News & Features

A challenge for climate models is representing how wind direction veers at different heights as a result of friction at Earth’s surface, or “wind-turning.” A new study evaluates eight models to see how accurately they estimate wind-turning angles compared to observations.

The warm phase of Earth's most powerful natural climate pattern appears to be on its way.

Globally, it was the fourth-warmest April on record, but for the oceans, it was record warm.

In the thrall of a 22-year megadrought, the record snowpack in southwestern Colorado was a welcome break. When scientists installed a state-of-the-art observing network in the East River watershed in the fall of 2021, they couldn’t have imagined a year like this.

A new climate model simulates realistic extreme precipitation over the Northeastern United States. By the mid-twenty-first century, the model projects unprecedented rainfall events over the region under the IPCC’s SSP5-8.5 scenario. Extreme precipitation (top 1 percent of daily precipitation) would double its frequency by the end of the century.

In some places, small shifts in tropical precipitation patterns can mean the difference between drought or excess rain, and can alter larger atmospheric patterns. How will tropical preciptation change in a warming climate?

Thanks to the global oceans, Earth's surface temperature doesn't react instantly to the full impact of a climate disturbance. That delayed reaction has pros and cons.

Things are heating up in the tropical Pacific! Our blogger explains how this might be a sign that El Niño is right around the corner.

Monthly and year-to-date climate highlights from NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information.

For the first time since 2012, sea ice in the Bering Sea is impacting NOAA’s annual survey. Researchers had to alter their cruise plan to reach several of the mooring and sampling sites.