Climate science

Summer sea ice could vanish later this decade, with disastrous consequences. It all depends on the physics of ice.

Physicists saw a black hole for the first time, debated the expansion rate of the universe, pondered the origin of time and modeled the end of clouds.

A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulation indicates that a feedback loop between global warming and cloud loss can push Earth’s climate past a disastrous tipping point in as little as a century.

Subatomic particles called muons are thought to have streamed through the atmosphere and irradiated megafauna like the monster shark megalodon.

New work at the intersection of atmospheric science and ecology is finding that forests can influence rainfall and climate from across a continent.

Layered deposits of coral skeletons hold vast stores of environmental data from thousands of years ago, including annual records of ocean temperatures, water pollution and storm activity.

New modeling studies suggest that birds migrate to strike a favorable balance between their input and output of energy.

The soil teems with billions of hidden microbes. Researchers have begun to catalog how these organisms are changing the world.

A conversation with the mathematical physicist Freeman Dyson on quantum electrodynamics, climate change and his latest pet project.