Editor’s Note: Science is a world of theories and factions in which the truth ultimately emerges from vigorous debate. The events cited in this timeline are intended to paint a picture of Earth’s long history and how climate changes large and small have helped transform the planet. The… Read More
    The debate is less about whether the climate is capable of great change – the scientific record bears sufficient proof of that – but rather about how such change occurs and how human activities are affecting naturally occurring cycles and events. In this special section,… Read More
    Climate surrounds us from the day we’re born until the day we die. Yet, unless you’re being pounded by a nor’easter or broiled in a heat wave, it fades into the background of catching that bus, making that call, getting dinner to the table on… Read More
    Vast ice sheets (similar to the ones that now cover Greenland and Antarctica) once blanketed a significant portion of the North American continent. During the last million years, roughly the time during which humans have existed as a species, Earth experienced about a dozen glaciations. During the greatest… Read More
    The first biological “footprints” of climate change have begun to appear. Lilacs are blooming earlier. Snow is melting sooner. Bird-watchers say that migratory birds, the heralds of spring in New England, could be among the first to be affected by an altered climate. A 1999… Read More