic processes on Venus, especially in the sulfur cycle […]

Plate reconstruction of West African Craton (blue) and Laurentia (orange) according to Kent statistical treatment of sedimentary data and Bingham statistical treatment of coeval volcanic data.-- Science

Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Nomenclature, Systematics, Natural History, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Mapping Earth During The Ediacaran Period

by Keith CowingOctober 17, 2025

Earth’s Ediacaran Period, roughly 630 to 540 million years ago, has always been something of a magnetic minefield for scientists.

climate

The Dependence of Earth Milankovitch Cycles on Martian Mass

NASA Exoplanets System Science Extraterrestrial Photosynthesis Workshop

On The Coincidence Between The Close Passage Of HD7977 And The Pliocene-Pleistocene Transition

Seasonal and Diurnal Variability of Atmospheric Pressure in Jezero Crater, Mars, from MEDA Measurements on the Perseverance Rover

General Circulation Models Of Hycean Worlds

Exoplanet Climate Characterization With Transit Asymmetries — A Comprehensive Population Study From The Optical To The Infrared

Six-million-year-old Ice Discovered In Antarctica Offers Unprecedented Window Into A Warmer Earth

Bistability, Oscillations, And Multistability On Hycean Planets

Eruption Column Modelling Of Explosive Volcanism On Venus

Mapping Earth During The Ediacaran Period

Rethinking The Origin Of Life At Seafloor Hydrothermal Vents

Proto-Biosignatures and Planetary Geochemical Metabolism: A Thermodynamic Screening Model of Prebiotic Geochemical Organization

Cultivation Of Halophilic Archaea In Shallow Subsurface Martian Conditions Has Implications For Extant Life On Mars

Roman Space Telescope Leaves Earth

Atmospheric Retrieval of Combined JWST, HST, and Ground-Based Observations Reveals a Featureless Transmission Spectrum for GJ 1132 b