Section

Polar Geography & Climate

Ice sheets, auroras, ocean currents, and the physics of the poles.

From bedrock to firn, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a stack of stories about pressure, meltwater, and marine-based instability.

The northern and southern lights are the visible edge of a violent conversation between the Sun and Earth's magnetic field.

Cold, dense air draining from the polar plateau produces some of the most persistent surface winds measured anywhere on Earth.

A strong vortex traps cold air near the pole; a weak one lets it spill south, bringing anomalous winters to Europe and North America.

Cold water absorbs more carbon dioxide, and the Arctic is on track to become the first ocean where aragonite undersaturation is basin-wide.

When bright ice becomes dark ocean, the Arctic absorbs more sunlight, warms faster, and loses even more ice — a textbook positive feedback.

The world's mightiest ocean current isolates Antarctica thermally and moves 165 million cubic metres of water every second.

Northern permafrost stores roughly twice the carbon currently in the atmosphere; how quickly it thaws will shape the century's climate.