Researchers studied storm development from the Pliocene era, roughly three million years ago, because it was the last time Earth had as much carbon dioxide as it does now.
Areas of the Arctic play a larger role than previously thought in the global nitrogen cycle—the process responsible for keeping a critical element necessary for life flowing between the atmosphere, the land and oceans.
Clues from prehistoric droughts and arid periods in California show that today's increasing greenhouse gas levels could lock the state into drought for centuries.
High above Earth's tropics, a pattern of winds changed recently in a way that scientists had never seen in more than 60 years of consistent measurements.