Predicting how the climate on our planet is evolving is crucial, especially under the ongoing climate change. But it is a challenging task, because the Earth climate is a complex, ever-changing system, involving many different factors influencing each other: sunlight, atmospheric carbon dioxide, polar ice... click to read more

Life on Earth has never been so close to an end as during the environmental catastrophe that marked the Permian-Triassic boundary - 252 million years ago. Scientists have long speculated what could have triggered the sudden disappearance of so many organism groups - more than... click to read more

Today's atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are higher than ever during at least the last 800'000 years. More importantly, the atmospheric levels of this greenhouse gas continue rising at a speed that is unparalleled in our planet's recent geological history. Intensifying extreme weather events and... click to read more

The shape of Earth's surface can tell us a lot about what kinds of natural events have happened in a region and when. Heavy rainfall, for instance, causes rivers to swell, which can force a river to erode faster into its bed. This connection between... click to read more

Looking at satellite images or Google Earth, you often find continent-long elongated clouds covering our planet, which may look like "rivers" running through the sky. These rivers are narrow belts of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere. Atmospheric rivers extend from the tropics (where water tends... click to read more