First-time explicit simulation of a tropical wind system in the upper atmosphere
A wind system in the tropical stratosphere that can influence the seasonal weather along many latitudes – the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) –…
How to make climate adaptation a success
Climate change is forcing people to adapt to changing environmental conditions. But what really makes the difference is how they do it. The recently…
New study sinks an old theory for low-wind equatorial regions
MPI-M-researcher Julia Windmiller overturns a textbook explanation for the low wind speeds that tormented sailing ships in the tropics: Rather than…
In years to come, the Arctic Ocean will absorb less CO2 than expected
We humans benefit from the oceans’ tremendous capacity to absorb greenhouse gases. Due to the low temperature of the water, the Arctic Ocean absorbs…
Why stratospheric aerosol disproportionately cools the Indian and western Pacific Ocean
In a new study Moritz Günther, Hauke Schmidt, Claudia Timmreck, and Matthew Toohey show how aerosol perturbations in the stratosphere lead to a…
Why is climate stochastic?
A time series of a climate variable often resembles a random sequence. This apparent randomness is generally attributed to the unpredictable and…
Climate change amplified by permafrost cloud feedback
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology shed light on what may happen if the frozen soils thaw in response to global heating.…
Changes to the Warming Pattern in the Tropical Pacific
The Earth is rapidly warming in response to human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. The warming is however not uniform, with some areas of the Earth…
Linear climate response to idealized tropical volcanic eruptions
In a new study, Dr. Claudia Timmreck, Dr. Dirk Olonscheck and Dr. Shih-Wei Fang from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, together with…
A new mechanism for synchronising Heinrich events with Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles
The northern hemisphere climate during the last glacial period (about 65,000-15,000 years before present) was dominated by two prominent signals of…
Ocean CO2 measurements: a single sailboat yacht makes a difference
Have you ever wondered how much a single measurement campaign matters when estimating the ocean's carbon sink? In a study published recently in…
What happens after a snowball Earth melts?
When a snowball Earth deglaciates, the planet transitions rapidly into a hot "supergreenhouse" climate that persists for a hundred thousand years or…