Climate models

Building an accurate model of Earth’s climate requires a lot of data. Photography reveals the extreme efforts scientists have undertaken to measure gases, glaciers, clouds and more.

Over the past 60 years, scientists have largely succeeded in building a computer model of Earth to see what the future holds. One of the most ambitious projects humankind has ever undertaken has now reached a critical moment.

New reconstructions of 540 million years of climate history show the planet tumbling between icehouse and hothouse states, revealing how rare and vulnerable our temperate moment is.

Tipping points in our climate predictions are both wildly dramatic and wildly uncertain. Can mathematicians make them useful?

A team of scientists has investigated how Earth’s twin became so inhospitable, and whether the same will happen to our planet.

Elfatih Eltahir explains why we need more local and social data, like disease spread and population growth, to better predict and address climate-related challenges.

Carbon dioxide’s powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure. The finding may explain climate change better than any computer model.

A custom-built machine learning algorithm can predict when a complex system is about to switch to a wildly different mode of behavior.

Researchers say we’re on the cusp of “GoPro physics,” where a camera can point at an event and an algorithm can identify the underlying physics equation.