Thermohaline circulation
Sinking cold, salty water near Iceland and Antarctica drives a global circulation that keeps Europe warmer than its latitude suggests, and the IPCC now says it is very likely to weaken further this century.
Weather
The system that is forecast daily and understood partially.
- 5
- in science
- 11:53
- average
- 59 min
- in total
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- across the network
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Barometer
Torricelli didn’t discover air pressure—he killed the idea that nature abhors a vacuum.
Numerical weather prediction
Richardson's 1922 hand-calculated weather forecast was correct in method but wildly wrong in result, and it took until a 1950 computer at ENIAC to finally calculate weather faster than the weather itself changed.
Fujita scale
Fujita
The Fujita scale is a damage-based tornado classification system introduced in 1971. It is not a wind-speed measurement tool. Its F0–F5 categories remain operationally useful. Its theoretical F6–F12 levels were never used. Its wind-speed estimates were unverified and later shown to be inflated.
Volcanic winter
Sulphate haze from Tambora's 1815 eruption cooled the world enough to freeze crops in New England, and that one well-documented winter anchors the theory of how big eruptions chill the planet.