Climate

Six decades of U.S. tornadoes visualized in one stunning map

Using almost sixty years’ worth of data from NOAA, designer John Nelson has produced a mesmerizing visualization of tornado activity in the United States. Ever wondered where “Tornado Alley” got its name? Wonder no more. Writes Nelson: Got this data from NOAA via the spectacular Data.gov. It tracks 56 years of tornado paths along with…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Jun 8

10 Things you Probably Didn’t Know About Tornadoes

Tornadoes are some of the deadliest, most devastating natural phenomena on Earth — but most of us probably have a lot of misconceptions about them. The actual science of tornados is much stranger, and scarier, than you ever knew. Can a butterfly really trigger a tornado? How dangerous is “Tornado Alley,” really? Here are ten…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Jun 4

The last 12 months were the warmest in US history

Did April seem feel unusually balmy to you this year? It probably had to do with the fact that it was the third warmest April ever recorded. Come to think of it, March was pretty warm, as well — the warmest ever documented, to be exact. In fact, NOAA is reporting that, as of April,…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez May 16

No, Fox News, dinosaurs did not fart their way to extinction

Did dinosaur flatulence on the part of sauropods like Apatosaurus warm the Earth? Possibly. At least, that’s the main takeaway from a paper published in the latest issue of Current Biology. https://gizmodo.com/dinosaur-farts-caused-jurassic-global-warming-5908144 But did these dinosaurs “gas themselves to extinction,” as this article from Fox News reports? Let’s put it this way: if they did,…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez May 7

Dinosaur Farts Caused Jurassic Global Warming

A lot of dinosaurs were big eating machines. Now, scientists have calculated how much gas they would have expelled as a result of their digestion—and the quantities they produced probably meant that they warmed their own climate through letting rip. Scientists from Liverpool John Moore’s University in the UK have calculated the methane output of…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe May 7

Wind Farms Linked to Local Climate Change

Wind power, one the oldest and most established forms of alternative energy, might not be as green as we thought. A new study in the US has linked wind farms to local temperature rises of over 0.7°C—enough to change local weather and climate. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, analyzed temperature changes around large…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Apr 30

10 Things We’ve Learned About the Earth Since Last Earth Day

Yesterday was the 42nd celebration of Earth Day, which was started in 1970 to help educate people about environmental issues and demonstrate public support for conservation science. With that in mind, Surprising Science‘s Joseph Stromberg thought it a good time to recap the most surprising, awe-inspiring and alarming things that we have learned about the…

io9 Joseph Stromberg - Surprising Science Apr 23

Turns Out Some Glaciers Are Actually Getting Bigger

In one corner of the world, there is more ice today than there was 10 years ago. New satellite data shows that the glaciers in the Karakoram have grown slightly over the last decade, bucking the global trend. We don’t know why it has happened – but it’s important to keep it in perspective. The…

Tech News Michael Marshall - New Scientist Apr 16

The Bay Bridge gets a nice preview of the apocalypse

Holy crap, this is incredible. Massive thunderstorms are rare in California’s Bay Area. Rarer, still, are epic lightning displays like the one witnessed by area residents last night (meteorologists say last night’s storm dished out a record-shattering 750 strikes). Rarest of all, however, are scenes like the one featured up top, where a mindblowing eight…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Apr 13

A Visual Representation of the 15,000 Temperature Records That Were Broken in March

Yes, you read that right. Data collected by NOAA reveal that the month of March saw a total of 7,755 daytime and 7,515 nighttime record-breaking high temperatures, making last month far and away “the warmest March on record.” The video featured up top shows the locations of each daytime and nighttime record (or tied record)…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Apr 12

Is the Mars Ocean Hypothesis all wet?

Evidence of Mars’ watery past continues to pile up, but details surrounding the extent and duration of the planet’s hydrous history remain muddled — just how wet was Mars, really? https://gizmodo.com/nasa-claims-to-have-found-bullet-proof-evidence-of-ma-5866195 https://gizmodo.com/evidence-is-piling-up-for-water-flowing-on-the-surface-5896293 Previous theories have held that the planet’s mysterious northern lowlands, pictured above in blue, once hosted oceans, but the latest climate models reveal…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Apr 11

The Bering Land Bridge nearly wrecked the Earth’s climate

The land bridge that once connected North America and Asia rose from the seas 80,000 years ago. And at the same time, North America’s climate began experiencing violent climate swings, with average temperatures shifting as much as ten degrees every decade. That pattern of massive temperature swings lasted a whopping 70,000 years, which just so…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Apr 9

A mesmerizing, real-time map of US wind patterns

This weekend you watched ocean currents turn the Earth into a continuously evolving, geophysical Van Gogh painting. https://gizmodo.com/watch-the-ocean-currents-turn-the-earth-into-a-living-v-5896210 Now, thanks to some smart programming and live weather data, you can witness swirling wind patterns from across the continental U.S. perform a similar trick. And best of all: you can watch it in real time. It’s…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Mar 29

NASA’s rocket-powered light show sets fire to the night!

For close to two weeks now, NASA has been waiting for just the right moment to launch its Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment (aka ATREX), a mission that will help us better understand the mysterious, high-altitude jet streams located at the edges of Earth’s atmosphere. Early this morning, that moment finally came — and hot damn,…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Mar 27

Here’s how to catch NASA’s rocket-powered light show tonight

NASA has scheduled an atmospheric light show for the wee hours of Wednesday morning, when the Agency intends to launch five sub-orbital rockets (complete with luminescent chemical tracers) in an experiment designed to test the flow of jet streams on the edge of space. Best of all? A good portion of the East Coast is…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Mar 20

Find out if your house will be underwater by 2100

We all know sea levels are rising — since 1880, global sea levels have risen by about 8 inches, and the rate of rise is increasing every year — but what sort of effect can we expect these increases to have on our day-to-day lives? One way to measure their impact is to forecast the…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Mar 19

How Bioengineered Humans Could Solve Climate Change

Most solutions to climate change require radical changes in the way we live. That’s why a small community of academics is starting to propose a different approach, one that involves bioengineering humans so that they need fewer resources. It’s radical, controversial—and might just work. Imagine a race of humans that were smaller so consumed less…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Mar 13

The extinction of Neanderthals had nothing to do with us

The Neanderthals stand as the most famous example of a rival group of humans, evolutionary cousins who were wiped out by the expansion of our ancestors. But now it looks like Neanderthals were doomed long before ancient (modern) humans showed up. Our ancestors reached Europe, the main domain of the Neanderthals, about 40,000 years ago.…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Feb 26

Changing ocean temperatures may have made human evolution possible

A lot of the most basic traits we associate with humans, not the least of which include intelligence and walking on two legs, evolved when our ancient habitat changed from dense forest to wide-open grassland. So what caused this change? The reason behind East Africa’s big shift from forest to grassland has puzzled scientists, with…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Feb 20

The Year Without a Summer, and How It Spawned Frankenstein

The summer of 1816 brought unseasonably cold temperatures to the Northeastern United States, Canada, and Europe. Damaged crops and impeded trade caused widespread famine, leading to skyrocketing food prices, and the deaths of thousands. What caused this deadly cold snap? And how exactly did this terrible time give us both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the…

Books & Comics Keith Veronese Feb 17

Six decades of U.S. tornadoes visualized in one stunning map

10 Things you Probably Didn’t Know About Tornadoes

The last 12 months were the warmest in US history

No, Fox News, dinosaurs did not fart their way to extinction

Dinosaur Farts Caused Jurassic Global Warming

Wind Farms Linked to Local Climate Change

10 Things We’ve Learned About the Earth Since Last Earth Day

Turns Out Some Glaciers Are Actually Getting Bigger

The Bay Bridge gets a nice preview of the apocalypse

A Visual Representation of the 15,000 Temperature Records That Were Broken in March

Is the Mars Ocean Hypothesis all wet?

The Bering Land Bridge nearly wrecked the Earth’s climate

A mesmerizing, real-time map of US wind patterns

NASA’s rocket-powered light show sets fire to the night!

Here’s how to catch NASA’s rocket-powered light show tonight

Find out if your house will be underwater by 2100

How Bioengineered Humans Could Solve Climate Change

The extinction of Neanderthals had nothing to do with us

Changing ocean temperatures may have made human evolution possible

The Year Without a Summer, and How It Spawned Frankenstein

‘Good Omens’ Season 3 Is Still Just One Episode, Despite Being Called That

Steam Gaming Has Arrived on Apple Vision Pro, and It’s Unexpectedly Glorious

RFK Jr. Will Take on Joe Rogan for Podcaster Supremacy

The Spymaster’s Guide to the Secret Agencies of ‘Star Trek’

Uber Is Testing Driverless Volkswagen ID. Buzz Vans in Los Angeles

Cast Adrift, Meta Employees Have No Idea Who the ‘Token Legend’ Is Anymore

Microsoft Office 2024 and Windows 11 Pro Bundle Hits 76% Off, a Complete PC Setup for Less

You Can Add ‘Lamp That Folds Your Laundry’ to the List of Doomed Startups

Asus Zenbook A16 Review: Start Considering Snapdragon on PC, for Real

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

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