Climate & Environment

A destructive earthquake that struck central Taiwan on September 21, 1999, prompting extensive reconstruction and seismic research.

The 2026 cycle of Atlantic tropical cyclone activity, including seasonal forecasts, individual storms, environmental influences, and documented impacts.

The 2026 El Niño event is an ongoing tropical Pacific warming episode, confirmed in June and forecast to reach exceptional strength during late 2026.

Tropical cyclone activity in the western North Pacific and South China Sea during 2026.

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Panama on October 9, 2026, damaging buildings and infrastructure and beginning a sequence of strong aftershocks.

Climate is the long-term statistical character of weather and the interacting Earth systems that shape its patterns, variability, and change.

Climate change is a persistent alteration of climate patterns, including modern warming driven primarily by human greenhouse gas emissions.

A climate model is a mathematical representation of the climate system used to investigate its behavior, explain observed changes, and project possible future conditions.

A cloud is a visible mass of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. Clouds shape weather, climate, and the water cycle.

Deforestation is the conversion of forest to non-forest land uses, affecting biodiversity, carbon storage, water cycling, and human livelihoods.

El Niño is the warm phase of tropical Pacific climate variability, influencing weather, ecosystems, and economies worldwide.

Eutrophication is nutrient enrichment of aquatic ecosystems that increases biological production and can cause algal blooms, oxygen depletion, and habitat degradation.

A 1987 radiological accident in Brazil caused by the dispersal of caesium-137 from an abandoned medical source.

The greenhouse effect is atmospheric warming of a planetary surface through the absorption and emission of outgoing infrared radiation.

A greenhouse gas absorbs and emits infrared radiation, contributing to Earth’s natural greenhouse effect and, when concentrations increase, altering the climate.

Hurricane Isaias was a Category 1 Atlantic hurricane that affected the Caribbean and eastern United States in 2020, causing destructive winds, flooding, tornadoes, and widespread power outages.

A devastating 2005 Atlantic hurricane whose storm surge and flood-protection failures caused catastrophic losses along the United States Gulf Coast.

The IPCC is a United Nations body that assesses scientific knowledge about climate change, its impacts, and options for adaptation and mitigation.

Life-cycle assessment evaluates the potential environmental impacts of products and services across their life cycles.

Ocean acidification is the long-term decline in seawater pH, driven primarily by absorption of carbon dioxide released by human activities.

Paleoclimatology reconstructs past climates from natural archives and historical evidence to investigate climatic variability, mechanisms, and long-term change.

A global climate treaty establishing shared goals and national commitments for mitigation, adaptation, and support.

A scientific framework identifying limits to human pressures on nine Earth-system processes that regulate planetary stability and resilience.

Recycling converts discarded materials into usable raw materials and products through collection, sorting, and reprocessing.

Sea level rise is the long-term increase in ocean surface height, driven chiefly by ocean warming and the loss of land ice.

Snow is crystalline ice precipitation whose accumulation shapes climate, water supplies, ecosystems, landscapes, and human activities.

Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a particular place and time, described by temperature, wind, moisture, clouds, and precipitation.