Scientists define an ice-free Arctic, often called a Blue Ocean Event, as when sea ice area drops below one million square kilometres. Think of it like this: the Arctic Ocean, which has been capped ...

The term "habitable zone" is a broad definition that serves a purpose in our age of exoplanet discovery. But the more we learn about exoplanets, the more we need a more nuanced definition of habitable ...

There's a link between Earth's ocean salinity and its climate. Salinity can have a dramatic effect on the climate of any Earth-like planet orbiting a sun-like star. But what about exoplanets around ...

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 ...

Our planet plunged into one of the most dramatic climate states in its long history, approximately 720–635 million years ago. During a period geologists call Snowball Earth, ice sheets crept from the ...

The sun heats the Earth’s surface with solar radiation, and how quickly it heats everything up depends on the color of the surfaces being heated. Albedo is the term that describes the fraction of ...